character, integrity, peace

I really want to like Lawrence Lessig's endorsement of Obama: all about moral courage and integrity. Except mostly he talks about how Clinton lacks them, which is kind of disappointing: Obama, not Clinton, is exceptional, and talking about how Clinton has the same problems as all other politicians isn't a great reason to vote for Obama. By implication, yes, but I wish Lessig had talked about the details of ways that Obama is different.

And then come the last two minutes, at which point he starts talking about the international symbolism of an Obama presidency. While he says that Obama's original opposition to the war would shape people's perceptions, he also has this long section on 'seeing the photograph of this man' which, to me, seems very much like a race-trumps-gender argument. Which, huh? There's a similarly compelling narrative to be found about Clinton's picture.