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On the subject of Hillary
Mar. 27th, 2008 10:50 amThis is a post about Hillary Clinton's contributions in foreign policy by someone who was actually involved in both the Balkans and Northern Ireland and rates her contribution (specifically, and plausibly, in the latter case somewhere below his own, which oddly makes him a better source).
On the subject of Tuzla, he gives a context that I find plausible. We all do this, you know; we remember how things felt rather than the specific details, which we then assemble from stock footage some of it from movies rather than our actual experience. Do people -Andrew Sullivan, for example - actually believe that they themselves have a totally accurate recording in their head of everything that ever happened to them?
Because if they do they understand nothing about human cognition - I have what passes for a good memory, but my older friends have on occasion to point out to me that I have, over the years, allowed my creativity to work on the material. She screwed up, but like she says, human. And before anyone asks, I would try to be equally fair-minded about the mis-statements of someone I disapproved of even more than I disapprove of Hillary Clinton. (No-one should confuse my tendency to her side of the question with actual enthusiasm.)
I am far more worried about Barbara Ehrenreich's story of her links to a crazy fundy prayer circle. On the other hand, it worries me that, while Obama was dissociating himself from Wright, he made no specific mention of Wright's homophobia. More generally, his entirely admirable speech on race in America could and should have at least acknowledged that the struggles against sexism and heterosexism are equally important.
LATER (OK, that is a vexed question and Wright's position is more equivocal that I thought, on the one hand saying that LGBT people are not shut out from god's love and on the other saying that there is no time to pursue the issue of marriage rights when health insurance for the poor is on the agenda. The trouble with that argument is that it can always be used to defer any righting of specific injustices until some other injustice has been dealt with and can easily slide into using false dichotomy to create divisions between natural allies by making them see a competition for prioritization where none exists. I am still not convinced that Wright is not a homophobe, so much as a smart one who knows what he can get away with in his dealings with a congregation more liberal than he is.)
Anyway, whichever of them wins the nomination, and it looks as if it will be Obama, they will be better than any Republican.
Could someone American explain the appeal of McCain to me? He looks like a standard Republican with some dodgy lobby relationships and a war record as a minus and a very shaky plus.
On the subject of Tuzla, he gives a context that I find plausible. We all do this, you know; we remember how things felt rather than the specific details, which we then assemble from stock footage some of it from movies rather than our actual experience. Do people -Andrew Sullivan, for example - actually believe that they themselves have a totally accurate recording in their head of everything that ever happened to them?
Because if they do they understand nothing about human cognition - I have what passes for a good memory, but my older friends have on occasion to point out to me that I have, over the years, allowed my creativity to work on the material. She screwed up, but like she says, human. And before anyone asks, I would try to be equally fair-minded about the mis-statements of someone I disapproved of even more than I disapprove of Hillary Clinton. (No-one should confuse my tendency to her side of the question with actual enthusiasm.)
I am far more worried about Barbara Ehrenreich's story of her links to a crazy fundy prayer circle. On the other hand, it worries me that, while Obama was dissociating himself from Wright, he made no specific mention of Wright's homophobia. More generally, his entirely admirable speech on race in America could and should have at least acknowledged that the struggles against sexism and heterosexism are equally important.
LATER (OK, that is a vexed question and Wright's position is more equivocal that I thought, on the one hand saying that LGBT people are not shut out from god's love and on the other saying that there is no time to pursue the issue of marriage rights when health insurance for the poor is on the agenda. The trouble with that argument is that it can always be used to defer any righting of specific injustices until some other injustice has been dealt with and can easily slide into using false dichotomy to create divisions between natural allies by making them see a competition for prioritization where none exists. I am still not convinced that Wright is not a homophobe, so much as a smart one who knows what he can get away with in his dealings with a congregation more liberal than he is.)
Anyway, whichever of them wins the nomination, and it looks as if it will be Obama, they will be better than any Republican.
Could someone American explain the appeal of McCain to me? He looks like a standard Republican with some dodgy lobby relationships and a war record as a minus and a very shaky plus.
