Still, at this point, gonna cast my vote for Rudy, but I haven't seen a piece like this on Obama yet. To Andrew Sullivan, Obama symbolizes a departure from the self-absorbed Vietnam War Generation. See the excerpt below.
...how do we account for the bitter, brutal tone of American politics? The answer lies mainly with the biggest and most influential generation in America: the Baby Boomers. The divide is still—amazingly—between those who fought in Vietnam and those who didn’t, and between those who fought and dissented and those who fought but never dissented at all. By defining the contours of the Boomer generation, it lasted decades. And with time came a strange intensity... How has a black, urban liberal gained far stronger support among Republicans than the made-over moderate Clinton or the southern charmer Edwards? Perhaps because the Republicans and independents who are open to an Obama candidacy see his primary advantage in prosecuting the war on Islamist terrorism. It isn’t about his policies as such; it is about his person. They are prepared to set their own ideological preferences to one side in favor of what Obama offers America in a critical moment in our dealings with the rest of the world. The war today matters enormously. The war of the last generation? Not so much. If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today’s actual problems, Obama may be your man.
Still, I'm a bit confused by Sullivan's support of McCain (on page 2 of 4 in the article). Although McCain is received as bipartisan (most-recently by the editorial board of the New York Times), he directly participated in the Vietnam War and, as we all know, was a hostage for quite some time. Props to McCain. I think he'd be just fine as well. But Sullivan doesn't, so far, account for this.
Yet I'm inclined to agree with Sullivan's bigger picture, that is, healing the rift between the American Left and Right so as to confront the Islam Jihad menace on both political legs.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
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3 comments:
The way I understood Sullivan's quote here, he thinks Obama will win the WOT because of who he is raher than what he does. I think I see what he means. If we elect a guy named Hussien, then all the muslims won't think we're prejudiced against them and so will go our way.
But isn't there a problem with that? Doesn't Saudi have a king named something sufficiently Arabic to convince the most distilled of them (sorry the drinking thread has filtered in these inhospitable climes) of his veracity and yet not shielded him from being labelled enemy number one?
I think it is wise simply to mock Andrew Sullivan. He was invited to my former POE as a voice of the gay right. They were right. That's what he is, precisely, and that's where his opinions go pigeonholed.
Here flays Sullivan.
JJ: English is non-commutative: ie =/= ei. It's Hussein, not Hussien. Where's my Clicquot?
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