Why I am still for Obama
Yes, yes he has all those horrible qualities like charisma, optimism, and hasn't spent the last twenty years in Georgetown, but ... Technorati Tags:
I like Obama because he spent time overseas in school as a kid, has a varied and multi-cultural background, and might be able to stand on the world stage with other world leaders and not be so arrogant. He's the anti-Bush. I really think a President can only set a tone (or invade stuff).
No matter who is the next President there won't be any universal health care and we will be Iraq for another decade.
But the longer this goes on, the more Clinton makes me sick.
Any other the three front runners would be better than Bush because they are all competent. McCain is the hardest to read, because he has reversed himself this year on almost everything he has ever stood for, in order the get the Republican nomination. So the hope with him, is that he is really just I liar and isn't really planning on serving W.'s third term. One thing about him that is consistent is his world view -- namely that war is the natural state on humankind. Maybe that comes from his background from a family of officer-class military elites, maybe it is even true, but it's a little too Julius Caesar for me.
Clinton just depresses me, because she is really invested in the 50/50 blue/red divide. She enjoys perpetual political war. She courts it. In '92 the thinking in congress was that they were going to have to give something in terms of health care reform to the Clintons. Maybe not everything they wanted but something. However, she walled herself and her team off completely, came up with a giant plan in secret, presented it in a take-it-or-leave it manner and accomplished the near impossible in allowing a Democratically-controlled congress to reject it. As President I don't believe she will work with people. She will work against them. Why? Because she would rather fail and be self-satisfied in her superiority, then get something achievable. If nothing gets done in her administration she will always have the Republicans and the media, or sexism to blame. I see it every day in the way she campaigns. Temperament-wise she is closest to W. than anyone else who has run this cycle: "I am right. My side has all the good ideas. If you aren't with us, you're against us." It scarcely matters what the issue is, or who the opponent is: could be Obama, or Kenneth Starr, or MSNBC, or whoever. It doesn't matter to Clinton, an enemy is an enemy.
I don't want to sit through four more years of that.
I think getting a new guy in there, one who hasn't been entrenched in Washington power for close to 20 years is the best chance of shaking things up. The worst thing for our decaying republic is to continue the concentration of power into the few. A McCain or a Clinton presidency won't do much to reverse the Bush years of steady-slide into soft fascism, because it keeps the same people in power that have been in power, and those Bush power plays against the constitution won't be given up easily because power is difficult to give up. But if you get a new group, there is a chance at least. Maybe. The alternatives are either rewarding the party that has destroyed the economy by borrowing billions from China to prosecute an unnecessary war for fun and (by openly embracing torture and trashing habeas corpus) given aid and comfort to radical Islam. Or to put the spouse of a popular former leader into power like a banana republic would.
Politics
. Not a cheery read -- though Wolf does attempt to remain optimistic, and never attempts to seduce by overstating her case. It's a disturbing work, but perhaps being disturbed is preferable to the increasing anxiety and feelings of helplessness that come of not admitting to myself what is really going on in this country.
