Judgement problems

To the editor: I look a lot like Hilary, but I won’t vote for her if she’s the November nominee. Won’t vote for McCain either, although both he and Hilary are “likeable enough.” I voted for Hilary for senator when I lived in New York. But then she supported Bush in the Iraq War, and I’m the mother of a career military officer. In 2003, I marched outside her NYC senate office, begging her not to, But she, Walmart’s former corporate lawyer, felt it was in her best political interest. Though it was politically incorrect at the time, Obama had the courage and perspicacity to speak out against this unnecessary and devastatingly foolish war. Hilary was tricked by Bush just as she was tricked by her own philandering husband. That’s judgment? Not the good kind, not at three o’clock in the morning or any other time. I defended her often back in her First Lady days and wrote her letters encouraging. “Hang in there, Hilary/” But like her husband, Hilary has turned out to be not quite 100% truthful about oh, so many things. She has held only one public office but claims to have experience. In fact she has far less experience in her own right than does Obama -- though he is considerably younger. Hilary arrived here mostly on Bill’s coattails and a certain amount of privilege. Obama got where he is on brains and temperament, not by marriage. It’s not where you wind up but how far you’ve come that is the better measure of greatness. Will foreign leaders grow to dislike her as so many other people have? Like John McCain, Hilary is hot-temperred -- not what we need in a “decider.” But we do need a unifier, which Obama is. I think foreign leaders will recognize that Obama is nobody’s fool. He is cool-headed and capable and will undoubtedly choose great advisers, including Hilary. Finally, and since at long last we’re now allowed to talk honestly about race, thanks to Obama’s own forthright speech in Philadelphia, as a middle school teacher, I am constantly aware of how much our adolescents need someone like Obama as their role model. He, not rappers and gangstas and drugged-up, overpaid athletes, -- he -- an altruistic, well-educated, well-mannered hard-working, witty and corny but brilliant family man, is whom I want American kids, white black and other, to identify with and proudly emulate. Hilary may have the vote of most baby boomer white women, but not this one. I’m for Obama because I’m for the US and the next generation, for my kids and their kids. I owe it to the future to vote to make Obama the next -- and best -- president of the US in their lifetime. Elizabeth Murphy Milford