Why

Why Obama? Anyone who intends to support this man has it incumbent upon themselves to articulate why. Preferably, they will do so without using the word "awesome", thereby proving themselves marginally more substantive than most people who voted for George W. Bush.

I have two great fears about Obama. The first is the potential for demagoguery. The second is his domestic policy positions. The former we have seen, and the latter we shall see soon enough. Both must be tempered if Obama is to be as effective leader as I feel he can be.

The potential for demagoguery is real, as anyone who has seen Obama speak to crowds of tens of thousands must realize. It is less a danger to the country, however, than it is to the man himself, as it takes a very special man to be lionized as he has and remain sober and grounded.

The flip-side of this coin, endlessly shilled by Shrillary Clinton, is that an infectious and genuine admiration of a leader is somehow suspect or at the very least unfair. It's a bit surreal, or it would be if it were anyone other than a Clinton saying it, to hear Hillary Clinton infer that popularity is a useless quality for a leader of a democratic country.

Obama's popularity is precisely one of his strengths. When citizens genuinely admire a leader, they will trust him, they will sacrifice for him, and they will be disinterested in scandalizing him for short-term political posture. For Hillary Clinton to argue that such a dynamic must be based on delusion or subterfuge only reinforces how unlikeable she is, and how apathetic the country would be about following her anywhere.

I get the feeling that Barack Obama is running for president and Hillary Clinton is running for queen. The theme of her campaign seems to be "give me the fucking keys, get in the trunk, and shut up", whereas Obama seems to be asking us where we want to go and how fast we should drive.

Clinton seems to argue that it should be manifest for all to see that, once this ridiculous charade of democracy is over, she will be able to govern with an efficiency and wisdom that Obama is simply incapable of matching. But therein lies her fallacy; she's not running for queen, which means that "governing" will require something she has proven disinterested in, namely compromising and building sustainable coalitions.

What I fear from Obama's domestic proposals is what I fear from the proposals of every presidential candidate of either party, save Ron Paul; every one of them makes proposals based on spending money that does not exist. Obama and Clinton take this tendency quite far, as each of them promise to insure virtually every American via government mandates.

The health care proposals are indicative of the differences between Obama and Clinton, who many have rightly pointed out have essentially identical proposals on many fronts. Hillary Clinton, who is running for queen, is promising something that no Congress will ever pass. Barack Obama, who is running for president, is proposing something that, since it avoids a universal mandate, holds the promise of being passed in some recognizable form.

Where Obama makes his case, as far as I am concerned, is with foreign policy. Here is where the "hope" and "change" platitudes carry real weight, and here is where the right-wing will attack mercilessly and where potential assassins will lurk. For Barack Obama, more than anything else, is the first man to run for president in a long, long time who has the courage to reject the conventional "wisdom" about American violence.

Obama opposed the Iraq invasion when doing so was politically suicidal. He chose conviction over ambition, and he made a leap that is still not adequately recognized. He did not just oppose the tactical modalities of the invasion or the occupation; he rejected the premise of the entire enterprise.

John McCain supported the invasion from day one, and will not back down. Ever. Points for consistency. Hillary Clinton supported the invasion but then withdrew that support when it became clear that her ambitions dictated that she must. In other words, she had no problem violating international law, waging a war of aggression, and signing on for an indefinite occupation of an Arab nation; she just had a problem with sacrificing her ambitions when the war became unpopular among Democrats.

She has tried on many excuses for this shift, most of them centering on how this ultra-competent, ready-to-lead, vastly over-qualified Senator was duped by an idiot into believing provably ridiculous fantasies about Iraq. It obviously takes a delicate balance (or is it a delicate shamelessness and pathological inability to take responsibility for her actions?) to argue that Hillary Clinton was fooled by George W. Bush. The point is, Obama was not.

Recently Bill Clinton explained his wife's vote, which to date has cost a million lives and a trillion dollars and, far more importantly, Hillary Clinton's assumption of the presidency, by reminding an audience that "Hillary is the Senator from New York City. She was down at ground zero. She understood the threat and the consequences." Of course. Because Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Need we more evidence that the truth, like everything else, is a value-less tool to be employed in the service of America's one noble pursuit, namely the restoration of the Clintons' dysfunctional dynasty?

Obama was right on Iraq. There are no good options looking forward, but if we have a choice, we should take the person whose judgement was right at the beginning over the one who, five years into this war, is trying to justify herself with rhetoric that would make Dick Cheney blush. Or shoot someone in the face.

Hillary Clinton waxes un-poetic about "experience", as if only a naive naif such as Obama would not understand that in the "real world", which Clinton apparently occupies, it is necessary to wage wars of aggression. If that's naive, then so am I. And so were we as a nation, when we hung Nazis for the very same sin.

Obama talks about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the most necessary of endeavors, and beginning that process with incremental reductions in the stockpiles of Russia and America, a realistic and tactically achievable first step. Hillary Clinton calls this naive.

Obama promises not to use nuclear weapons, which, to anyone who knows anything about what these weapons do to humans and to the Earth understands, is simply a promise not to engage in indiscriminate terrorism. Hillary Clinton calls this naive.

Obama promises to not just aim for one more electoral vote than John McCain, but to reach across every sort of divide that exists, building a workable coalition of liberals, moderates, and conservatives, in which all will give up some and in which all will gain even more. Hillary Clinton calls this naive.

Obama has his flaws, which I briefly alluded to above. More importantly, he clearly understands America's role in the world, the realistic utility of violence, and the mindset of a critical mass of the American people in a way that John McCain and Hillary Clinton don't even seem interested in.

Last but not least, we need an election about the future. Not about Vietnam, not about Ronald Reagan, not about who promises to kill more terrorists. About the future, unclouded by fear and vengeance. That's why.