Crawford Kilian on Obama

Who is Crawford Kilian?
Glad you asked. He's a Canadian journalist with a wide range of interests and thoughtful opinions I respect. His H5N1 blog has been a staple of my blogroll ever since I found it. His review of Naomi Klein's book dog-and-pony-show was as clear a summary as I have found. My post about The Shock Doctrine gets an occasional Google search hit.

This morning he talks about Barack Obama.

If visitors here ever check out The Tyee, they know that I'm one of the billions of non-American fans of Barack Obama.
I've judged him as a writer, and as an online politician, and found him brilliant on both scores.

He's way too right-wing for me, but I can also see that he's the most remarkable politician North America has seen since Pierre-Elliott Trudeau swept us Canadians off our feet 40 years ago. Like Trudeau, Obama wants to unify a country that would rather break up in a fit of pique. Like Trudeau, Obama may not entirely succeed.

But Trudeau bought us time, when we might not have lasted long into our second century. Obama could help ensure that America reaches its tricentennial as a united and constructive world power, rather than as a hamstrung sumo wrestler. At the very least, he offers the world a chance to be more disappointed in an American president than it has been since James Buchanan.

On top of his other attributes, Barack Obama has been pushing his country to prepare for bird flu for the past three years. I'd be grateful to know what Hillary, McCain, and Ron Paul have said on this subject.

I love this blog in large part because I couldn't care less about the politics about my fellow Flublogians. No doubt some of my visitors and fellow-bloggers would love to shake me warmly by the throat for my antique left-wing opinions. Well, we've all had unique experiences that shaped our politics, and some of us might even be correct in our views.

It's no accident that the Obama support curve is heavy on the education achievements end. That whole flap about his being an "elitist" seems to have gone sotto voce. The reason is simple: he was merely saying in plain words what the bulk of his peers in politics, both local and national, already believe but dare not speak.