Thursday, December 20, 2007

civil warrior

I saw this in Valley News (NH)'s endorsement of Obama, and I'm pulling it out because I think it's articulates something I've been thinking about:
Clinton is a formidable candidate -- knowledgeable on the issues, a sharp debater, tenacious. She is more polished and more practiced than Obama. But she is less candid and less likely to create the working majority needed to govern effectively. She describes herself as battle-hardened, the candidate most able to beat back the Republicans. But that's precisely the problem: She is an armored warrior in a country weary of partisan and cultural warfare...

That last point is actually a pretty huge reason why I don't support Hillary: I don't want a candidate who's declared war on the press and war on the GOP. Fighting various individual battles is all well and good and, of course, inevitable, and there is a certain element of struggle endemic in politics, I understand that, but after 8 years of George W. Bush the last thing I want is another PR president, another executive who's molds her strategies not as a problem solver or peacemaker, but as a general and lead propagandist in the red/blue kulturkampf.

After all, can you really tell me you don't see where all this us vs. them, militaristic rhetoric ultimately leads?

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