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Noemie Emery's Weekly Standard Piece

Stay with me on this one: I'm going to bounch around a bit. First, for political junkies, Noemie Emery's ground breaking article on Hillary Clinton is a must read: follow this: Weekly Standard

This is a bit of a fascinating conincidence. I was talking to Ed Rose, CEO of Open Channel Solutions, overall smart guy and I think fairly described as a liberal. Ed surprised me by saying he was supporting Obama even though he wasn't sufficiently ready to "drive the bus", in part because he thought Hillary would be too much like McCain. (To my conservative friends, take a diffibulator minute). Part of his argument is that one of the things that matters most is the appointment of Supreme Court justices, and her appointees would be too moderate.

Since I voted for Bush last time largely for the same reason (us deficit hawks having no where else to go even though we've been thoroughly dissed) his logic was persuasive. With her "obliterate" speech she is clearly taking a far more belicose stand than Obama, and is moving briskly to the center. Generally not a good strategy in a Democratic primary (read Lieberman in CT) but not bad in a general election.

He and I agree on the whole Jeremiah White thing: I don't want to defend everything said by any minister who's church I attended.

My grandfather Rob Sanders was a wonderful individual. He raised his family in the middle of the depression and kept them fed and clothed, even though they were really in an area of rural Southern poverty. He was deeply religious. I never heard him say one derogatory or mean-spirited thing about anyone. He had a helping hand for anyone who needed it, and loved every member of our family. He went to his grave believing that TV wrestling was real, and that men walking on the moon was staged in a special effects movie studio. So, deeply religious people can still miss some reality. That Wright, who seems to be an intelligent and thoughtful man, can be propigating the nonsense about the government creating the AIDS virus is simply bizarre. But, in the long run most families have the half-crazy relative, and I can't believe it will affect the outcome.

But his poor debate performance,and the growing perception that he the man of the Volvo-driving, chai tea drinking, U.S.- as- the- root- of- all- problems liberal set, could change the course. I still look for her to take Indiana by a sizeable margin, and now wouldn't be surprised by a Hil victory in NC.

Ed and I also talked about the weird trends in the economy - we'll cover that one in a bit.

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