sympathy for the devil

It seems that after Super Tuesday, when Barrack Obama competed neck-to-neck against the previously heavily favored Hillary Clinton, every columnist and public figure, including Oprah, Ted Kennedy and will.i.am of Black Eye Peas, is ready to join the euphoric Obamamania and dance to the rhetorics of the newly crowned Elvis. America loves an underdog, and there will be no bigger underdog story than a black man winning the presidential election in a country with a bitter, tainted history of slavery and racial segregation. Obama's convincing victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands on Saturday added momentum to the ever-growing bandwagon. It is Obama, every place, every time, everybody. As one pundit put it, it is "Jesus Christ, JFK and MLK" all rolled into one and starring in YouTube with a million hits per day. Aha, so there is a God afterall.

At the same time, Clinton bashing has become an accepted national sport, where the more vicious the commentary, the more readers and airtime it receives. Hillary is "mean-spirited", "win-at-all-cost", and dubbed "Billary" with her sometimes overly spirited ex-President husband. NYTimes columnist Frank Rich decried "how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party", labeling her campaign "desperate" and "an imploding Potemkin village". Note this is happening while Obama is seemingly beyond reproach, where every word from his mouth is silky and every touch golden. The sudden casting of shadows of evil darkness and of heavenly light reminds me vaguely of a movie I have seen before: was it Rocky Balboa rising out of the slums in Philadelphia against heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, or was it Gene Hackman led Hickory High basketball team from rural Indiana town triumphing over the big city heavy favorite in state final? It is funny how memory fades with age.

If one takes a cold shower and then a step back and look at the difference in policies between Obama and Clinton, on health care, on strategies in Iraq, on economy, on immigration, on veteran benefits, it will become obvious that the difference between them are relatively small. (Personally, I will be ecstatic with either one over anything the Republicans can throw up after 8 years of GWB stupidity.) The big difference comes when one examine their resumes: Obama is a one-term senator from Illinois, while Clinton, who had admitted made her share of well intended but unforeseeable mistakes both as First Lady and as NY state senator, has been unequivocally pushing under-the-cover issues like women's rights and proper health care for children and the less fortunate for decades. While it is perfectly acceptable to buy into Obama's numbing repetitions of "yes, we can" and "change we can believe", it is unfair and "un-American" to witch-hunt Clinton for being what she is not. What will become of the American conscience a year from now, after unapolegetically bashing Clinton to death simply because she has been trying to do good for too long? Come on, people, smarten up and play ball. Fairly this time.