Legal Commentary

Apropos the increased chatter that Hillary may serve as BHO's veep and my friend Jodi Kantor's piece in today's Times on Obama's quest to calm the rattled nerves of Florida's Jewish Democratic population, I thought I'd register the following conundrum of ambivalence, which I wonder if others share, regardless of their demographic.  Jodi, who was a 1L at HLS for a semester back in the day, and who had the same fellowship in Israel the year after me, finds anecdotal evidence to support the view that many of Florida's alter kockers are skittish about Obama's worldview (and in particular Israel's place in it), while the younger generation of Jewish Floridians is enthusiastically behind him.* 

Anyway, if these anecdotes dug up by Jodi are indicative of real trends, I guess I've hit middle age at 35 and thus live in some kind of liminal time-space warp here in Florida.  On the one hand, I'm relentlessly inspired by Obama (and many of his supporters) and the exuberant and potentially transformative times his presidency may augur, both in the US and abroad. On the other hand, I am more than a bit anxious about various things.  Put aside the character judgment non-issue with Pastor Wright, or whether he's got passion for a secure Israel in his kishkes and that this promises to be a Philip Roth-refracted presidency. Consider instead: is someone with his relatively thin experience in an executive position, his "softish" view of foreign affairs generally, and his failure to show unflinching leadership on embracing universal health care, gay marriage, and robust free trade, the right choice for the challenges ahead?

The Dems among you can put aside any fears of actual influence since I remain a disenfranchised Canadian here. Still, I harbor these reservations. And despite these reservations, I look at the other candidates: Clinton and McCain, to my mind, give me some kind of inchoate reason to prefer their patently more hawkish worldviews on foreign policy and national security, but they otherwise have their equal or deeper flaws.  Neither of them for example has embraced gay marriage qua gay marriage. Neither has real executive experience. (And to the extent Hillary wants credit for proximity to the glory of the Clinton years, she must take some of the blame associated with its foreign policy blunders too.) Meanwhile McCain looks like a simpleton on economics.  If these were the choices only a few years ago, Obama would be a truly easy choice. But as the Democratic primary season winds down now, in a time of peril upon peril, I anticipate wanting to give, against the euphoric tides, only two and a half cheers for Barack Obama as he ascends the podium in Denver in late August, and God willing, a different podium, in DC, in January.

*I leave aside for now the question of whether the article was "good for the Jews." Maybe Adam Levitin will chime in with his thoughts. In the meantime, Happy Lag Ba'Omer.