Archive for the ‘obama’ Category

Peggy Noonan:

I think we’ve reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don’t. There’s no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don’t. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don’t, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will. (via)

My feelings about the Clinton presidency are well known: I loved Bill, and would follow him into a hail of gunfire and stinging shrapnel if it meant America could be like it was in 1997 again. But alas, it can’t; his wife is a lousy candidate and she’s mean spirited and lies with a frequency unmatched by anyone other than the Bush administration itself, the enemy whose deeds we’re trying to undo in the first place.

And I’m not even that much of a stickler for hard and fast truth in politics. I understand that it is a form of theatre in many ways, and that bettering oneself through a few harmless revisions of history is just part of the show. But then I look at Obama and I think, ‘why doesn’t he do that, if it’s so much a part of the show?’ The answer may be that he’s younger and less well-versed in party politics (”look, he doesn’t even know he has to lie yet! How cute!”), or it could be that he’s just better at lying, and less thuggish when he does it. But deep down I believe the reason he feels better to watch on TV and to get an update on Twitter from is just because he knows what it’s like to be decent and good, two adjectives that haven’t applied to the Clinton campaign since day one.

So, super Tuesday is upon us. I can’t think of a better way to not only begin Black History Month but the next eight years of American democracy than for people in primary states to cast their votes for Barack Obama. The more I see from and about him, the more I’m convinced that his presidency would be a defining moment for the US and the world; not only that, but his hopeful message—one of the first of its kind in the darkness of the last 7 years—brings to mind the finest moments of figures who defined their generations: John and Robert Kennedy, Bill Clinton, even Paul Wellstone.

I urge you to visit his website to learn a bit more about why Obama is the only clear choice for us right now, and to watch Lawrence Lessig’s elucidating talk on why he’s choosing Obama over Hillary Clinton. Now, go vote!