I’ve been blessed with a
variety of interesting jobs: a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of
Operations; attorney in an international law firm; in-house counsel at the
Osaka headquarters of Matsushita Electric; executive in a Silicon Valley technology
startup.
These days I write full time: a thriller series about
half-Japanese, half-American freelance assassin John Rain, whose specialty is
making it look like natural causes. My agency training, my experiences in
Japan, and a background in martial arts all inform my writing.
The books have won the Deadly Pleasures Barry and Mystery Ink
Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller of the Year; have been included in numerous
“Best Of” lists, including those of Amazon, Deadly Pleasures, News-Press,
Publisher’s Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News;
have been translated into nearly twenty languages; and have been optioned for
film by Barrie Osborne, Oscar-winning producer of the Lord of the Rings
trilogy.
I’m also a long time political and news junkie, and the stories I
write grow out of the headlines I read. The Heart of the Matter is my
nonfiction venue for discussing what’s going on in the world.
Here’s an excellent article called
“The
Wrong Experience,” by Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, that I think
nicely articulates many of the reasons Obama is the right candidate and
Hillary, the wrong one. Money quote:
“This is the problem with
Hillary Clinton. She is highly intelligent, has real experience and is an
attractive candidate. But she is terrified to act on her beliefs. In fact, she
seems so conditioned by what she sees as political constraints that one can
barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end.”
Based on crossover voting behavior
by Republicans and on Obama’s appeal to independents, and on how badly
fractured the Republicans are over a McCain candidacy, Obama is obviously the
stronger candidate in the general election. In fact, the only force that
could unite Republicans around their candidate would be the prospect of a
Clinton co-presidency. Under these circumstances, if the Democrats
nominate Hillary, it will be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
Democrats don’t really want the presidency, or the responsibility that comes
with the position. This would be understandable, albeit lamentable…
after all, I can’t think of anything the Democratic congress has achieved in
the year its been in power.
Democrats should understand that a
vote for Hillary in the primary is a vote for McCain in the general.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing (anyone who can tip an already unbalanced
entertainer like Ann Coulter into actual
hysteria at the prospect of his presidency can’t be that bad).
But it’s not as good as a vote for Obama
in the primary and in the general.