In a great field of potential Democratic nominees, a field that originally included Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and John Edwards, the Democratic Party’s politically-correct activists (We have to have a woman President! We have to have a black President!), melding perfectly with a press obsessed with novelty and gotcha-ism, managed to leave us with the two least experienced, least qualified, least likely to be elected pair of survivors—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
So be it. Like many long-term Democratic voters I’m used to not ending up with the best choices. We got what we got. And of these two survivors I opt for Clinton. Reluctantly.
The reason is simple, and to my way of thinking obvious. She has a better personal grip on foreign policy than Obama, who I believe has her trumped in most other respects. The foreign policy hole that has been dug for this country is now so deep, so filled with horrible consequences if steps to rectify the damages Bush & Company hath wrought are not taken immediately, that a new American president can’t be left to learn on the job—the way our present decider had to do because of his own lack of experience in this realm, and indeed, the way John F. Kennedy had to do after he was elected President.
The Obama people say that their man will be surrounded by foreign affairs experts from the get-go. That these experts will certainly not be of the sort found in the offices of Cheney and Rumsfeld who Bush was obliged to fall back on because of inexperience. Granted. But ultimately, in our system, for better or worse, it is the President who makes the decisions and the advisers who then all fall into line and publicly agree.
Would I prefer that people of the caliber of Richardson and Biden, rather than either Clinton or Obama, were in this ultimate decider position? Oh yes. But of the latter two I have to give the edge to Clinton. She knows the world players longer and better. She also knows the preferences of our own foreign policy experts and is thus better able to accept the good nuances of their advice while ignoring the quirks that fill any expert’s professional resume.
So when I vote this Tuesday in Philadelphia I’ll pull the Clinton lever. And hope like hell that if Obama ultimately gets the nomination nod (as I believe he will) he proves up to the the incredibly difficult task of rescuing the country from the foreign policy morass into which his predecessor has led us.