Sick Transit

In all fairness, people who are mad at Muslims burn down our embassies too.

Jonathan Kulick is of course correct that Putin is an asshole and it would be nice if he would stop bullying Eastern Europe.

But I can’t fathom the naivete of thinking that Russia is so impotent that they’ll accept American bases in their backyard without fighting back. There were a couple of windows when we could get away with that: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Russia was weak; and after 9/11, when world opinion was on our side. But why would a resurgently militaristic Russia, bulked up on oil revenues, meekly submit to American hegemony?

With very high odds that the next President of the United States will be either female or black, liberals have good reason–on top of the already wonderful fact that the winner will not be named Bush–to look forward to the presidential election, no matter who wins the Democratic nomination.

However, if the nomination is not decided on Super Tuesday, then on Saturday I plan to caucus for Barack Obama. The reason is stated succinctly by Chris Hayes:

The war is the most obvious and powerful distinction between the two: Hillary Clinton voted for and supported the most disastrous American foreign policy decision since Vietnam, and Barack Obama (at a time when it was deeply courageous to do so) spoke out against it. In this campaign, their proposals are relatively similar, but in rhetoric and posture Clinton has played hawk to Obama’s dove, attacking from the right on everything from the use of first-strike nuclear weapons to negotiating with Iran’s president. Her hawkishness relative to Obama’s is mirrored in her circle of advisers. As my colleague Ari Berman has reported in these pages, it’s a circle dominated by people who believed and believe that waging pre-emptive war on Iraq was the right thing to do. Obama’s circle is made up overwhelmingly of people who thought the Iraq War was a mistake.

The starkest area of difference between the candidates is also the most important issue facing the nation. Their domestic policies are similar. Electability, experience, and political acumen can all be argued either way. But to me, Iraq makes the choice a no-brainer.

(Via Ackerman)