The Republican party has hijacked traditional conservatism, Andrew Bacevich says.
"From an orthodox conservative point of view it became apparent to me that of the three candidates--Hilary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack
Obama--Obama was clearly the best. And not because he is a conservative--he is not, he is clearly a liberal--but because I believe he is the one candidate who will end the Iraq War and I see that
as the overriding issue.
Electing Obama is not going to put people in his inner circle that reflect my views. But he is going to end the war, which will drive a
stake through the heart of these preposterous ideas that came out of the cold war: that we live in a unipolar moment; that we are the world's indispensable nation; that US global military
supremacy is the crucial instrument to advance our interests. An Obama presidency would discredit a set of ideas that I view as malignant, and killing those malignant ideas will lead to a debate
over foreign policy that could yield a new set of principles that would be better for conventional conservatives and other people as well.
(...)
It is my sense that his mind is not made up about foreign policy despite the way he recites certain clichés. He says he will end the war
more emphatically than Senator Clinton, who voted for the war and maintains a fairly belligerent tone. She says she'll end the war, but in a framework that still suggests a more belligerent
posture than we get from Obama.
My hope is that once in office Obama would undergo a very rapid education and that he might reach conclusions about our role in the world
that would differ from the conclusions that McCain and Clinton have already drawn and will likely remain committed to. And once the doctrine of preventative war is renounced, you can begin to
think more narrowly of the role of force in American foreign policy and to advance significantly different points of view."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/vila
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Dear Hillary,
I didn't care about the consequences of my 2000 run (not that I ever admit that there were any!
Florida? Not my fault!) and neither should you care about the consequences of staying in the primaries. Consequences is for sissies and people who don't care about the First Amendment and other
high-minded stuff. Besides, the Democratic party is evil! If dragging out the primaries till June or July hurts it in November, so much the better -- you might do for the Dems in 2008 what didn't
do (did not! did not!) in 2000. I understand exactly how painful it must be to have everyone crushing so hard on Obama-- he's bewitched a lot of my former supporters too, which I just don't get,
since he is, after all, a Democrat, like, um, Al Gore. It's like they've forgotten that the parties are basically the same and that the most important thing is to just express yourself no matter
what. In fact, if you lose the nomination, why not run on your own? that's what I'm doing -- it's fun!
Sincerely,
Your new best friend,
Ralph
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/304747

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