We’ll start with Christopher Hitchens wall-to-wall Hill-Bill-bashfest, this time taking on the latest Clintonian race-card play. Frankly, at the end of the day, other than the Clintons’ willingness to destroy a fellow Democrat to win (and let’s face it, this is an endemic problem among most Democrats, who’d rather crucify or burn internal apostates than even argue with Republicans, let alone stand up to them), the policy and even stylistic differences between Sens. Clinton and Obama are at best superficial. Sure, Obama has a better speaking voice and seems more inspiring to many, but to be fair… I think we can expect very similar governance from either of them. IMHO, we at least know exactly what we’d be getting from “the devil we know” that some are calling Billary, or HillBilly, though I must say I much prefer Hitch’s “the Gruesome Twosome” (though IIRC that was a different car from “the Arkansas Chugabug“).
Anyway, citing Ricky Ray Rector (the mentally incapacitated Black man whom then Gov. Clinton rushed back to Arkansas to have executed during the 1992 election, who left his pecan pie “for later” during his last meal) and Bill’s all-White country club in Little Rock and… other stuff… Hitch concludes:
Say what you will about the Clintons, you cannot acquit them of having played the race card several times in both directions and of having done so in the most vulgar and unscrupulous fashion. Anyone who thinks that this equals “change” is a fool, and an easily fooled fool at that.
Ouch!
Moving right along, Sen. Obama choses to enter what is an extraordinarily dangerous area, in an attempt to garner some late Latino support in California, and offers his support to a plan to permit illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Such a stand nearly bit Hillary on the tush in one of the debates (though as much for her own bad attitude than for the substance), though the substance has also bit my fair state’s new governor on the tush, and in CA, it had previously bit the deposed former governor Gray Davis on the tush.
Say what you will, but Obama’s going for it anyway, in the hope that it will highlight his willingness to take courageous stands that appeal to swathes of the electorate (in this case, Latinos), perhaps because it’s one of those “right things to do”. Obama’s stated reason– driver’s licenses should be issued to people who can drive– is an interesting statement, but in our current post 9-11 paranoid nation, officially state issued identification, such as driver’s licenses, have much more functions than that… try to board an airplane without one. The issue is emotionally charged, and while many Latinos favor this position, most non-Latinos seem to go the other way on it.
We’ll see. We know bloody well (see above) that if the play to win Superfund Tuesday is to play Latinos and Blacks off each other… the Clintons will do that (at this point, it seems, there seems to be no “she”… only “they”… something that Sen. Clinton may want to consider doing something about). Unfortunately here in the US of A, even in 2008… that may still be the “safe” strategy.
Eight days to go. No matter what happens, at least St. Rudy may well be out of this in 24 hours time.
This has been… “Hillary runs into a Hitch (II)… Barack goes for the Ave Maria…”
I think there’s very good reason to believe that Barack Obama will govern quite differently from Hillary Clinton. Not to belabor a point that has been made many times before, but Obama OPPOSED the war that Hillary voted for. If that’s not a sign that he’s a much different politician than the cool and calculating Clintons, then I think maybe you’re just looking for a reason to ultimately support Hillary.
Obama also isn’t calling for “no legal process” before deporting immigrants who have run-ins with the law. Clinton is.
I’ve been saying there isn’t much substantive difference between the two, but I’m beginning to think that’s not true.
Actually, both Anon and PNH have nailed in one why I support Obama over Clinton right now… and in turn, why I would support Clinton over any of the Republicans right now: process and the rule of law matter more than just about anything else in a government.
While we don’t know how Obama will govern (and we pretty much do know how Clinton would), our current knowledge favors Obama… the reasons enumerated above kind of exemplify why.