Super Duper Obama

Anyone who thinks Obama is all hype and no game (all hat and no cattle, ...) needs to read this blog post.

I am impressed beyond words that Obama pushed for videotaping police interrogations, and managed to make it happen. To quote the article quoted there:

"1. Obama was completely right, and on an issue directly relevant to the more recent debates about torture. Taping interrogations is an issue that really only has one legitimate side, since there's no reason to think it prevents any true confessions, while it certainly prevents false confessions (over and above the legal and moral reasons for disapproving of police use of "enhanced interrogation methods").

2. Pursuing it had very little political payoff, as evidenced by the fact that Obama has not (as far as I know) so much as mentioned this on the campaign. Standing up for the rights of accused criminals in a contemporary American legislature requires brass balls.

3. Getting it through required both courage and skill. The notion that Obama is "too nice" to get things done can hardly survive this story: he won't face tougher or less scrupulous political opponents than the self-proclaimed forces of law and order. Yes, in this case the change was helpful to the cause of crime control, since every innocent person imprisoned displaces a guilty person. But that didn't make the politics of it any easier."

Can anyone really imagine Hillary Clinton doing something like this? I will vote for her with a happy heart and a clean conscience if she's the nominee, but Obama's got substance and style both. Also, the Jesse Dylan/will.i.am video gives me goosebumps.