This from a recent Maureen Dowd editorial in the New York Times titled "Darkness and Light"(www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/opinion/06dowd.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin):
Hillary Clinton denounced Dick Cheney as Darth Vader, but she did not absorb the ultimate lesson of the destructive vice president:
Don't become so paranoid that you let yourself be overwhelmed by a dark vision.
I think Hillary truly believes that she and Bill are the only ones tough enough to get to the White House. Jack Nicholson endorsed her as "the best man for the job," and she told David Letterman that "in my White House, we'll know who wears the pantsuits." But her pitch is the color of pitch: Because she has absorbed all the hate and body blows from nasty Republicans over the years, she is the best person to absorb more hate and body blows from nasty Republicans.
Darkness seeking darkness. It's an exhausting specter, and the reason that Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy, Claire McCaskill and so many other Democrats are dashing for daylight and trying to break away from the pathological Clinton path.
"I think we should never be derisive about somebody who has the ability to inspire," Senator McCaskill told David Gregory on MSNBC on Tuesday. "You know, we've had some dark days in this democracy over the last seven years, and today the sun is out. It is shining brightly. I watch these kids, these old and young, these black and white, 20,000 of them, pour into our dome in St. Louis Saturday night, and they feel good about being an American right now. And I think that's something that we have to capture."
I cannot remember the last time I was positively inspired by a politician, or any other public figure for that matter. I am not naïve enough to pine nostalgically for some bygone era when politicians were brilliant, morally unassailable, and charismatic to-boot. Politicians have always been, well, political, a basic fact that necessitates degrees of manipulation, cajoling, and varied self-representation. I know that many people saw Lincoln and FDR as dubious and divisive figures who threatened the future of the country, but I also know that the lasting power over the American imagination held by men like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan results from the very real inspiration they engendered among Americans of all political stripes. I know that the hope they embodied helped bring the country together in the wake of terribly divisive events in our national history. Kennedy inherited a populace torn asunder by Cold War panic and its most reprehensible manifestation, Joseph McCarthy. Kennedy also presided over the opening salvos of what would come to be known as the Civil Rights era. Reagan took the Oval Office after the devastating economic losses of the late 1970s, during which time all of the social progress set in motion during the 1960s began to backslide. Kennedy and Reagan inspired the American public to reunite, and Barack Obama can do the same, while the other major candidates will almost certainly tear the country further apart.
Barack Obama is often criticized for a "lack of experience," but such criticisms fail to account for one region in which he clearly demonstrates the value of the experience he has had: he has experienced a nation and a political system on the brink of profound failure, and from that experience has learned the value and the immediacy of unity. Obama has promised, above all else, to center his political agenda on national healing, something which he knows can only be accomplished through careful management of the economy, foreign policy, and social programs like education and healthcare. When the two Democratic candidates' policy proposals are so similar, it's worth examining the foundations of -- the inspirations behind -- their candidacies, and in that regard, Barack Obama is a light on a hill, while Hillary Clinton lures us toward the Darkside.
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