Quote du Jour: James Joyce

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

I just heard Charles Krauthammer assert on Inside Washington that Bill Clinton was an "inconsequential president" because he happened to govern during a "holiday from history."

Do those who hold this view believe this was merely coincidental, that all eight years flowed blissfully by because of the groundwork laid by one-term president Bush the First? I'll give him and his predecessor the credit for tearing down that wall, but what about the economy? It wouldn't look so grim again until... now, I guess.

Of course, it didn't flow along entirely blissfully. Stuff happened, some of it very bad stuff, particularly in Africa, and at least one chance was missed to nip Al Qaida in the bud. However, 9/11 didn't happen on Bill's watch, and I doubt the infamous "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States" memo would have been ignored by his national security adviser.)

But to argue that the fact the 90s were a relatively smooth epoch diminishes Clinton's legacy, and conversely that all the messes Bush the Second has been trying to clean up (while in the process making more and more) means he is a more consequential and courageous president seems like some kind of crazy nocturnal fantasy to me.

Wake me up when it's 2009.

But I guess that would mean I'd be shirking my responsibility as a voter. In that regard, I've kind of been wishing I could just get with the program and jump on the Obama bandwagon. It seems like the easiest thing to do.

But I've been wanting to see Hillary in the White House since before she ran for the Senate. I liked her even in the early, pre-makeover, pre-cookie-endorsing days. Basically, she had me at hello, hard as that is to believe. It's not like I think she's the sort of woman I'd want to be friends with. Her life isn't very much like mine, on the surface. But I think she's the rare woman in politics who has the unmitigated gall to break through the White House glass ceiling, as well as being one of the several that would do a fine (and consequential) job once there. And even though, at times lately, she's almost lost me, it feels somehow fickle to abandon her now, even if it's only one measly post-Super Tuesday vote.

But I haven't set that in stone. I need to sleep on it some more. (And maybe I'll have another dream like I did the other night, where it was revealed that all the stupid race-baiting tactics and thoughtless remarks in South Carolina were just part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.) Oh, Mr. Sandman...