humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 10, 9:16 am, Agent Cooper wrote:
> On Mar 9, 6:03 pm, Ken Gardner wrote:
>
> > Agent Cooper wrote:
> > >> You are wrong about Obama. He is Jimmy Carter with more charisma and
> > >> better rhetorical skills. That makes him even worse than Jimmy
> > >> Carter.
> > >Jimmy Carter is Evil? As opposed to merely insufferable?
>
> > Both.
>
> OK, I guess, but then I think we need a special concept for the
> Clintons: SuperEvil.
>

Most people are fully prepared to declare Hillary "immoral", but not
all are prepared to make the distinction "evil" which already means
"profoundly immoral." When you weigh the substantive results of a
possible Clinton presidency against the burden of constant
psychodrama? Sullivan himself acknowledges this.

"... I have had to write several columns in this space over the years
acknowledging that the substantive legacy of the Clinton
administration (with a lot of assist from Newt Gingrich) was a
perfectly respectable one: welfare reform, fiscal sanity, prudent
foreign policy, leaner government. But remembering the day-to-day
psychodramas of those years still floods my frontal cortex with waves
of loathing and anxiety. The further away you are from them, the
easier it is to think they're fine. Up close they are an intolerable,
endless, soul-sapping soap opera."

This might in hindsight be a small price to pay for survival. I've
heard the arguments already, similarly from Arianna Huffington and
others, which I agree with completely. But this argument has its
limitations, and seems to amount to "they annoy me profoundly."
Luckily, I've never had to employ this argument with people I know,
because there's plenty for me to like about Obama.

And of course, I'd like to stress that using this argument on women is
not recommended, because many of them like soul-sapping soap operas.

My point is that McCain *may* not have the diplomatic or intellectual
chops to keep us alive. I'm not sure if you've heard, but he's old.
Really, really old, older than any elected president in history. Not
that age is the only factor, but it is a factor. Couple that with his
own admission that he "gets angry when things start going wrong" (60
minutes) well, shit, I don't want a president who gets all emotional
when things go wrong, because things inevitable do go wrong, very
wrong, every once in a while. (Reagan was the oldest elected
president, but fortunately didn't have the "short fuse" issue to
contend with.) One of the things that I like about Obama is his
unflappability and his ability to think on his feet.

That being said, if Obama gets knocked out, if you could make the case
that Hillary has a closet fantasy about bringing about Armageddon, or
that she sees developments in the mideast as the realization of
Biblical prophecy, well, that might close the deal.