The Clinton/Bush/McCain Party vs. Barack Obama

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There’s been a lot of surprise and anguish around the liberal blogosphere lately about Hillary Clinton “endorsing” John McCain. This began before Tuesday’s primaries:

Defending her provocative television ad suggesting he was not up to the challenge of answering the White House phone at 3 a.m. in a crisis, she told reporters at a news conference Monday in Toledo: “I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain [the presumptive Republican nominee] has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002” — a reference to the address in which Obama, before being elected to the Senate, had publicly opposed the Iraq invasion that she and McCain had voted to authorize.

Kevin Drum writes, “Hillary needs to knock this crap off. It’s disgraceful.” Steve Benen agrees. On Wednesday, John Aravosis posted three more examples of Clinton endorsing McCain over Obama. He later posted this video which sums up how happy Clinton and McCain are together:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjQLE2YFdeE]

People need to look beyond the D or R after a candidate’s name and look at what they really believe. Clinton certainly has some disagreements with Bush and McCain on some economic issues, as well as rare social issues such as abortion, but for the most part the three are pretty similar. All support a similar top-down view of government power, increased presidential power, a similar foreign policy, similar views on civil liberties, and are fairly conservative on social issues. As I’ve previously noted, David Brooks recently revealed that the Bush White House feels comfortable in entrusting their legacy to Hillary Clinton:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4l9yRezxsA]

Obama presents a real alternative to the views of Clinton/Bush/McCain on foreign policy, civil liberties, and restoring Constitutional limitations on executive power. I am not at all surprised that deep down Clinton would prefer McCain over Obama. Besides, if McCain wins, she can more easily run again in four years. It’s just a repeating cycle of a similar group of Democrats and Republicans fighting among themselves to see which can be president and do pretty much the same things once in office.

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