crimson tide

I found this on one of the Talking Point Memo sites. I hope that you find it as thoughtful as I did.

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From TPM Cafe:

In paying very close attention to the Senate hearings yesterday a life-imitating-art moment occured to me. It was brought home in the difference between the questions posed to Crocker and Petraeus by John McCain and the questions posed by Barack Obama. The recent identification of the Clinton campaign to Rocky Balboa had me thinking of pop-culture characters where our candidates were concerned, but after yesterday I realized we were thinking about the wrong characters and the wrong movie.

While it was swell for Hillary to think of herself as the fighter who never gives up, and we were all busy reminding each other that HIllary/Syllvester loses in the end, the real problem is that Hillary not only missed the more applicable story line – she isn’t even in the movie. The screenplay we will have playing out before us is not “Rocky”, it is “Crimson Tide”.

The characters are so clear. John McCain is the grizzly, staunch, experienced commander (Gene Hackman) who in light of his cold-war mentality takes having his finger on the button very seriously. Unfortunately he is more inclined to take that serious mission to its logical conclusion – at some point you have to push the button. Barack Obama, however, is the Harvard educated, bright, clear thinking, philosophical younger officer of conscience (Denzel Washington) who refuses to react out of fear. His education informs the kind of decisions he makes, and the seriousness with which he dispatches his responsibilities is always tempered with a global perspective. It is the idea that unintended consequences are not situations that you fall victim to, if you are willing to think it through. If you are willing to apply what you have learned. (more…)