I thought I'd reply to the gi-normous political discussion in my sidebar w/ an eventual post. So, here goes: The thing about Clark that makes him appealing to a lot of ppl, especially old school Democrats (not the new angry, extremist type) is that he is almost Clintonian in policy. With his military background he takes a strong stance ("stronger" would be more appropos actually) on national security and also includes the more "classically liberal" ideals in his platform. With the nation still getting over the shock and casualties of 9/11 as well as the two wars that followed, many ppl assume Bush will win (if they're Democrats) b/c it's a very scary time to switch administrations, policies and planning. (Republicans on the other hand have other reasons for assuming and hoping Bush wins...but we know that.) Clark supported the war, yes he did--and that screwed him against Dean in the beginning, but that's somewhat of an easy recovery for him if he does it right. First off, everyone thought he'd have no chance as such a late-runner, but lookee lookee. With Dean softening down his act in order to raise his poll ratings, the war with Iraq (with not "in," "on"...etc...the damn dictator tried to fight back and there was return fire...but Patriots prevented them from landing on targets) is no longer the big issue in Dean's speeches. Clark can more easily bury the fact that he supported the war, OR, more likely, he will try and differentiate himself from the crowd on the issue of war support in ideal but not tactical handling (including reasons provided to the public, etc). With the majority of the Democrats being former supporters of the war and Dean softening on the issue to the point of almost ignoring it, (Check out today's NYTimes article on Dean--what a load of crap...ugh.) Clark's chances have definitely improved. a lot. tho personally, i agree with Safire, let Dean be nominated, mwahahahahaha...

just in--Dean's threatening Greenspan...that's just wrong.
btw, any conspiracy theories on the rover?

so much news today...hmm...i really wanna see Gibson's Passion, I heard two Jewish leaders are already pissed off about it. I'm really interested in seeing what all the talk's about, I've been tracking the movie's attempted release for quite some time now...many issues surrounding. mostly the issue of anti-semitism. now this is a non-sequiter, but i really think this makes sense--America's problem has always been racism, Europe's problem--anti-semitism. So true...

On a different note--thanks for that three hour convo about family history and Chinese history, it was very interesting. Thanks Amy! I have a wonderful Polisci prof this semester who is an absolutely amazingly eloquent man (w/ good politics--he's hated by the polisci dept here so you know he has to be good!). Anyway, he was a HUGE supporter of Taiwan in the beginning, went to Mainland China, raised ruckus with his honest research, was kicked out of there four times...amazing stuff. Well, in lecture he said he was a huge supporter of Taiwan--was when it was a democracy (that's almost a direct paraphrase). I thought you'd be interested in hearing that. It so intrigued me that I think I'm gonna visit his office hours next week and discuss the issue further with him, find out why he thinks that, etc. Can't wait