Sidney Blumenthal is leaving Salon to go work for the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is one of those personnel moves that I honestly find a bit confusing -- it's not clear to me how Mark penn, Sidney Blumenthal, and Dick Holbrooke can all support the same candidate. At least some of them must be reading her wrong. That said, Blumenthal's case for CLinton is fairly novel:
The Democrats at key junctures have been seduced by the illusion of anti-politics to their own detriment. Anti-politics upholds a self-righteous ideal of purity that somehow political conflict can be transcended on angels' wings. The consequences on the right of an assumption of moral superiority and hubris are apparent. Their plight stands as a cautionary tale, but not only as an object lesson for them. Still, the Republican will to power remains ferocious. The hard struggle will require the most capable political leadership, willing to undertake the most difficult tasks, and grace under pressure.
This does strike me as the best case for Hillary. If I could combine Obama's foreign policy with Edwards' populism with her experience, I'd take that bargain in an instant. Sadly, I can't. What concerns me about Clinton is that I can't wave away her foreign policy beliefs, votes, and statements. And while competent leadership is good, I've not seen much evidence that she sees her role as ideological, rather than technocratic, in nature. This is a moment to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism. It's not that I don't think she's up to that task so much as I don't even know that she's interested in it.
