Meet the New Boss ... Same As the Old Boss

As if any were needed, more evidence of the bipartisan nature of the War Party:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama found himself embroiled in a new foreign policy flap with rival Hillary Clinton on Thursday, this time over the use of nuclear weapons.

Obama ruled out the use of nuclear weapons to go after al Qaeda or Taliban targets in Afghanistan or Pakistan, prompting Clinton to say presidents never take the nuclear option off the table, and extending their feud over whether Obama has enough experience to be elected president in November 2008.

So, we see that Mrs. Clinton has her imperial bona fides in order: it would clearly be naive and irresponsible to assure anyone that the tasty little morsels of flaming hell we're offering to chuck into Pakistan will be limited to temperatures less than, say, 5000 Kelvins or so. Now let's check in with her chief rival, the post-racial darling of progressives everywhere:

That position came a day after Obama vowed he would be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan with or without the approval of the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Obama struck the tough tone after Clinton accused him of being naive and irresponsible for saying in a debate last week he would be willing to meet without preconditions the leaders of hostile nations Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela in his first year in office.

[ ... ]

"If we had actionable intelligence about the existence of high-level al Qaeda targets like Osama bin Laden, Senator Obama would act and is confident that conventional means would be sufficient to take the target down," [Obama spokeswoman Jen] Psaki said. "Frankly we're surprised that others would disagree."

Even in the late summer of 2007, Sen. Obama is declaring in public, with great big grownups watching and listening, that he's at least as much a cowboy as Dubya ever pretended to be. Of course, it's a safe bet that he, like Dubya, will "lead" from the rear -- from that cozy little firebase on the Potomac.

Keep in mind that the Conventional Wisdom assures us that one of these appalling clowns will be the forty-fourth president of this used-to-be republic. At this point, it appears likely that either Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama will oppose the swaggering crossdresser Rudy Giuliani for that office a year from now. And the Conventional Wisdom also tells us that the mushmouthed and cowardly weasel G.W. Bush has probably seen to it that no one who bears the GOP affiliation is likely to be elected to anything more significant than a rural county commission anytime soon. And, even if we grant Gotham's Transvestite Tyrant a realistic chance, then the next Decider will be one of three wannabe warmongers whose "positions" (they have, I am sure, no actual beliefs or convictions) on America's conduct in the world are mutually indistinguishable.

Don't forget: voting changes things. You can't complain if you don't vote. And Santa Claus is comin' to town, too.