obamamama

for what it's worth, i voted obama and then straight libertarian in a protest vote against the two party system. strict partisanship makes the election seem like little more than a football game, and seems indicative of voters allowing power-hungry political parties to do their thinking for them.

there's not much time to write these days, and thai politics has sucked up half of it, so here are two articles that sum up why obama got mine, and that do my thinking for me:

chris buckley (one of 15 or so conservative intellectual heavyweights who i regularly read who've broken for obama):

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

and... the ever intrepid constance dykhuizen.

crazy how long this thing has been going on, and let's all be glad it didn't end up as hillary vs. giuliani. this was my first election as a reader, as a traveler, as a non-neocon (voted bush in 2004 for really lame and maddening reasons). what a compelling time to be an american..

update endorsement link: wasn't planning on posting a center/left media endorsement but.. james fallows, the pragmatic editor/expat traveler who i much admire as a thinker and writer, mirrors my thinking almost exactly and more than anyone else i've read.