One more from the Times: Thomas Friedman muses about America's sense of lost greatness, and throws in the fact that hope and inspiration, on the order that Barack Obama is trying to deliver, are not trivial to the daunting task of rebuilding America. It strikes me that, and Friedman didn't say this, Hillary Clinton is attempting to gin up a sense of "fight" in her voters -- we're going to fight this one and that one, the Republicans and the Obamaphiles, the media and whoever else gets in our way. In a sense, what she's promising is to bring the 90s back wholesale -- including the drama and the clashes of civilization with whoever's considered "the other side."
That kind of thing may inspire a temporary sense of superiority, which on a bad day can be mistaken for greatness, and she's making downscale Democrats feel in charge (and older, white women, too) but none of these can be mistaken for the kind of rebuilt American greatness that Friedman is talking about -- the sense of industry and invention, that we've ceded to Asia and other parts East.
The more I watch the present campaign,the more convinced I am that Hillary is simply not capable of leading that kind of movement. She's too divisive, too angry, to much in it for the fight and the kill, rather than for the much needed outcome: a changed and whole America.
| Labels: America, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, politics, Thomas Friedman |
