So, Barack Obama has finally won the title of 'Presumptive' Democrat nominee for the November General Election. Good. One aspect of this that has been missed out is that this completes the fall from grace of every politician tainted by association with the Iraq war.
In Britain, Labour and Tony Blair's fall from grace began with massive 'credibility cleavage' in it's case for invading Iraq. In America, anger and disapproval with the Bush administration began with a swing against it on Iraq. Clinton wasn't entirely undone by Iraq but it did underpin alot of the hardcore activist hostility to her campaign and understandably so...although this support isn't essential it is a bedrock whose loss she struggled to recover from.
Now the question that needs to be answered is does she have the grace to avoid doing the Democrats any further damage by prolonging the fight? Don't hold your breath, her graceless attacks on Move On show the true nature of her character. I hope that I will be proved wrong but I don't expect to be; she will continue to heap further shame on the head of her campaign.
The other question is whether Obama will continue to carry on the radicalism of his campaign. His comments over Jerusalem are rather worrying from that point of view; most level-headed people want to see Israel and a Palestinian state able to co-exist but nonetheless feel that it is time that Israel was made to 'play fair' by which I mean at least made to abide by established international law. This is more crucial now than ever with Israeli politics entering a state of flux - the last thing we need is it's major ally giving it carte blanche to behave as it pleases; a firm but friendly stance on Israel is an essential plank of policy who wants to establish a less unipolar world.