Sorry for the long blog break. This blog may be coming to an end when I leave for Africa on Friday; after that I hope to start a new one in a completely different style, a travelogue blog describing my impressions of Malawi. Maybe with pictures. But I don't know yet.

A STRANGE ENDORSEMENT OF EDWARDS
I'm hoping very strongly that Edwards beats Kerry in the primaries. In a Bush v. Kerry contest, I would strongly support Bush. An Edwards v. Bush contest would be more pleasant, in that I would like both candidates and wouldn't have to fear a Bush defeat.

In fact, I find myself thinking that I might even vote for Edwards over Bush. This is odd because I like Bush, on some issues even pretty fervently. And none of Edwards' "issues" particularly appeal to me, and his populism seems fairly sincere but naive. And his position on trade is absolutely wrong, by the way. So why do I like the idea of President John Edwards?

I think the reason is: to make the Democrats feel better. Let me explain. Things are basically going well in this country. The achievements of our military in Iraq and Afghanistan were phenomenal in military terms and Iraq in particular was a great stride forward for liberty, and a brilliant setback for totalitarianism. The economy has not fared as well as in the 1990s, but we always knew that the late 1990s was a bubble economy, and the question on everyone's minds then was how it would pop. Now we're over the rough patches. A strong recovery is underway, and we're breaking 20-year-old records for economic growth. We're not doing badly diplomatically either, if the truth be told. Bush has got us on good terms with China, has had a constructive policy towards Africa, our relationship with India is expanding, US-Russian relations have been closer since 9/11, and in the Middle East hopeful signs of change are stirring, reflecting the impact of the spectacle of Iraq. All the same, there's a lot of gloom and doom going around; read some people and you get the sense we're falling apart, we're in the midst of some kind of dark age. Even if you don't believe it, to have all that talk going around is depressing.

Thus the appeal of Edwards. If there were a Democrat in the White House, the intelligentsia and the press wouldn't be so grumpy, they would stop spoiling the party, and we would all have a much better time. I don't think a Democratic president, not even if it were Howard Dean, would be able to reverse the achievements of the Bush Administration. (Kerry might try. I have no idea what he would do, since the positions he takes are opportunist and changeable and he wants to be president just for the sake of being president.) But the intellectuals and the journalists would see Edwards as their man, so for any given course of events, they would narrate it more cheerfully, and we could all rest easier without the uncomfortable knowledge that there are a lot of obsessive people out there hating the president.

I'm afraid I can't extend the same support to Kerry. Kerry is phony and bitter, his attempt to be a populist is obscene, and every time I hear that a state voted for him I feel sick. What really turns me off is how vulgar the whole premise of his candidacy is, the grim determination to be more "alpha male" than Bush, to make the election of a contest of machismo. Yuck. It will be a morbid year: I'll have to follow the election out of a sort of brooding panic that Kerry might become president, and how personally humiliated I would feel by that outcome; so I'll watch, but it will be an unedifying spectacle.

Maybe that's the real reason that I would vote for Edwards: I'll be so grateful to the Democrats for sparing us from a President Kerry that I'll want to give them a President Edwards as a reward.