Hillary Clinton: McCain Cheerleader?

Jonathan Chait has interesting post up at the Plank examining whether or not Clinton would prefer a general election victory for John McCain over Barack Obama. I guess I'd like to think that Clinton wouldn't want this, and I doubt she does, but you never know. Chait makes a good point that Clinton would be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2012 if Obama were to lose the general, but I think that her chances would be even more lackluster then than they are now. Granted, that assumes that McCain would have a successful first term. I doubt that would be the case, since McCain has shown recently that he has little expertise in pretty much any policy area, leadership included. However, as I've mentioned countless times, the media's love affair with the Saint would likely result in them painting a lovely portrait of a McCain presidency.

Anways, I digress, Chait also hammers on the fact that Clinton really has no shot at picking up the nomination. If she does (somehow) get the nomination, she will have gained it by convincing the superdelegates that Obama is a wanker. If she does that, I really think its safe to say that the Democratic Party will fall into civil war. Clinton has damaged herself in the eyes of many Democrats that would've otherwise supported her had she won the nomination fair and square. It should also be noted that independents and Republicans find Clinton more or less radioactive. It has to suck to be Hillary Clinton, I do still have some sympathy for her as there is no way to determine how much damage the media's coverage of her has done to her campaign. That being said, what's done is done and we have to move forward. Hillary needs to realize that her continued presence in this primary is damaging the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. In short, she just got reelected to another term in the Senate, she should look to the best interests of the people of New York and return to her duties as one of their elected voices.

Bacevich on Obama and McCain

Via Matt Yglesias, I found this great article by Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich, a conservative, argues that Barack Obama would be a better president for the conservative movement than George W. Bush has been, or John McCain ever could be. It's really very intriguing, I wouldn't mind Bacevich's wing of the conservative movement returning to prominence in the Republican party. The article goes into how true conservatism has been slowly dying since 1980. He argues that the Republican Party's devotion to corporate excess and American empire has brought about it's doom. Bacevich believes that as the common sense candidate, a Barack Obama presidency would bring about a political climate ripe for the destruction of neo- and corporate- conservatism.

I concur, and while I certainly have little sympathy for coservatism in any guise, it seems like the paleocons or traditional conservatives, if you will, are the more inherently reasonable people in the tent. These are the guys that are against premptive war, the police state, and corporate excess. They certainly have a number of disturbing cultural and economic beliefs, but they are much more open to compromise than those that currently dominate the Republican Party. Bacevich certainly is a reasonable fellow. His book, The New American Militarism should be widely read by conservatives and liberals alike.