Jim D:
> Pres. Hilary would be
> Dubya lite.
Doug:
No, I don't think so. I think she'd be the perfect president to
repair the image of the US abroad (thereby cementing the empire,
after W has partly fractured it) and to privatize Social Security
(which is something it's going to take a Dem to do, if it's going to
get done at all).
Jim: the former is what I was talking about. You may be right about the
latter. Yuk.
====================================
I'd be shocked, shocked if she were elected. Actually, I'm not even sure
she'll get the nomination though everyone considers it a lock.
Pretty much anyone after Bush will by definition improve the US image
abroad - McCain, Gugliani, Clinton, Edwards, Kerry etc. They'll be starting
from a very low base. The universal visceral antagonism towards Bush is,
IMO, as much cultural as political, maybe more so. He's the archetypal
swaggering, ignorant, ugly American. Do you think there'd be the same degree
of intense hostility to any of the above if they had presided over the
invasion of Iraq? It's the same problem another crude Texan, LBJ, had with
world opinion in similar circumstances - multiplied ten thousand times.
In any case, Iraq has chastened the Bush administration and solidly
reinforced the US foreign policy establishment's anathema to large-scale
land invasions and to unilaterialism, so the conditions are already present
for the next administration to appear as a refreshing change to the rest of
the world - one which will "only" opt instead - in close "consultation"
with its allies - for economic blockade, covert operations, political
subversion, and selective air and missile attacks to achieve its objectives.
