Ok so politics

[emchy]

i am in both the inspired place and the cranky place. i am inspired because people are voting. regardless of who for people are engaged again. letting the political system know that we do actually want to make this decision ourselves and not have it made for us. that politicians do need to be accountable to a cross section of americans because we're no longer interested in allowing the extreme interest groups to be the main people casting ballots.

as for the hype and the media and the blogs - the zealotry of it is making me a little nuts. about a week ago i made a deal with myself to read / watch election information from the new york times, salon.com, and a few other places where i usually get news. places i find reliable. but to avoid the blogosphere with its enthusiasm, polarizing, and inaccuracies like crazy. and what i see is that while clinton and obama are working on such similar platforms, she had the health care plan that would cover more people for not much more money and was more realistic to implement. she has the list of advisors who have so much experience and who i personally respect. so she has my vote. not because she is my perfect candidate. but because i see her getting things done.

i think all of the candidates except romney are an improvement. though i fear mccain would never get us out of this war.

i love to hear how my friends are walking this day. inspired. frustrated. over it. it's all a way of being engaged. and honestly nothing lights my fire like americans actually having a feeling about politics.

and to be clear re what I mean in terms of health care and advisors - here are links / info

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html?scp=1&sq=obama++health+care+plan&st=nyt

and for the advisor info

Hillary Clinton

Madeleine K. Albright, President Clinton’s secretary of state and now chairperson of the National Democratic Institute, foreign policy adviser

Samuel R. Berger, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a principal at business consultancy Stonebridge, foreign policy adviser

Lt. Gen. Daniel William Christman, a former West Point superintendent and now senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, foreign policy adviser

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, President Clinton’s Kosovo commander and now a Democratic fundraiser, endorsed Sen. Clinton Sept. 15

John H. Dalton, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now president of the Financial Services Roundtable’s Housing Policy Council, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lee Feinstein, a deputy in President Clinton’s State Department, national security coordinator

Leslie H. Gelb; president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former New York Times correspondent and a former State and Defense Department official, informal adviser

Richard C. Holbrooke, President Clinton’s UN ambassador and broker of the Dayton Peace Accords (and now a Washington Post columnist), foreign policy adviser

Martin S. Indyk, President Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and now director of Brookings’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, foreign policy adviser

Gen. John M. (”Jack”) Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff who co-crafted the Iraq “surge” and is now a military analyst (sometimes for ABC news), military issues adviser

Lt. Gen. Claudia J. Kennedy, former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, President Clinton’s deputy national security adviser, organizes meetings of retired officers

Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefed Hillary Clinton as well as Sen. John McCain and Gov. Bill Richardson

Vali Nasr, Naval Postgraduate School professor, Middle East adviser

Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings senior fellow and former Congressional Budget Office defense and foreign policy analyst, supporter

Rep. (and retired Vice Adm.) Joseph Sestak, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Andrew Shapiro, Sen. Clinton’s Senate foreign policy staffer

Jeffrey H. Smith, former CIA general counsel and now a partner leading the public policy and government contracts group of law firm Arnold & Porter, national security adviser

Strobe Talbott, Brookings president, informal adviser

Togo D. West, President Clinton’s secretary for veterans affairs and former secretary of the Army, veterans and military retirees for Hillary

Former Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV, the half of the Plamegate couple who criticized the administration for using questionable evidence to promote the Iraq war, endorsed Sen. Clinton July 16

Barack Obama

Former Amb. Jeffrey Bader, President Clinton’s National Security Council Asia specialist and now head of Brookings’s China center, national security adviser

Mark Brzezinski, President Clinton’s National Security Council Southeast Europe specialist and now a partner at law firm McGuireWoods, national security adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser and now a Center for Strategic and International Studies counselor and trustee and frequent guest on PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, foreign policy adviser

Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton and President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism czar and now head of Good Harbor Consulting and an ABC News contributor, sometimes Obama adviser

Gregory B. Craig, State Department director of policy planning under President Clinton and now a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, foreign policy adviser

Roger W. Cressey, former National Security Council counterterrorism staffer and now Good Harbor Consulting president and NBC News consultant, has advised Obama but says not exclusive

Ivo H. Daalder, National Security Council director for European affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Richard Danzig, President Clinton’s Navy secretary and now a Center for Strategic and International Analysis fellow, national security adviser

Philip H. Gordon, President Clinton’s National Security Council staffer for Europe and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Maj. Gen. J. (Jonathan) Scott Gration, a 32-year Air Force veteran and now CEO of Africa anti-poverty effort Millennium Villages, national security adviser and surrogate

Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense from 1981-1985 and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, informal foreign policy adviser

W. Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security adviser and now a professor at Georgetown’s school of foreign service, foreign policy adviser

James M. Ludes, former defense and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and now executive director of the American Security Project, national security adviser

Robert Malley, President Clinton’s Middle East envoy and now International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa program director, national security adviser

Gen. Merrill A. (”Tony”) McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff and now a business consultant, national security adviser

Denis McDonough, Center for American Progress senior fellow and former policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, foreign policy coordinator

Samantha Power, Harvard-based human rights scholar and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, foreign policy adviser

Susan E. Rice, President Clinton’s Africa specialist at the State Department and National Security Council and now a Brookings senior fellow, foreign policy adviser

Bruce O. Riedel, former CIA officer and National Security Council staffer for Near East and Asian affairs and now a Brookings senior fellow, national security adviser

Dennis B. Ross, President Clinton’s Middle East negotiator and now a Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow, Middle East adviser

Sarah Sewall, deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during President Clinton’s administration and now director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, national security adviser

Daniel B. Shapiro, National Security Council director for legislative affairs during President Clinton’s administration and now a lobbyist with Timmons & Company, Middle East adviser

Mona Sutphen, former aide to President Clinton’s National Security adviser Samuel R. Berger and to United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson and now managing director of business consultancy Stonebridge, national security adviser

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Comments

[alibi-shop.livejournal.com]

About that list of advisors: that's one thing I really don't like about Clinton. Most of her foreign policy people were pretty gung-ho about invading Iraq. Lee Feinstein has said we need even more "preventive war". And I'm really uneasy about Clinton's vote for labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.

Her health care proposal might be slightly better than Obama's (although I'm not crazy about either of them) but I'm much less worried about that kind of thing, which has to be hammered out in legislation anyway, than about being in an endless state of idiotic war.