I am not sure how pleasant it is going to be watching
Barack Obama's progress from here on. He has had
a dream run so far, without his policies (such as they
are) being subjected to piercing scrutiny, but nobody
wins the Democratic or Republican nomination for
US President without owing a huge number of favours
and without being hostage to powerful vested interests.
If he really can deliver "change we can believe in," then
good luck to him; but I fear that, if he's elected in
November, his range of policy movement will be sorely
restricted and his inspiring rhetoric will run into a wall
of resistance from those who control the levers of the
American economy. Bill Clinton, when he was
President, is said to have been shocked and frustrated
by how little room for manoeuvre he really had,
notwithstanding his supposed power. The truth is that
US Presidents in themselves generally can't and don't
change much; the amount of media coverage they get is
way out of proportion to their actual significance.
I still think Hillary Clinton would make a better President
at this time; Obama would have been perfect as her
Vice-President and successor. He clearly has outstanding
qualities but I rather think that the Democratic Party has
gotten too carried away by him. Such is the evangelistic
fervour of American politics. He can also thank George
W Bush for his phenomenal rise to the top: just as
Muldoon's extreme interventionism produced a sharp
counter-reaction in New Zealand in 1984, so Bush's
brutal neoconnery has led to a liberal revulsion so
excessive that even a moderate liberal like Clinton has
been swept aside by it.
1 comment:
Many progressives in the Democratic party could not support Hillary Clinton because she voted to authorise President Bush to use military force against Iraq. These were the same activists who were trying to get the message out that Bush was misleading everyone about WMD and links to Al Qaeda. To have one of their own play politics rather than show some integrity where many lives were clearly at stake was more than they could stomach. Later, s he tried to say that like others, she had been mislead by President Bush. This only served to demonstrate to activists in her own party that she as either deaf to them or a liar on matters of critical national importance. Either way - not fit to be THEIR president.
Obama will have his work cut out for him for all the usual reasons, plus the very real prospect that Bush will gazump the election campaign by engineering a conflict with Iran over alleged nukes.
Bush wants an "alliance" with Iraq completed by July 31st, giving the US the right to have 50 bases in Iraq indefinitely. Bush also wants immunity from prosection for US troops and contractors.....so are potential war crimes and crime against humanity being planned?
Last week,Israeli media were saying PM Olmert was in Washington asking Bush to bomb Iran. Bush himself was in Israel only a few weeks ago.
Shaul Mofaz, Israeli government minister and liason with the US over Iran, said a few days ago attacks on Iran were "unavoidable". Was he speaking out of turn? Which way?
The IAEA is now being cranked up by Israel and the US with alleged "proof" of Iranian military involvement in the civil nuke program.....but all the documents are electronic and could easily be faked. Shades of uranium from Niger! Iran says they report structures that do not exist.
So...can Obama win? If we can hear him through the din that BUsh may create between now and the end of the year...maybe.
Then there is Congressman John Olver from Massachusetts who, witnesses say, said the Democrats were afraid Bush would provoke an emergency and cancel the elections altogether. He later denied saying it.....
There was a time when this would all seem like lunacy. Those days are gone. Let's see what happens between here and November. If there isn't an attack on Iran, wiser heads will have prevailed where they have previously had little success - the White House.
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