Lesser of two evils. Greater of two goods.

I would be happy to see either McCain or Obama as president. But I would be heartbroken to see either one, too. What bothers me about McCain is that the Israeli stranglehold over Palestine has no chance of being broken with him, and until that stranglehold is broken, no peace is possible for the Middle East. We need an administration that will put real pressure on Israel to relinquish the West Bank settlements, and I think Obama would be less beholden to the Jewish lobby. But that lobby is powerful, and Obama’s presidency could conceivably be overwhelmed by it if he were to give priority to Middle East peace. On the other hand, if he were to succeed, as Carter did between Israel and Egypt, that would be worth the all-consuming fight.

Another thing that bothers me about McCain is his position on the Iraq War. I think that his judgment on such things is vastly better than that of Bush—I do not agree with Obama that McCain’s presidency would be George Bush’s third term, though there are, of course, germs of truth to the claim, at a high level—but he seems to have sincerely confused the Iraq War with the war against al-Qaida. In my view, the Iraq War is a wash, and nothing short of withdrawal will resolve the problems there. The choice is not between surrendering and not surrendering, but between realizing that it is a lost cause, on the one hand, and wasting even more lives and money on it, on the other hand. Sometimes cutting losses is the wiser choice, and this is one of those times. The only thing that more time in Iraq is going to accomplish is to make the no-bid contractor corporations and Iraqi politicians richer in American money. It will not resolve the political feuds that are boiling beneath the surface, waiting to erupt when America leaves. So long as America stays the cork on the volcano will hold back the eruption, but America cannot stay in force enough forever, and when we leave, whether now or twenty years from now, the volcano will erupt. McCain underestimates how much “I will never surrender in Iraq” sounds like the obstinacy of George Bush. He is going to have to demonstrate more flexibility of judgment than that in his rhetoric if he does not want to turn me against him.

What bothers me about Obama is his opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion and his general support of the abortion lobby and abortion laws, as they stand. I am willing to concede on embryos, but not on fetuses, and it may be this issue that finally makes me decide not to vote for Obama, after all. In any other election I would also be troubled by the amount of money Obama would be prone to spend, but if spending will be on either the War or social programs in any case, I would rather it be spent on helping people than on killing them. Republicans have proven unworthy of the spend-thrift image to which they even still lie to lay claim. In contrast to what Republicans have become in fact, despite their rhetoric of conservatism, there is much about Obama that is more appealing, but the fetus holocaust is the Achilles Heel that even the evil of the Republican Party cannot overshadow.

I like both Obama and McCain for many things. But Palestine, the War, and abortion may loom too large for me to be able to vote for either one of them. My fear is that America is too evil to vote for Obama (in terms of racism), and too evil not to vote against him (in terms of abortion). And it is too evil not to vote against McCain (in terms of Palestine and Iraq). Since there is nothing particularly evil about not voting for McCain, I suppose that voting for Obama is both the lesser of two evils and the greater of two goods. My heart would ache were America not to elect Obama because he is black. It would also ache were it to elect him as the morally superior candidate who supported the slaughter of humans in utero.

But at least it is not Hillary. That is a moral victory of sorts, in its own right.