Hilary should be grateful for Obama

Overall, I like Hillary Clinton. She has been (and continues to be) a great Senator. I’ll vote for her again. But I can’t support her for President.

I believe she’s well-meaning. I believe she has good ideas. I believe she’s talented. And I even remember way back to when Hilary Rodham was one of the lawyers in the Watergate case. But she’s not a President.

And I believe Obama has saved her ass.

Granted, politics has been (and continues to be) an ugly business. Silly attacks trump reason and substance, not just now but historically. But the thirst for power at all costs can damage those victors.

Take George Bush. He and his party went to great lengths to win the 2000 election on a technicality. Later, investigating journalists agree that he would have narrowly won Florida anyway (though he’d still have lost the popular vote nationally, but that’s allowed in the current rules). Had he taken the high road, he’d have become President with far less bitterness. [Yes, he and his administration have amply demonstrated since then that they are entirely about power and using it for their own agenda, public be damned, but at least he’d have been off to a better start.]

Hilary’s thirst for the White House has led her to throw ethics out the window as well. Stretching the truth at first, for example, regarding her “experience” over Obama—they are both junior Senators, period. Does anyone think Laura Bush’s time in the White House counts as Presidential experience? Then outright lies—like landing in Somalia under sniper fire. But what bothers me most is her drive to win the nomination at all costs. If that means overturning the will of the voters via superdelegates, fine, presenting the clearly flawed argument that the states she narrowly won over Obama will go for McCain in November.

Particularly distasteful is her insistence that she “won” in Michigan and Florida, where Obama followed the rules and stayed away, while she forged ahead and claims this one horse race as a “victory.”

If she somehow managed to win this thing, she’d come in flawed from the start, as another candidate who won only on technicalities.

We’ve seen enough of that shit. I applaud Obama’s consistent insistence on keeping to issues and a better vision, even though he clearly knows what his opponents will throw at him. He’s saved Hilary from an unnecessary disaster of her own design.

And I sincerely hope he’s the next President of the United States. I believe he can help pull us from the economic and military messes Bush will leave behind, and I believe he can help lead us to new heights.

I would like to be proud of my country again.

Writer