further evidence of the awfulness of Obama
[from AdNag’s piece on the “jolting” effect of Obama]
Asked repeatedly about the woman who is perceived as his most
formidable challenge in the primary, Mr. Obama has been careful not
to criticize Mrs. Clinton directly. But one of his central messages
is that he is something Mrs. Clinton is not: a late baby boomer (he
was born in 1961, at the tail end of the post-World War II
generation; Mrs. Clinton was born in 1947), and a fresh face that
rises above old partisan grudges.
Mr. Obama has already provided some hints of how he would position
himself against Mrs. Clinton, suggesting he would link her to her
husband’s presidency and their role in the intense partisanship that
marked much of the 1990s and that carried over into the Bush presidency.
During a lengthy interview just before the midterm elections, Mr.
Obama portrayed himself as part of a new generation of political
leaders. Asked whether he detected a void in the Democratic
presidential field, Mr. Obama replied that he sensed a mood of “Do we
want to get beyond the slash-and-burn, highly ideological politics
that bogged us down over the last several decades?”
Mr. Obama went on to say that he admired former President Bill
Clinton for trying to bridge a centrist course between Democrats and
Republicans. But he did not shy away from pointing out Mr. Clinton’s
weaknesses — as someone who came of age in the 1960s, and all the
debates about Vietnam service, drug use and sexual conduct that went
with it, issues that continued to play out, sometimes with Mrs.
Clinton in a supporting role.
“Although his instincts were right on target, and I think,
intellectually and pragmatically, he understood that America wanted
to move beyond those categories, in some ways he was trapped by his
biography,” Mr. Obama said. “Some of what I say, I think, is
facilitated by the fact that I’m less rooted in some of those
arguments.”