What's going on here?

Between over a semester of French grad school and a trip to Israel with an emphasis on the idea that Israel is home, I haven't been feeling all that American these days. Add to this the fact that few people I interact with on a regular basis are American (make that native-born American, and it becomes remarkably few), and so, cosmopolitan Jew that I am, I've lost touch. It's bad--Elliot Spitzer was on TV maybe a week ago, there was some reference to his being governor of New York, and I had seriously had no idea, I'd have said the governor of New York was Pataki. And now it appears that there will at some point be a choice before me: Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This is assuming I don't once again become interested in US politics and, in a fit of neoconservatism, "change teams" prior to the primaries.

Although I truly did used to be quite plugged in, alas, all I can think of now is that I'm going to have to decide whether America is more in need of seeing that a woman can be president or that a black man can do so. I'm sure there's more to it--from my more with-it days, I vaguely recall that Clinton's more of a moderate and Obama's more on the left (Clinton: 1, Obama: 0), but it has long since annoyed me that Hillary is seen as this great symbol of feminism, when her name is known because she happens to have married a man who himself was president. Lame, regardless of how much help she gave him. (Clinton: 0, Obama: 1).

That's it for my thoughts on American politics for the time being. A return to things I actually know about will follow.