Obama's Amnesia Problem

Obama's Amnesia Problem

It's a cultural cliche: Americans don't care about the past. De Tocqueville noticed it in the 1830s, speculating that in 50 years Americans would know less about the America he visited than the French knew about the Middle Ages. Nearly two centuries later, people are still making the point. Five years ago, Bruce Cole, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, bemoaned a "worsening of our case of American amnesia." His evidence? More than half of high school seniors didn't know whom we fought in World War II; 18 percent thought Germany was our ally.

This is bad news for Barack Obama. As a candidate, the junior senator from Illinois has several advantages over the junior senator from New York. He's more charismatic, he's less polarizing and he's a fresh face at a time when many Americans are sick of the old ones. But in the Democratic primary, surely his biggest advantage is that a little more than five years ago, he denounced the Iraq war and Hillary Clinton voted for it. In other words, on what many Democrats consider the biggest issue of their adult lives, he was right and she was wrong.

I chose this article because I believe that Barack Obama is not getting enough credit and instead Hillary Clinton is getting all the praise. He has to convince voters that his original stance on antiwar still matters, that it is the key to understanding what makes him and Clinton different now.

Edwards Targets Clinton

Edwards Targets Clinton

Hillary Clinton is too emeshed in the corrupt culture of Washington to fix things and to take on the entrenched interests that need taking on. He -- Edwards -- is unafraid.

The truth is that Edwards has been making that case much more cleanly than any of his opponents, whether or not they began to make it first. It's a different case than Barack Obama's -- he argues that Clinton is too polarizing to get the job done -- Edwards takes the charge further: it's Clinton herself who is part of the system that needs reforming, that it's the Clinton legacy that has consigned the Democratic Party to second-tier status.

I chose this article because I agree with Edwards. He believes that Hillary Clinton is too concentrated on two conflicting or contrasting positions to get the job of President done.