Let’s sit this one out

I’ve been skeptical about suggestions that Republican voters are participating in meaningful numbers in Democratic primaries, and using their vote to help sink Hillary Clinton. In any case, I hope that Republicans aren’t doing this.
First, although I suggested in jest that I might be interested in voting in the Maryland Democratic primary, it’s my view that the Democrats (aided perhaps by sympathetic independents) should select their own nominee. Second, the reasons for favoring Obama over Clinton do not seem compelling. To the contrary, Clinton strikes me as somewhat better than Obama on national security issues (their domestic views are largely indistinguishable).
Clinton voted in favor of military action against Saddam Hussein when the best available evidence was that he had WMD and WMD capability. Obama did not favor such action. Clinton voted in favor of a resolution condemning the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization responsible for killing Americans. Obama did not vote on this resolution.
Clinton opposes direct negotiations by the U.S. president with assorted dictators like Raul Castro without pre-conditions. Obama favors such negotiations because insisting on pre-conditions would confirm to the world that the U.S. is still too arrogant.
Finally, Obama’s foreign policy advisers include harsh critics of Israel — e.g., Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, and Samantha Power — as well as the incorrigible and disingenuous defeatist Lawrence Korb. Clinton’s advisers seem less ill-disposed towards Israel and perhaps less stridently defeatist.
For most Republicans, I would that these considerations should trump our historical distaste for Hillary Clinton, at least to the point that we would simply sit the Obama-Clinton contest out.
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