Philosoraptors for Clark

I suppose I'm for Clark again. I had access to a t.v. over the weekend, and saw several of the FL speeches. Of course I agree with lots of Clark's policies (with the notable exception of his lamentable pro-anti-flag-burning amendment stance, which he mercifully didn't mention), but that's only part of it. He's not always on, and I don't always agree with him; but sometimes when he is on, what he says resonates powerfully with me. Although such impressions are far from being perfectly reliable, they are equally far from being worthless. What he says is, by my lights, spot on, and it is pretty damn clear that he isn't just saying the words. I am reasonably convinced that he's a man who not only understands philosophical theories about the liberal conception of the state, but feels the sublimity and power of that conception in his heart. Here's a man who seems not only to have reflected deeply on freedom and justice, but who has devoted his life to defending them. Yeah, sure, he could be fooling us all, but any of these guys could be fooling us all; that's no bigger threat in Clark's case than it is in the case of any other politician. Let's suppose, just for a minute, that all the candidates really are what they seem to be. Well, some of them are truly admirable men. Kerry fought in Vietnam and then came back and protested against the war, and Lieberman worked for civil rights in the south. A couple of notches down from those guys, Gephardt and Kucinich have both accomplished notable things during their respective times in government. But Clark is a giant. His intellectual accomplishments alone are prodigious, and his record in the military would be extraordinary even if he hadn't won the only purely moral war America has ever fought, even if he hadn't played the pivotal role in stopping a genocide. I don't agree with the guy on everything, and I disagree with him vehemently on some things, but I expect that there won't be another presidential candidate of his stature and ability in my lifetime. I suspect that he might be capable of effecting something genuinely transformative in American politics.

So there it is, for better or worse, I guess I'm for Clark again. I'm always a little distrustful of my instincts in such matters, but I'm encouraged by the fact that some of the people whose political opinions I most respect have roughly the same impression of him I do. He's unlikely to win, of course. As one of my friends pointed out, he's probably too smart to win. And it's getting harder and harder to stop Dean (who, I expect, would be a fine--if unremarkable--president, orders of magnitude better than W). But stranger things have certainly happened.