I want to say something about Obama's healthcare reform. And don't blame me for the title – that's what Joe Biden calls it, and he's probably right, too.
I was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog at The Atlantic, and he said something in passing about the fact that if Obamacare is successful, it will improve his overseas popularity. This is exactly right. In fact, I would hazard a guess that it will improve his popularity a great deal more in foreign countries than in the U.S. If this healthcare reform passes, I would like to suggest that that single action will do more "cancel out" the bad image W's invasion of Iraq gave of the U.S. than any possible Iraq exit-strategy.
How is this possible? It's because for the most part, in most parts of the developed world, the U.S.'s refusal to have comprehensive, universal healthcare is not only puzzling, it's downright weird. I can only speak from the example of South Korea, where I am now, but I think it's same when looked at from Japan, Australia, Canada, or Europe, too. No one in Korea, no matter how conservative, questions the government's important role in providing healthcare to citizens. It's part of being civilized. So Koreans are often shocked and dismayed when I begin trying to explain the lack of universal coverage in the U.S., and even more disturbed by the notion that it's been a sufficiently unpopular idea that it still may not pass.
So Obama, by passing healthcare, will give the U.S. a newfound patina of rationality in the eyes of foreigners like Koreans. And that, in turn, can improve U.S. credibility, which has been so badly damaged by Bush's unilateralist tendencies in the area of foreign policy. Thus a strictly domestic policy move on the part of Obama's administration will, I predict, actually have more impact in the area of foreign policy than anyone realizes. And thus it is that Hillary Clinton still has a vested career interest in healthcare reform.