And the spin begins

My immediate reaction to the debate is that Kerry bested President Bush pretty handily. Two or three examples will serve to illustrate how the entire debate went in Kerry's favor. Kerry's best rhetorical shot of the night came in response to Bush's perhaps unintentional linkage of Saddam to 9/11. In response to Bush's comment that "they" attacked us on 9/11, Kerry pointed out that it was Bin Laden, not Saddam who attacked us on 9/11.

Another example is how Kerry again and again attacked Bush on the issue of North Korea. Bush insisted that for some reason if the United States enters into bilaterel talks with North Korea, countries with a stake in the outcome, like China, will no longer be interested in pressuring North Korea. Kerry correctly pointed out that this is a fallacious assumption, a kind of false binary. Just because the United States is talking directly with North Korea does not mean that all other involved parties will somehow disappear from the table. Good point. Kerry scored on that one.

Kerry also did a good job of distinguishing between the war and the warrior, in response to Bush's repeated charge that Kerry disparages the troops when he criticizes the war. Kerry made that point very well. I hope it was not too fine a point, though. Some may not understand it, but Kerry was right. A soldier who does his duty honorably can be a hero, even in a bad war, and all soldiers should be given great respect no matter the cause which they are sent to fight.

The whole evening was Kerry's, really. I do believe that. Bush stumbled, stuttered, referred to Iranian Mullahs as "Moolahs" not once but twice. In the breakaway shots of Bush's reaction while Kerry spoke, Bush frowned, sometimes smirked, looked shocked, shocked! that anyone would dare challenge him on these issues. Bush paused in his speaking, sometimes painfully so, so that one began to think he was going to choke. In one spin segment I have seen since the end of the debate, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC challenged the idea that these pauses reflected badly on the President. Scarborough said that some people will say, "Bush speaks like me, he speaks like my neighbor ..." Maybe so. I think (hope) that the reaction of the majority of people was similar to my reaction, which was to cringe every time he paused. I felt for the guy. There were a couple of those pauses where I really thought, "He's not going to make it; he's just going to freeze there."

President Bush repeated himself constantly, repeated the same few simple responses, over and over. It may be that repetition, whether it be the refrain about Kerry's "mixed messages" or the refrain about Kerry called Saddam a "grave threat," will strengthen the image of Kerry as a flip-flopper. My reaction was that Bush had nothing new to say, nothing even factual or logical. Kerry answered Bush's charges, and Bush simply repeated them, again and again, without regard to Kerry's response. Bush had one message, the same message his campaign had for months: Kerry has no core beliefs that he won't sacrifice for political gain.

Kerry, on the other hand, was factually informed, articulate, and able to answer question without constant reference to the vagueries of being strong and knowing his heart. His historical reference to the Cuban Missle Crisis was a brilliant moment because it highlighted the paucity of historical perspective in Bush's speeches. Not only that, but it made an excellent point. Can any world leader today say, as De Gaulle did, "The word of the American President is good enough for me?" I expected Kerry to make more of this, but he did not really drive the point home for people who might not get it. In response, the President looked at Kerry with that tight-lipped frown that says, "Who the hell are you, anyway? Who are you to speak to me this way?"

Kerry's demeanour was at ease. In the shots of him while Bush was speaking, Kerry was either smiling gently, or nodding, or scribbling notes. Bush leaned on the podium when he spoke, he played with his ink pen and looked down frequently as if he were referring to notes. Overall, it was just a bad performance by the President.

Only time will tell if the American people feel the same way. I don't expect very many people to see what I saw in the way I saw it. This is what I see, though: a man, George Bush, called upon to defend his four years in the Presidency, who could only come up with, as Kerry pointed out, a strong front that masks great weakness.

Are you safer today than four years ago?

As the candidates for President of the United States prepare to go onstage for their first live Presidential debate, there is one question I am hoping the moderator will ask of President George W. Bush.

"Mr. President, why do you contend that we are safer today than four years ago?" I do not believe the President can give a satisfactory answer to that question. Any answer will be an opening for Kerry to contrast the President's reality with that in which the rest of us live.

"In the reality in which I and every other American lives," Kerry might say, "Americans are killed every day in Iraq, and the situation in that country grows ever more tenuous." The President could answer, "These Americans killed are soldiers," as if there is some metaphysical or qualitative difference between an American in uniform who dies in the dust of Iraq and an American civilian who dies in the collapse of a skyscraper.

"Better we fight them over there than over here," the President responds. To which Kerry can respond, "It's not an either/or proposition, Sir. Nothing about the war in Iraq precludes an attack on American soil, as you yourself acknowledge by constantly raising the terror threat level."

So why are we safer today than four years ago, Mr. President? He may answer, "Over 75% of the Al Qaeda leadership have been killed or captured since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan."

To which Kerry can respond, "But that remaining 25% is Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri. Not only that, but every day brings new terror alerts from this administration. We are supposed to feel safer, but still be afraid enough to vote Republican, according to the President. President Bush is using the threat of terrorism for political gain."

Why does the President contend that we are safer today than four years ago? What incontrovertible evidence does he have of this? This is the question President Bush cannot answer honestly. I believe it will not be a question asked of him tonight.

As the hour draws near, I am increasingly feeling a bit nervous about how Kerry will do tonight. All the pressure to perform is on Kerry. Bush has only to show up and not commit a terrible gaffe. Kerry, on the other hand, must channel the ghost of John Kennedy and put on a show such as we have never witnessed in the annals of political history. Need I say that Kerry will not rise to meet the expectations so many hold? Who could ever meet those expectations?

The rules of the debate further handicap Kerry. I am not sure I understand why the Kerry camp agreed to these restrictions, except that Bush only agreed to three debates if Kerry agreed to restrictions meant to keep him from dominating the debate.

The time limits on the candidates' answers are aimed directly at Kerry. Kerry is known to dominate by sheer volume of words. In these debates, he (and Bush, too) will be held to 90 seconds of response time. Candidates will not be able to move from the podium. Neither candidate can interrupt the other or direct a question at his opponent; rhetorical questions are, of course, allowed, and I expect Kerry at least to take full advantage of that. No direct interchange is allowed, however, which (pardon me if I am wrong) is what a real debate is all about. Back and forth of ideas? Dialogue? God forbid, argument?

So the rules seem to favor Bush. However, looking at it from another angle, the Kerry campaign did agree to these rules, so Kerry must not be too worried. Also, the time limit may actually help Kerry keep his ideas concise and to the point. The rules against addressing one's opponent directly, or moving from behind the podium, or making faces, or sighing, should assist Kerry in avoiding any of Al Gore's painful mistakes of 2000. I see the logic in these rules, from Kerry's point of view. Yet there is still a part of me that misses the good old days of four years ago, when there was always a chance of some random, unexpected surprise. If I were Kerry, I think I would have put my money on an open, more spontaneous debate, and thus I would have taken my chances that the dreadful surprise of the evening would come from Bush's mouth. However, that is neither here nor there. The fight is on. Let's watch.

Letter to Chris Matthews

Perhaps I am blowing this out of proportion, but I wrote Chris Matthews an email about his interview with Bill Maher the other evening. The transcript of the Matthews program is available here. You can read my letter below:

Dear Mr. Matthews,

I am writing you to express my disappointment in a segment of your show "Hardball" which I happened to catch last night. I saw a portion of your interview with Bill Maher as I was flipping back and forth between news channels. I usually watch portions of your show, and generally I find you to be a serious-minded journalist. However, a question I heard you ask Maher really ticked me off because it seemed to come straight from the mouth of Rush Limbaugh rather than Chris Matthews. Did I hear you correctly? Did you really ask Bill Maher what he thought of John Kerry's new tan? No, that wasn't quite how you put it—it was something about John Kerry's "orange look," wasn't it? And Maher answered that maybe when Kerry went in for his latest Botox treatment, he was given some "Tan In A Bottle" to go with it.

Republicans don't need any help making John Kerry appear unmanly and elitist. By raising such a totally irrelevant, but nonetheless damaging issue, you might as well have been reading from Republican talking points. It was unfair, and I hope if you ever go back and look at that segment, you feel some shame for how you and Maher so cattily lowered the level of political dialogue to the exact depth at which the Republicans want to keep it, which is to say the level of appearances. I don't know what you could do to redress the situation. An apology to Mr. Kerry and your viewers would be a start, I suppose, but in a way it is too late for that. The best one can hope for is that in future, you will think before joining one of your guests in a silly gossip-fest.

I have since found out the source for the "orange Kerry" story is Matt Drudge. Here is the article, Kerry on Orange Alert. To his credit, radio talk show host Neal Boortz has suggested that the picture Drudge uses has been Photoshopped. Other pictures of Kerry from the same day show Kerry looking normal.

But why is this even a topic up for discussion in this election? Why is Lynne Cheney cracking wise about it, as she did yesterday? And why are mainstream journalists such as Matthews and the reporters for the AP abetting Drudge in this nonsense?

This goes beyond the damage it might do to Kerry. I really don't think it is damaging, because any fool who decides to vote for George Bush because he thinks Kerry looks a bit orange ... well that fool would probably be the kind to vote for Bush anyway. In fact, the Bush Administration courts exactly that kind of fool, welcomes them with open arms.

The question is, what level of debate do we want to have in this country? Do we want to seriously consider the achievmenets of the first Bush term and weigh the pros and cons of a second term for him, which is what the election ought to be about, or do we want to snicker about John Kerry's skin tone?

Good Lord, what a country we live in, what absolute juveniles we are.

For the rain it raineth every day

Yesterday evening was blustery and wet. When I left work, rain was pouring from the sky comme une vache qui pisse, as the French say, and it was being blown nearly horizontal by strong gusts of wind. I actually saw a woman struggling with an umbrella that had been turned inside out by the wind, and I stopped to help her; however, it was obvious the umbrella was broken. Some of its spines were loose from the fabric. What's more, the woman was cradling her cell phone in her ear with her shoulder as she struggled with the umbrella; she would not even get off the phone to say "Thank You." She just kind of nodded and waved me on, after about half a minute of me trying to help her.

By that time, I was well soaked, despite my own umbrella. I had been helped along in my unwelcome drenching by passing drivers. The drains in D.C. flood quite happily with very little provocation, and on First street between the Capitol and Supreme Court, there was a veritable river flowing. I swear there were whitecaps on the water. Most drivers skirted it. One jerk decided it would be fun to drive through it just enough to splash me. The wave of water absolutely soaked me. It felt like someone had tossed a five gallon bucket of muddy water on me.

That feeling of being pissed on by Fate just about describes my feelings yesterday concerning the election and the political fortunes of John Kerry. Woke up yesterday to the Washington Post/ABC poll that shows Bush with a significant lead over Kerry, even with the margin of error factored in—51% Bush, 44% Kerry. Then when I got home last night and changed my clothes, I heard that the Gallup also has Bush with a sizable lead over Kerry. It's depressing. Like a lot of people, I am left wondering "why?" How?"

I am sure if I tuned into some of the Conservative radio programs I used to listen to, I'd find an answer. Limbaugh is probably saying that Kerry's pessimism on Iraq has backfired. His decline in the polls is directly correlated to his new strategy of going negative on Iraq. Boortz is probably saying much the same thing, perhaps adding that Americans are finally seeing that Kerry has no core of beliefs by which he is guided. That windsurfing ad the Bush campaign put out is just devastating to Kerry; it's probably the most effective advertisement yet this season. The problem is, the Democrats don't seem to be answering it. Where are the ads featuring Cheney saying that the Iraqis would greet us with flowers? Where are the ads showing selected segments from Bush's pre-war speeches, in which he makes all manner of claims about Iraq's links to terrorism and Saddam's possession of WMD? Why aren't the Democrats answering in kind? And where the heck is Edwards? Bright Boy gone fishing, or something?

It's sad to think about. So I decided last night that from now on, for the sake of my own soul, I am going to try not to be negative anymore about the state of affairs in the Kerry campaign. Though I did not vote in the Democrat primaries, since I am a registered Republican, I have decided to vote for John Kerry in the General Election. I need to keep my critical eye focused on the President more so than Kerry. I hope Democrats in general follow suit. There is a penchant not just for hand-wringing, but for cannibalization within the Democrat party. Unity is not a Democrat strong suit, as it is with the Republican party.

Further depressing me last night was an interview I caught on MSNBC between Chris Matthews and Bill Mahr, neither of whom are conservative, though I have no clue how liberal they are either. I seem to recall that Matthews worked for the Carter Administration, so perhaps we can assume he is a Democrat. I could not believe what I was hearing, though. With a grin, Matthews actually asked Mahr, "So what do you think of the Democratic candidate's new neon orange hue?" And the two of them sat there and proceeded to help the Republicans along in their campaign to further suggest that Kerry is unmanly. "Maybe he went in for his latest botox treatment and they gave him some "Tan In A Bottle" to go with it," Mahr said. Both men were really yucking it up.

I suppose if you asked him, Matthews would make some claim to objectivity as the reason why he was discussing such an absolutely irrelevant, but politically damaging subject on his usually serious program.

My hope is that in this forum, if I criticize the way Kerry's campaign is handling itself, I do not come across as similarly self-destructive. To avoid the kind of —what do you call it? Self-loathing?—on display by Chris Matthews last night, I want to try to remain positive from here until the end of the election. I want Kerry to win. I have come to like him for many reasons. I do like his obvious intelligence. He is not a witty man, but frankly, who cares? We aren't electing the President of the Standup Comedians Guild. Kerry speaks foreign languages and is well-travelled and cultured, which from my experience tends to make people more
broad-minded and considerate of other points of view. Kerry volunteered for combat service in Vietnam when he didn't have to, something we should never let people forget, no matter how badly the Republicans try to sully that fact. By every standard, this man is Presidential material. He looks Presidential, acts Presidential even in his waffling (what could be more Presidential than doublespeak and contradicting one's self?), but he cannot get any traction with ordinary Americans. By "ordinary" I mean Americans who don't already hate Bush, who may be but probably are not college educated, who don't pay much attention to the political process, and who are envious and mistrustful of the wealthy.

Kerry's fortunes may shift in the coming weeks. After the debates, if Bush's lead does not shrink, or if it (God forbid) widens, then it will be time for worry. Tomorrow is the first and most important debate, but today is gut check day. No more time for complaining, fretting, second-guessing. We're in the fight now, and we've got to play for keeps. I've checked my gut, and I still think Kerry can close this deal. Time is on the move, though. If Kerry is a strong finisher, as conventional wisdom says he is, now is the time to finish.

Kerry's Vision Disappoints a Yearning World (washingtonpost.com)

Kerry's Vision Disappoints a Yearning World (washingtonpost.com)

The election is still more than a month away, and already the post-mortem has begun. Why did Kerry lose? One writer in London claims that Kerry's failure is attributable to "the long, disreputable tradition of anti-intellectualism in American politics." Others point to Kerry's inability to articulate a clear difference between himself and President Bush on Iraq. All of the writers quoted in Morley's article wring their hands nervously at the thought of a second term for George W. Bush. It's almost enough to make one vote for Bush, just to see the Europeans weep.

A journalist for a Spanish paper writes that Kerry "is the hope of the world to put a stop to the imperialist ideas and belligerent crusades of the Bush government." That's a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of one man. It is also hardly a ringing endorsement to most Americans. Middle-of-the-road Americans don't care a fig for what the rest of the world thinks; indeed, the more right-leaning among us entertain the gut reaction that if Europe is for it, then Americans ought to be agin it. Some will no doubt vote for Bush because Kerry is the choice of Europeans.

Kerry understands this, I think. Many months have passed since his blunder when he said that he has spoken to European leaders who want to see him win the election; he has not repeated that mistake, though it may be too little, too late. In the meantime, I have read in the New Yorker that the French reporters in Kerry's media entourage have been disappointed that he now refuses to converse with them in French. It's English-only on the Kerry campaign plane.

There is a strain of anti-intellectualism in American society; more than a strain, really. No one in modern times ever got to be President on his brains. It isn't that Americans are stupid; it's that we don't trust intellectuals, or people who speak a foreign language. Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. It just means if you want to be President, you must play by the rules of the game, which are: at campaign stops, try to make the whole thing look like an impromptu hoe down; eat lots of barbecue and corn on the cob while sitting on hay bales shipped in from nearby farms; roll up your shirt sleeves; buy a modest ranch in some western state where you can pretend to clear brush while on vacation, clearing brush should become your favorite hobby; squint a lot; even though you're rich, don't flaunt it, have your campaign bus stop at Wendy's for lunch when on the road, and make sure the press reports your fondness for fast food; routinely make hilarious misstatements so that the American people get a good laugh and your opponents continually misunderestimate you; get your hair cut in the local barbershop of whatever town your bus happens to be passing through; don't tell reporters, even hostile reporters, to "Shove it!"; go to church every Sunday, your Bible under your arm. And perhaps most important, no windsurfing! Repeat this to yourself daily: No windsurfing! When was the last time you saw a NASCAR Dad participate in any sport involving wind that did not come out of his ass? These are only a few hints to the prospective candidate. Every election adds to the list of do's and don'ts.

Suffice it to say, Americans like to elect people who are like them, people like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Sad, but true. Just yesterday, I read an article in the New Yorker about Teresa Heinz Kerry. She sounds like an interesting, sophisticated woman who would be a fine First Lady. All her sophistication, though, is a handicap in an American election. After the election is over, and if Kerry has lost it, Kerry supporters will all shake their heads and wonder why it had to be. The fault lies not with the Kerry's—they can only be themselves after all, and it's hard to hide the fact that one is a billionaire with magnificent homes scattered from Sun Valley to Georgetown—the fault, Dear Reader, lies with we who chose them. What did we think, that the American electorate would suddenly decide to break with tradition and vote for someone so unlike us? If elected, John Kerry will be the wealthiest President ever to hold the office. I am a Kerry supporter, but personally, I cannot even imagine what it must be like to wake up every day with the knowledge that no matter what I do with the rest of my life, I am still a billionaire. How much more difficult must it be for others to identify with this man?

Fortunate daughters

Secret Service Examining Threats Made by a Heckler

You may have heard about his story—or not. It was mentioned one day last week on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart because of the humorous way the woman spelled "groin" in her threat. Otherwise, it did not make the news, as far as I know. The Washington Times reports that this "heckler" (as they are invariably called) was shouted down with chants of "Four More Years" as she was arrested and led away.

I can understand the woman's pain, and I hope no charges are filed. Do you think it's legitimate, or unfair, to ask why Laura Bush's daughters are not serving in Iraq, if the cause is so important?

Grisly Path to Power

Grisly Path to Power In Iraq's Insurgency (washingtonpost.com)

In the debate about the proper place of the war in Iraq in the overall War on Terror, much is posited, but little stands up to scrutiny. The Bush Administration overstates its case when it asserts collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but those on the opposite side of the issue have to ignore some compelling facts in order to dismiss the war in Iraq as a diversion from the war on Terror. This article in today's Washington Post provides new insight into the question of whether Saddam Hussein was harboring Al Qaeda terrorists; unfortunately, the article does not answer the question of whether that alone was reason enough to invade. I happen to think it is a better reason than that Saddam was producing or had the capability to produce WMD, but the argument received short shrift in the runup to the war, perhaps because the media was so dismissive of the idea that there was a link between Saddam and terrorism. The article is a retelling of the story of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the one link that connects Saddam to Al Qaeda.

About the same time [March 2002], Jordanian authorities indicted Zarqawi in absentia for his role in the millennium plot in Amman and issued a warrant for his arrest. Jordanian investigators had followed his trail to Iraq and tried to persuade Saddam Hussein's government to extradite him.

"There is proof that he was in Iraq during that time," the Jordanian security official said. "We sent many memos to Iraq during this time, asking them to identify his position, where he was, how he got weapons, how he smuggled them across the border."

Hussein's government never responded, according to the official, who added that documents recovered after its overthrow in 2003 show that Iraqi agents did detain some Zarqawi operatives but released them after questioning. Furthermore, the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were, he said.

That Saddam was indifferent even to a Muslim country's attempts to fight terrorism should come as no surprise; what is new and important is that apparently, agents of Saddam's regime, with or without official sanction, provided information to Zarqawi about Jordan's knowledge of their whereabouts. Evidence of collusion? No, evidence of indifference to the criminals living in the midst of Iraq.

The article goes on to document Zarqawi's ties to Al Qaeda, stressing that there is tension between Zarqawi and the leaders of Al Qaeda. As the most active terrorist in the world today, Zarqawi has risen to larger-than-life status, and he is helped along in that endeavor by his ability to elude the Americans who want him dead. His overall goals are also different than those of Al Qaeda, but nonetheless he has sought out Al Qaeda for advice and financing. As an FBI agent interviewed in this article says, terrorists typically belong to amorphous, disorganized groups, and one cannot expect the kind of clear connections and alliances one might see between states aligned against an enemy. This is the problem with the war on terrorism: how does one fight an enemy with no territorial boundaries, no conventional army, and a hundred leaders, most of them as replaceable as the foot soldiers? One cannot even develop a rationale for fighting such a war that satisfies everyone from the most peaceful to the most hawkish.

Thus those who looked at Zarqawi as the clear link between Saddam and Al Qaeda find only the thinnest threads; and those who dismiss such links out of hand must contend with the fact that after the war in Afghanistan, one of the most ruthless, cunningest, bloodiest villains the world has ever known took up residence in Iraq, and Saddam did not throw him out. Perhaps both sides of the issue were looking the wrong way, and certainly both sides decided on the wrong course of action. America could not sit by and allow Zarqawi to live in peace in Iraq; but I wonder whether if, instead of a full scale invasion and occupation, we could have simply used our special forces to take Zarqawi by surprise while looking for other, more sensible means to bring down Saddam. Speculation is useless, yet one has only to look at how the Iraq occupation has turned out to wonder if things could have been different.

Every time I hear the President say that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them over here, I think to myself, "Why is it better that Americans are dying in Iraq, while we civilian Americans go about our lives in peace over here?" Is there some fundamental, metaphysical difference between an American soldier dying in the dust of the Middle East and an American businessman dying in the collapse of a skyscraper in New York City?

Over a thousand dead, and for what? I am no longer sure. I appreciate the sacrifice of the soldier who dies in Iraq that I may live in oblivious peace in Washington, D.C., but it is a sacrifice I don't think he had to make, not in this way, not for this cause.

Election May Hinge On Debates (washingtonpost.com)

Election May Hinge On Debates (washingtonpost.com)
I always wonder at how every election is always the most negative yet, the most divisive, the most important in history; and every election always "hinges" on the debates. Part of this is the media's need to have a dramatic horse race. Still, having experienced several of these elections now, one only feels the drama of the situation if one forgets the slogans, key words, and issues of the previous campaign.

As this article acknowledges, the debates are not strictly debates, in the formal sense. There is none, or very little, hand to hand combat between the opponents. Mostly, there are side by side "I believe ..." statements about policy and priorities. Thus the things people most remember, ironically, are a candidate's facial expression, whether they seem nervous or on edge, whether they look at their watch, as George H. W. Bush did during a debate with Bill Clinton. This is why Kerry is probably at a disadvantage in the debates coming up. His formal debating skills are absolutely worthless in an environment where voters are looking for emotional cues that help them identify with a candidate, or which disqualify the candidate from consideration. Kerry so far has not triggered much positive feeling in anyone that I know of.

Meanwhile, Iraq descends further into chaos. This will be the primary subject of the first debate this week, thus the first debate should be the best and the most relevant.

I think a lot of otherwise Conservative, hawkish Americans have doubts about the Bush policy in Iraq. It is clear to anyone with eyes that we are not fulfilling what we went to Iraq to do. Another article in the Post today describes the arrest of a General in the Iraqi National Guard for ties to insurgents. Meanwhile, attacks by terrorists in Iraq average 22 per day. Question is, do we give this up as pointless and let Iraq go its own way, or do we find a solution to this problem that does not involve an American occupation? Giving up is simplest, but would probably lead to problems down the road, since Iraq would most likely become an anti-American stronghold like Iran. But what else is there? The Iraqis clearly have no will to cooperate with us. There will come a point, as in Vietnam, where we must decide to cut our losses and withdraw.

That may seem an untenable outcome to the Bush Administration, or maybe not. Last week Robert Novak wrote an editorial in which he claimed that an unnamed, important Bush Administration official has told him that after elections in January, the President (assuming Bush is still President) will pull troops out of Iraq, too. This sounds like a mere attempt to influence the election by hints of what may happen, put on the information market by unnamed officials and a columnist of dubious reputation. However, I think there is probably a good chance that the January elections will result in significant troop reduction.

If the Bush Administration itself is considering early withdraw as Novak, a Conservative columnist, suggests, there seems even less of a difference between the two candidates running for President. It also frees Americans of their conflict between the necessity of winning the war, and claiming an uneasy peace. We can vote for either candidate without feeling we are making a right or wrong choice with respect to the War on terror and Iraq, because both men seem to endorse the same course of action. If President Bush is considering withdrawing the troops before the job is complete, then indeed that suggests that neither Bush nor Kerry see their way clear to an acceptable outcome in Iraq. And that is truly frightening and embarrassing for this country. No matter who is elected, we have only the national shame of defeat to look forward to next year. Iraq is beyond our control now.

Congress Votes to Extend Tax Cuts (washingtonpost.com)

Congress Votes to Extend Tax Cuts (washingtonpost.com)

The issue of taxes is probably the single reason I usually vote Republican rather than Democrat. Four tax cuts in as many years, as President Bush has done, is pretty impressive. Whether the latest tax cut, or any of the tax cuts, will survive the need to control the deficit next year remains to be seen. What if John Kerry is elected President?

Kerry has expressed support for the cut passed yesterday, as well as the President's other tax breaks to the middle class. He says he will keep the middle class cuts in place, while repealing the cuts for people who make over $200,000.00 That Kerry has promised to protect the tax breaks for people like me is probably the one factor that allows me to support him for President. That may seem unduly selfish, even anti-Conservative, since ideally, no one should have to pay more than anyone else just because they earn more. We live in a world of compromises, though, and Kerry is my compromise candidate. I'll sacrifice some of my values in order to hold the President accountable for mistakes that have been disastrous for the United States.

The interesting thing about the issue of taxes is the language used to speak about the matter. Both sides, Republican and Democrat, use misleading rhetoric to inflame passion on the issue. I'll start with a Republican comment mentioned in this artiicle:""Anyone voting 'no' is voting for a tax increase for the American people, especially on the middle class," warned Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.)" How does a decision not to cut taxes mean a vote for a tax increase?

Democrats, on the other hand, speak of tax cuts as if they were a new federal program. "How can we afford them?" They ask, or as the New York Times helpfully puts it, using the same incorrect language, "Democrats had made it clear they would vote to extend the tax cuts, but they tried during the conference committee to attach amendments that would have paid for them with either a surcharge on families with incomes above $1 million or by closing some corporate tax shelters." The government doesn't have to "pay" for a tax cut; it just has to decide to do with less money so that ordinary people can keep more of their income. Ultimately, who does a tax cut hurt? It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't hurt my family. Even my wife's family, poor as they are, are not hurt by tax cuts; they still get large amounts of money back from the IRS every April. My Mother, who is very poor, is not hurt by tax cuts. My experience has been that the working poor get money back every April, especially if they have kids. I, on the other hand, usually have to pay even more taxes when April rolls around.

As I see it, the only way the government "pays" for a tax cut is by cutting programs which are probably unnecessary anyway.

Music for jingos and peaceniks

Following is the playlist currently playing on my iPod:

The Star Spangled Banner—The Simpsons
America—Waylon Jennings
America—(poem) Allen Ginsberg
America—Simon & Garfunkel
American Patrol—Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
Born in the U.S.A.—Bruce Springsteen
Christ for President—Billy Bragg and Wilco
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt—Bob Dylan
Fortunate Son—Creedence Clearwater Revival
God Bless America—Kate Smith
He's a Mighty Good Leader—Beck
Okie from Muskogee—Merle Haggard
President's Song—The Simpsons
Shhh, it's a military secret—Glenn Miller and his orchestra
The Ballad of John and Yoko—The Beatles
There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere—Elton Britt
This Land is Your Land—Woody Guthrie
War Prayer—Willie Nelson (Mark Twain)
The Fightin' Side of Me—Merle Haggard
Give Peace a Chance—John Lennon
Green Tara Mantra—His Holiness the Dalai Lama

After iPod, what next?

Since buying my iPod, I have purchased a couple accessories that I
think are essential, new earbuds and an FM transmitter. As every new
iPod owner quickly discovers, the best thing to do with the hard,
uncomfortable earbuds that come with the iPod is to sell them on eBay
to one of those people who do not own an iPod, but want to wear the
earbuds so everyone will think they own one. I auctioned mine off
soon after receiving my iPod and was paid what I consider an
astounding amount, twenty-five bucks plus shipping.

I put that twenty-five bucks towards the purchase of the Apple
in-ear earbuds/headphones. I chose these because they are an
Apple product, thus they are white and match my iPod, but also because
the reviews of them at Amazon were pretty overwhelmingly positive. At
the time I bought them a couple weeks ago, I paid Amazon $35.00 for
them, and Amazon shipped them for free. It turns out I bought mine on
sale, however. The price has since gone up to $39.00, which is still
a little under retail.

The great advantage to these headphones is that they are soft, like
ear plugs rather than headphones. And like ear plugs, you have to fit
them into your ear by pulling back your ear lobe, opening your ear
canal. These earbuds also come with three different size, soft heads,
for different-size ears. One other thing to keep in mind is that
since these earbuds reside much deeper in your ear than other earbuds,
after inserting the buds for the first time, be sure to crank your
iPod's volume down before playing a song. If you're like me, you'll
forget and the first notes will blow your ear drums. The first song I
chose to play was "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who, which is a
rather loud song. Mistake on my part.

These earbuds also provide good ambient noise cancellation, which I
suppose can be both good and bad. If you're on the train, you won't
need to crank your iPod to hear it. If you're in the office and
browsing, um, the staff Intranet, when your boss walks up to your
cube, you won't hear her coming until she is standing behind you.
Even so, these earbuds are an excellent buy for the price, and they
should be first on your list of must-have iPod accessories. I can
wear them interminably without discomfort; that is a distinct contrast
with the earbuds that come with the iPod, which I could barely wear
for a half-hour, and even then I had to constantly drill them into my
ear because they would get loose and fall out.

The second iPod accessory I purchased recently was an FM transmitter
for listening to my iPod in the car. For my previous, first
generation 5 GB iPod, I bought the Griffin iTrip. Amazon sells this product for $37.54; I think I paid $39 plus shipping a couple years ago when I bought my first iPod. The newer iTrip may have changed significantly over the first model, though it looks the same, so I do not feel I can fairly evaluate that product. The model I owned had several drawbacks which predetermined that I would not buy another. On the one hand, the iPod is designed
to fit the iPod in terms of style. It also runs off the iPod's own power, so no batteries needed. Those are its advantages. Its disadvantage is sound quality, I think.

I chose to buy the Belkin Tunecast from Wal-Mart. For one thing, the item is much cheaper than the iTrip. For another, I figured if Wal-Mart is going to sell iPod products, I will support them as much as is within my means. I bought the Tunecast in the bricks-and-mortar store for just eighteen dollars and some change, though it is selling for about a dollar more on-line. I've found over my years of shopping at many Wal-Marts that prices vary from store to store anyway, but I think you can expect to pay between eighteen and twenty dollars for this item. It's drawbacks are that it is powered by two AAA batteries, and it is unattractive. If you are in your car, the looks of the thing hardly matter. It plugs into the headphone jack on the iPod, like all other FM transmitters I've seen, and hangs off the iPod like a swollen dog's tail. This is annoying, but not a deal breaker.

As I soon found, the sound quality of the Tunecast is much better than my old iTrip. Changing stations is also easier. With the iTrip, I had to install over a hundred small data files on my iPod containing information about the radio stations I could tune to in the car. This messed up the iPod's shuffle feature because it would add these files to the song mix and try to play them as songs, producing a rather unpleasant sound. Also, changing stations with the iTrip was not something a driver could do alone, or even remember how to do without the instruction book.

Although the Tunecast only offers four FM channels low on the FM dial,
switching between them is a matter of moving a switch on the
transmitter and then hitting Seek on your car stereo. I have not yet
needed more than these four channels, and I do not expect to.

Both of these products add an additional $28.00 to the price of the iPod, if you manage to sell your NIP standard earbuds for $25.00 as I did. The extra expense is well worth it for true enjoyment of the iPod. As a parent, I cannot express how lovely it is to have an iPod of music, including many kids' songs, to take with us on our long road trips. Who needs a CD player anymore? Now what I need is a new car, or a new car stereo that allows me to plug my iPod into the dash and play music through my car's sound system. I can only dream at this point.

Where will it end?

CBS Arranged for Meeting With Lockhart

This is a story you will not find mentioned in either the Washington Post or The New York Times. USA Today and CNN are reporting that one of Kerry's newer advisers, Joe Lockhart, contacted Bill Burkett a couple days before the 60 Minutes story broke about memos concerning George Bush's National Guard service.

According to both reports, CBS arranged for the phone call from the Kerry adviser as a kind of tit for tat in exchange for Burkett providing CBS with the incriminating documents. A CBS producer actually provided Lockhart with Burkett's phone number, and the two of them talked for maybe four or five minutes about strategy. According to the CNN article (Kerry Adviser Spoke With CBS Document Source) Burkett says he recommended Kerry give a "major speech" on Vietnam. Thankfully, Kerry has not taken Burkett's advice.

Both CNN and USA Today place the onus of responsibility for this ethical miscalculation on the CBS producer, who should not have offered a kind of payment valuable to Burkett in exchange for the Guard documents. Neither article asks the more salient question, which is should Lockhart have contacted this man at the behest of a media outlet?

The fact that Lockhart did contact Burkett raises even more questions. Did the CBS producer, Mary Mapes, tell Lockhart something about Burkett or his story that precipitated the phone call? Or is the Kerry campaign paying Lockhart the big bucks to seek advice from every Bush-hating conspiracy nut who happens to catch the eye of the media? Reportedly Kerry will take advice from anyone, which is part of his problem as a political tactician, but Burkett hardly seems like a guy who would under normal circumstances attract the attention of someone as close to Kerry as Lockhart.

On the one hand, Republicans are going to try to tie this tin can to Kerry's tail just as the Kerry campaign tried to tie the Swift Boat vets to George Bush. Problem is, as usual, the Republicans do this much better than the Democrats. There is considerable difference between Ted Olson, the most senior person in the Bush camp linked to the Swiftees, and Joe Lockhart, who is at the heart of the Kerry campaign. And will this story end with Lockhart? Will it fade away as did reports of links between the Bush people and the Swiftees? Perhaps, but in the meantime, we may see Lockhart's head roll before all is said and done.

I wrote yesterday that I wondered if the stalwart attitude of CBS towards their obviously flawed story perhaps was attributable to the important person behind the story and documents; perhaps that person was a Kerry adviser. At the time, I based my theory on a contention I read about at a right-wing website, a contention that Max Cleland was the source of the forged documents. I did not believe that Cleland actually forged the documents himself, but I thought perhaps Cleland had been himself duped into passing the documents to Burkett, an "independent" source, who was sure to pass them along to the media. Now it turns out Burkett did meet with Cleland, too, in the days preceding the 60 Minutes story. From USA Today:

"My interest was to get the attention of the national (campaign) to defend against the ... attacks," Burkett said, adding that he also talked to former Georgia senator Max Cleland and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean during the past 45 days. "Neither the Democratic Party or the Kerry campaign had anything to do with the documents," he said.

If this person is able to attract the attention of such high profile people, at what point does he cease to be an independent operator? He must have had something to offer the campaign, other than his moronic advice to give a major speech about Vietnam. I could hand out idiotic advice all day, as I do, in fact, and Howard Dean would never ring me up for my analysis of what the Kerry campaign should do next.

There is also the most important question of all, which is, where did the documents come from if Burkett himself did not forge them? And will the media risk a colossal and irreparable undoing of the Kerry campaign by finding out?

Bush's Lost Year of '72

Portrait of George Bush in '72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time

The media will not let go of this story. In some ways, the irrational passion with which the press is investigating such an inconsequential story is reminiscent of the unreasonable hatred so many Americans hold for the man himself, George W. Bush. No doubt this investigation is in some measure retaliation for Kerry's "Black August," but the charges against Bush are so laughably paltry compared to charges made against Kerry that this story would be doomed even if Dan Rather hadn't so effectively kicked out whatever legs the story had left. My favorite is the following from the above Times story:

After the election [Sparkman/Blount, 1972], Mr. Bush returned to Houston, moving out of his small rented bungalow in Montgomery. He left the place a mess, with a broken light fixture and piles of debris, according to Mary Smith, whose husband was the bungalow's caretaker. Ms. Smith said her husband, who has since died, sent Mr. Bush a bill for professional cleaning but never heard back.

This ought to be grounds for impeachment, in my opinion. A twenty-six year old leaving a rented apartment in a messy condition upon moving out? Utterly shocking! The New York Times must have put their crack investigative reporters on the case to break this revelation.

The entire article is an attempt to paint a portrait of Bush as not only inconsiderate, but unsteady in his goals for his life. The article ties this lack of ambition to Bush's life of privilege. The writers say at one point, "He had been rejected by the University of Texas law school and had briefly considered, then abandoned, a run for the Texas Legislature. Acquaintances recall him tooling around town in his Triumph sports car, partying with a crowd of well-to-do singles." The Triumph is an unnecessary detail, except that it further highlights Bush's wealth.

George Bush does not really sound any different than most twenty-six year olds, rich or poor. He comes to work on the Blount campaign and brags about how much he had to drink the night before. He is friendly, affable; he has an eye for pretty girls. He is bright, not brilliant. He is in all senses ordinary, and that may be both part of the problem and part of the triumph of his Presidency.

His ordinariness is certainly an advantage to him, no matter how the Times tries to portray it otherwise. Liberals will never understand this, which is why they lose elections in America, again and again. If the American people chose a lawyer to represent them in a murder trial the way they choose a President to represent them before the world, they would choose someone best known for his lack of experience in the law, but who once owned a baseball team and was CEO of a failed oil company; they would choose a white man (never hardly even considering a woman or minority no matter their qualifications) who mangles the English language every time he speaks and prides himself on his lack of interest in reading. One could draw examples from other professions as well, but it would hardly be necessary. We all know, without really considering the astounding fact that politics is the one profession in which one succeeds based on how well one professes a lack of political experience and lack of pretensions to intellect and skill, rather than otherwise.

The problem first arises when the American people actually elect someone who is not just making an elaborate lie of his lack of political experience, intellect, and skill. To some extent, we always trust that no matter the other lies politicians tell us, they are really at heart capable, intelligent men.

The George Bush/National Guard service story is dead, though the media doesn't know it yet. It died when Rather's greed for a story that could bring down the President outstripped the facts. Now we hear repeatedly that though the documents may be fake, the central contention of the story is true. It doesn't matter. The story is still dead, and the Times cannot resuscitate it by keeping it on the front page a day or two longer. No ordinary American will bother trying to separate the legitimate claims about Bush's service from the illegitimate claims; they'll just throw out the baby with the bath water, as they should. This is one hell of a botched negative campaign, and it may finally fell an already ailing Kerry campaign. One suspects that the reason CBS has maintained the untenable position that the documents are legitimate for so long is that somewhere behind the documents is a Kerry operative.

In the meantime, the New York Times will probably write more stories about George Bush's misspent youth, hoping that people will contrast this with Kerry's perfect life of public service. People will make the contrast, but if anyone thinks Kerry will come off for the better, they are mistaken. Any comparison only makes George Bush look even more ordinary, Kerry more remotely atypical, a geek and overachiever. Every geek knows that to survive and thrive, one must off-set one's geek-dom with humor and self-effacing amiability, neither of which Kerry posesses, at least on TV. Matched against Bush's personality and life story in all its picaresque quaintness, Kerry is doomed. I honestly do not know that Americans can identify with a life story so at odds with the actual experience of most of us. Who among us has been so dedicated to achieving a career goal that our trajectory was plotted almost from our grammar school days? And by contrast, who among us has not had a year of 1972, a "year of inconsequence," as the Times dubs it? Many of us have had more than one year of inconsequence, I suspect.

Besides, it is all so remote. Neither Kerry nor Bush should be subjected to this kind of prattling by reporters with nothing better to do. Who George Bush and John Kerry were in the years 1968-1972 is interesting from a biographical standpoint, but not really consequential even for determining the character of the men today. Both men, especially John Kerry, make the case that who they were then signifies some deep meaning for who they are now (Kerry's biography highlights his "service" to the American people, for example). And yet the more indiscreet, reprehensible parts of the biography must be repudiated as "youthful indiscretion" or "foolishness," not that Kerry has admitted to such mistakes, though Bush has done so.

People change, especially after thirty years, and they cannot be judged—and should not ask to be judged, as Kerry has done—on the events and circumstances of thirty years ago. God knows I would hate for my twenty-sixth year to be under the kind of scrutiny to which the media is subjecting George Bush's. It would make me feel even worse to think that someone out there, maybe a lot of people, are judging my character based on that "me" now so long buried and unrecognizable even to my current "me."

Walmart teams with Apple Computer?

Walmart.com - Apple iPod from HP 20 GB Digital Music Player

This is something I never expected to see in my lifetime. Wal-Mart is selling an Apple Computer product. So far, the iPod is being sold on-line only, but it would not surprise me if it did not show up in the bricks-and-mortar store sooner rather than later. Last week, I bought an FM transmitter for my iPod at Wal-Mart, and at the time I was surprised enough by the relative plethora of iPod accessories available there that I told my wife I wondered if Wal-Mart was gearing up to sell the iPod. Obviously, the fact that Wal-Mart sold HP computers for many years and probably still holds some sort of contract with HP has played a part in this sudden transformation of the iPod from the BMW to the Ford F-150 of digital music players.

Wal-Mart's price is only a little under retail at $290.86. That is not a huge savings. But if this product makes it into neighborhood Wal-Marts eventually, the benefit to Apple will be tremendous. The irony, of course, is that music purchased via Wal-Mart's own online music store is incompatible with the iPod music player, which is yet another reason I never thought I would see this day. The Microsoft bias of Wal-Mart has been so obvious for so long—just visit a Wal-Mart and try to find a piece of software for the Macintosh that does not have Reader Rabbit on the box—that one could reasonably suppose that Bill Gates and Sam Walton must have been secret sweethearts back in the seventies.

Man On Fire

The September 13 issue of The New Yorker features an excellent article on Al Gore titled "The Wilderness Campaign." I would quote a couple passages as relevant to the current campaign.

Gore didn't really want to talk politics at first, but when the subject of the press came up he seized on it and gave ... a twenty-minute discourse on the degradation of "the public sphere," a phrase coined by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas in the nineteen-sixties (one tries, and fails, to imagine the current President alluding to the author of "Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action"). "He's a ve-rrry interesting guy," Gore said, "Why am I just finding out about him?"

I have read similar pointed jabs at the President's intelligence in a multitude of sources, often phrased in exactly this way. The author of the New Yorker article, David Remnick, just cannot get enough of Gore's literacy. Remnick cites a grocery list of authors and scholars referred to during his lengthy conversation with Gore, as if somehow it really matters, in the end, that Gore is more widely read than George Bush.

In one of the 2000 debates, Al Gore said his favorite book was Stendhal's The Red and the Black (a book which I have read in the original French, and which I did not find to be so great; I do not plan to read it again, either in French or in English). George Bush said his favorite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Al Gore lost the Presidency. Ultimately, the fact that one has read Jürgen Habermas is no asset; I would go further and say it is in fact a character flaw for a man running for President to have read books by authors whose names most American people cannot even pronounce correctly. Or rather, the character flaw is bragging that one has read such authors. Bush demonstrated uncommon wisdom in his choice of favorite books, back in 2000. He was derided for his choice, but it just so happens that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of my favorite books, too, and probably far more Americans (at least the ones with kids) identified with Bush's choice rather than Gore's. A small moment in the 2000 campaign, but significant. It was at least illuminative of the contrast between the two men, and I do not mean illuminative of their respective intelligence. It illuminates which of the two was more politically astute. Kerry could take a lesson from that incident.

Democrats tend to be very smug in their intellectual superiority, and then they wonder why they lose elections.

Here is a comment where Gore gets it right:

On the ride back to Belle Meade, Gore started theorizing about the November election: "Twenty-eight elected Presidents have run for a second term and almost none of those elections were close," he said. "Ten were defeated, and there were eighteen victories. Of the ten defeats, they include one who won the popular vote [Grover Cleveland, 1888]. The exceptions are Ford and Truman, but neither one of them was elected in the first place ... This all implies that the election is a referendum on the incumbent. In Information-theory terms, the voters have so much more information on the incumbent because they have had four years to watch him, and the opponent is a subsidiary question: "Will the challenger be reasonably O.K.?"

I have said in these pages that the election is a referendum on Bush and has very little to do with Kerry, really. Republicans like to challenge Kerry supporters with the taunt, "Give me one good reason why you're voting for Kerry?" And when the Kerry supporter says, "Because I don't like Bush," the Republican declares victory. See, these Kerry voters have nothing but Bush hatred driving them. I would answer with a shrug. So what? If the election is not about Bush, then what is it about?

Kerry's problem is that fewer and fewer people are answering Gore's question, "Will the challenger be reasonably O.K.?" with a "Yes." What does that leave but a vote for Bush? Or worse, Nader. Kerry is repeating some of Gore's mistakes. There is the charge of being out of touch. Just today, there is a Post article—not one sentence, but an entire article!—about Kerry mispronouncing the name of the Green Bay Packers football field while in Wisconsin recently (Kerry Drops Ball With Packers Fans). I have also noticed an almost endless stream of former Clinton advisors filing aboard the Kerry boat. Mike McCurrey, former Clinton spokesperson is the latest, joining another Clinton spokesperson, Joe Lockhart, as well as James Carville and Paul Begala, former Clinton campaign advisers. Question is, are these Clintonians manning the pumps aboard a sinking ship, or just trimming the sails a bit?

Gore tried to find his way out of the wilderness by hiring innumerable policy advisers as guides. He surrounded himself with a crowd of policy advisors to tell him what to do, and in the end it looked like he had no clue who he was or what he believed. As has been so often remarked, in the three Presidential debates, he changed personalities three times. By contrast, George Bush seems to have only one or two advisers, Rove and Karen Hughes, both of whom are virtually invisible. And George Bush never changes. There may be a lot that is artificial about George Bush (the Texas twang, for instance), but it is consistent artificiality.

The Al Gore who has spoken with fire and conviction since he shaved the beard in 2002 and began publicly denouncing President Bush is often criticized as just another of his multiple personalities. Critics say he has spoken too freely, too hysterically. Charles Krauthammer said he was off his lithium. One of Bush's speechwriters commented that Gore needs to find a "cool and quiet darkened room" in which to lie down for a spell. I happen to be one of the few who think that far from being insane, Gore may have finally found his true voice. He only looks insane because practicing politicians must keep their voice down and an appropriately innocuous, smiling expression on their face at all times. It's a sad state of affairs, but one we must accept until it can be changed.

Kerry could at least try to change the formula for success in politics. Hearing George H. W. Bush speak in the years following his Presidency, and reading this article about Al Gore's wanderings in the wilderness following Election 2000, I am twiceover struck by the observation that when these men are free of the constraints of running for office or being eligible to run for office, they speak more freely, and with more conviction and honesty. Could a candidate like Kerry running for office simply be himself and speak his mind in the same way as Bush père and Gore, and still win an election? I think bluntness and sincerity could win, up to a point. It isn't everything, but it is a start. There are still those little gaffes that could permanently derail a campaign, like mispronouncing the name of an important Wisconsin football field.

Déjà vu (all over again)

While riding the train to work in the early morning hours today, I had the thought that in some ways, the present feels very much like the past. To be specific, in some ways I feel like time is slipping and the present is intersecting at various points with the nineteen-eighties.

Perhaps this feeling of déjà vu was precipitated by watching the Michael Moore film Roger and Me for the first time this weekend. Set in 1988, this film details the effects of the closing of GM plants in Flint, Michigan; plants which were subsequently reopened in Mexico. I found the film pretty well-done, even moving, though I am always suspicious of emotional pleas. Moore has great fun lambasting the rich, or rather, allowing the rich to lambast themselves. Why is it the wealthy have no sense of irony? An old, wealthy, white woman who probably has not worked a day in her life can stand there on a golf course, lining up her shot, and she can berate the poor for laziness and not sense one iota of the ironic humor in that situation. Probably the best moment of the film comes at the end when the Roger of the title, CEO of General Motors, gives a Christmas Eve speech in which he quotes Charles Dickens at length on the subject of charity. His speech is interspersed with shots of a former employee of GM being evicted from her home in Flint.

So my wife and I watched this film on Friday night and were still discussing it the next day. My wife seemed especially struck by a scene in which Ronald Reagan came to Flint to impart some of his boundless optimism to the residents burdened with layoffs. Among other things, he advised them to move elsewhere and look for work. Moore interviewed two of the people participating in the Reagan event, one of whom commented dryly that moving south was a bit difficult for people trying to make ends meet on unemployment. The second person Moore interviewed had only positive things to say about Reagan's visit. "Same old shit," my wife said. "Some people just don't get it." I was reminded of the MoveOn.org advertisement in which George Bush can be heard offering up some of his homely defense of the economy ("This is a changing economy") in an empty warehouse. His empty words echo through the empty warehouse, and as the camera moves from corner to desolate corner of the place, we finally see that the words we are hearing come from an old record player stuck in a loop. That is a very effective advertisement, I think.

The next day, I spoke to my Mother on the phone. She still lives in my hometown in West Virginia with the rest of my family. She said the Walker Machine Factory is closing down, a factory that has operated in that town for pretty much the entirety of the twentieth century. The first layoffs have already been announced. I was again reminded of something a GM spokesman had said in the Moore film, "No one can expect job security in this life." That spokesman himself was laid off by the end of the film, so at least there was some delicious irony in that.

No one can expect job security, but when a job is lost, one hopes that one's job is lost for good reason, not because the CEO can make more money for himself and the shareholders by reopening the plant in a foreign country. When a job is lost, one hopes there will be another as good to replace it, and fast. In my hometown, the only businesses growing by leaps and bounds are Keno parlors, strip bars, and adult bookstores, the kinds of businesses that feed off poverty rather than halt the spread of it. This summer, my grandfather told me a story about a friend of my grandmother's who, even at her advanced age, went to work in one of the adult bookstores in order to contribute to her social security income. She was hired as a cleaning woman, but after a couple nights of scrubbing out the private viewing booths, she decided the job was not for her and she was better off trying to subsist on social security alone. West Virginia is looking pretty shabby economically, these days. One hopes the people see it and vote accordingly.

Increasingly the nineties seem like an all too brief break in the clouds, a brief moment of sunshine separating the eighties from the Twenty-Oughts. I remember the eighties as a scary time. I remember watching that TV movie about nuclear holocaust, The Day After (1983), and it scared the bejeepers out of me. I remember when Reagan bombed Libya, I went to bed that night and could not sleep because of the apocalyptic scenarios I imagined would result. The fundamentalist Christian church I attended in those days encouraged in me the belief that time was short and Armageddon near, and some of my reading—Hal Lindsey, for example, and books about the prophecies of Nostradamus—all predicted that the sun would never dawn on the Twenty-First century. The U.S.S.R. was frightening, in those days, and I can remember a title of a news story from the time period, "The Next Korean War," which headlined an article about an almost-certain war with North Korea.

This morning, I read the Washington Post express edition on the train, and I thought, "What has changed in twenty years?" Look at the headlines: Putin Moves to Tighten Grip on Power in Russia. Apparently, Putin is curbing democracy by making provincial governors specially appointed by himself rather than elected by the general populace. Or how about another article on Russia, Chechnya War a Deepening Trap For Putin, in which Putin is quoted as bitterly blaming "weak leaders" in the nineties for the Chechnya debacle. Sounds rather like George Bush, doesn't it? The 9/11 commission may have recused itself from blaming one administration for 9/11, but the Bush folks have made it known that Clinton's weakness has brought about present circumstances.

Another headline: North Korea Says Explosion Was Planned. South Korean observers last week said the cloud was "mushroom-shaped." A week passes, during which not a word of the explosion is breathed to the world at large, and then finally American officials begin to speak up in reassurance that North Korea did not test a nuclear device. No, no way. We warned them, after all. Or at least Condaleeza Rice warned them. I am not sure I understand the rationale behind warning NK not to test any nuclear or plutonium bombs they may have in their arsenal. Wouldn't a test actually strengthen our hand? At the very least we would know what kind of armament they possess.

And what is the Bush policy on North Korea, by the way? Where is the tough guy swagger? Is our policy to ignore it and hope it goes away. Or is our policy, let the Chinese deal with it? The perception is that America only fights bullies it believes it can whip with few consequences.

Another sample from the headlines: U.S. Planes Pound Fallujah and Key General Criticizes April Attack in Fallujah. That last story is rather buried in the online edition of the Post. The General in question is not happy about the politicians deciding to call off the Marines after three days of fighting in which six Marines gave their lives. He said, "When you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city, you really need to understand what the consequences of that are going to be and not perhaps vacillate in the middle of something like that. Once you commit, you got to stay committed." He would not say where his orders originated, other than in the office of General Ricardo Sanchez, but other senior officials in Iraq (as reported by the Post) say that the decision to seek revenge for the three contractors killed and mutilated in Fallujah originated in the White House. Did the decision to call off the dogs of war also originate there? It seems plausible, even likely. So a Marine Corps. General is in effect accusing unnamed politicians and political Generals of being wobbly-kneed, of lacking commitment. No wonder that piece is buried.

We find ourselves living in dark times again, after a moment of sunshine in the nineties. At some point, people may ask themselves why. Do the modern day Republicans thrive on fear and tragedy? Why does the threat of apocalypse always hang over a Republican administration like a pall? Or perhaps people will see in the Bush administration only optimism and strength. I am not betting on any great awakening.

Tell me where your freedom lies?

I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer
The future's uncertain, and the end is always near

No, I am not an alcoholic; just listening to the Doors today on my iPod.

Morrison is often praised for the poetry of his words, but in his more purely poetic works, such as the mostly spoken "Ghost Song," he rather sounds over-inflated. At one point in the song, he refers to a child's "eggshell mind." "Eggshell" is a trite way to express the fragility of something. Morrison is better when he his poetry is made into song. "The End" is a good example of this; even today it remains a powerful song. Until listening to it yesterday, I had never noticed the sound in the background like the deep "whup-whup" of a helicopter. I don't know if the sound was meant to sound like a helicopter, but I imagine that was Morrison's intention. I've always interpreted "The End" as a Vietnam War protest song ("The killer awoke before dawn / He put his boots on ...").

And Morrison does speak the truth, however simplistic it may sound. The future's uncertain and the end is always near. Recent polls have Kerry down by as much as eight points in Ohio. So there you have the uncertain future part of the equation; and Dick Cheney has aptly expressed the dire second half of the formulation: "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." Assuming Vice-President Cheney does not believe that the "right choice" entails voting Kerry-Edwards in November, he must mean that only by voting Bush-Cheney can Americans prevent another devastating terrorist attack. Heck, if the situation is that grim, that important, I think President Bush ought to dissolve the Constitution right now and declare martial law to ensure that the choice is not left up to Americans. If, as Cheney claims, preventing another terrorist attack is as simple as keeping President Bush in office another four years, isn't the logical conclusion that the President should just cut through this election crap and impose dictatorship (temporary, of course) on the American people? Why leave such an important decision--potentially determining whether thousands of Americans live or die--up to the American people?

I never thought in any campaign I would ever hear a candidate suggest that a vote for the opposition is potentially a vote for one's own death and the deaths of thousands of Americans. The only parallel I can think of in modern history is the famous "Daisy Girl" ad that Johnson ran (one time only) against Goldwater. I think that beneath Cheney's mild, George Babbit exterior lurks a paranoid, power-hungry bureaucrat infatuated with his own self-importance. How else does one describe the belief he so obviously holds that only he and his faithful ward, George Bush, can save Gotham from the dastardly plots of the world's terrorist masterminds? It's paranoid and self-aggrandizing, simple as that.

Meanwhile, across the city, the Constitution Party has chosen Michael Peroutka as its Presidential nominee. Who knew? Tuesday night on "Hardball," Chris Matthews asked Pat Buchanan for whom he would vote in November. Buchanan said, "I'm looking at Peroutka." "Who?" Chris Matthews said. Who indeed.

I have read Peroutka's acceptance speech. Assuming it reflects the party's platform, I do not believe I could ever vote Constitution. I read the speech assuming I would hear an almost libertarian expression of political philosophy. I expected him to endorse a minimalist approach to government. Instead, the Constitution party seems to be all about winning the Fundamentalist Christian vote away from George W. Bush. Here is just one excerpt from Peroutka's acceptance speech:

Just four months ago in Maryland, when I publicly announced that I would seek this nomination, we talked about the cultural and spiritual decline that we see all about us in America today ... We wondered what sort of Country sends mothers and Daughters and wives and sisters to fight and bleed and die in its foreign—undeclared—undeclared wars ... We wondered what sort of country sends sodomites to fight its foreign undeclared wars."

Hey, I say if we actually have Sodomites living in this country, and they want to fight in our Armed Forces, more power to 'em. We could bring home some of our National Guard and Reserve troops and let the Sodomites take a turn bending over for the Iraqis: being from that part of the world, they would at least fit in well over there in the Middle East. But wait, wasn't Sodom destroyed, like, several thousand years ago? Could be wrong about that. Maybe the Sodomites rebuilt after G-d smote them.

Peroutka has much more to say about homosexuals; indeed, homosexuality seems to be a particular sign of the decline of the West, according to him. Strangely homosexuality is never mentioned in the Constitution upon which the Constitution Party is supposedly based. Surely at least one of the founding fathers must have known about homosexuality. Certainly Jefferson had heard of it; he was ambassador to France, after all. Why didn't he ever express an opinion about gay marriage in the Declaration of Independence? But if our founding documents don't mention homosexuality, then how can the chief representative of a party supposedly founded on the policy "of enforcing the U.S. Constitution's provisions and limitations" ever hope to find a legitimate rationale for excluding homosexuals from the rights and privileges enjoyed by all Americans? Might Peroutka be interpreting the Constitution in his speech? God forbid. Only liberals interpret the Constitution.

I could never vote for a Constitutional party ticket. As it is, I am not planning to vote Third Party, but I enjoy considering the notion. This weekend, I may check out the Libertarian party. I do find it interesting that two of the more well-known third parties—the Libertarian and Constitution parties—are both against the Iraq War. Their stance could be purely political, a way of distinguishing themselves from the major parties. Or do these third parties recognize something the Republican party hopes is a myth? Independent-minded voters do not like the war.

We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

Anyone who listens to The Prairie Home Companion on NPR knows that Garrison Keillor has some pretty strong feelings about George W. Bush. In this article, Keillor finally lets all those feelings out into the open. The result is an intelligent, humorous critique not just of the President, but of the Republican party generally.

Keillor's thesis is developed via contrast: the Republican party of today with the Republican party of the Eisenhower era. Fifties-era Republicans "vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party," Keillor says, while upholding such virtues as pride in community, antipathy to waste, and "prosperity that raises all ships." Of Eisenhower, Keillor writes

He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today's. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

Keillor's nostalgia for the fifties would probably be surprising to such avant garde writers as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, not to mention J. D. Salinger, all of whom wrote against the Eisenhower era. Republicans have similarly appropriated Liberal icons for Conservative rhetorical purposes, most notably John Kennedy, whom Rush Limbaugh likes to extol as a tax cutter and Red hunter, his point being that yesterday's Democrat would be today's Republican (conveniently ignoring evidence to the contrary). Keillor is not being as disingenuous as that. He is only extolling the Eisenhower Republicans in relation to the Republicans of the present day. The unfavorable comparison of the current Republican President with Richard Nixon—especially coming from a liberal such as Keillor—should bring a blush of embarassment to the cheeks of any self-respecting Republican. But then Nixon, founder of the EPA and tax hiker, the man who ended the Vietnam War on such a sour note (though the actual Fall of Saigon occured under his replacement, Gerald Ford), already disturbs the restless sleep of such "neo" Conservatives as Grover Norquist and Paul Wolfowitz. What Keillor finds is a Republican party overrun by fundamentalists and ideologues of every stripe and led by a "dull and rigid" man.

Dull and rigid, but canny. The lesson that liberals should have learned in 2000 is never, never under any circumstances, misunderestimate George W. Bush. In some ways, the shock the Kerry campaign is feeling after Bush's successful Republican Convention last week reveals that liberals did not learn that lesson. They gave the President breathing room, room to define himself (and his opponent, John Kerry), free of rebuttal throughout the month of August. The result is a bleak September for Democrats, unless they can get their act together; however, right now it does look as if the Democrats are going to stubbornly continue the pursuit of their irrational course to the bitter end.

I read in the Washington Post this morning that Kerry is considering apologizing for his more extreme statements against the Vietnam War in 1972 (Kerry Took the GOP Bait). I hope this is incorrect. If an apology screams MISTAKE!!! to me, an outsider, why can't Kerry see it? It refocuses attention on the issue, confirms what the Swift Boat Veterans are saying (that Kerry lied, or at least exaggerated in his testimony), and gives the Bush campaign ammunition for more attacks. How does one get through to the Kerry campaign that the American people don't need or want his apology? How does one communicate to John Kerry that the only ones that do want an apology are people who dislike him and who won't vote for him anyway?

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A Mythic Reality

The New York Times > Krugman: A Mythic Reality
Apparently the Democrats, via Paul Krugman, are already developing their excuses for why they lost Election 2004. Seems a bit premature, yet the initial polls following the Republican convention last week are creating an atmosphere of despair among the Democrats. Personally, I think the surge of support for Bush is directly related to the fact that I have thrown my support behind his opponent. Whomever I vote for in a Presidential election always loses.

That aside, Krugman suggests that if Bush wins in November—and Krugman all but concedes that this is more likely than not—it will be because " ...once war psychology takes hold, the public desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes heroic qualities to even the least deserving ruler." The fault, Dear Reader, lies not in John Kerry, but in ourselves.

To his credit, Krugman does give Kerry some advice for the campaign home stretch. For example, he advises Kerry to emphasize the Bush photo-op on the deck of that aircraft carrier. Proving that Bush is not an effective war team leader seems central to the Krugman Strategy for Victory™. It also seems to be a dubious task, to my mind. The task of changing the majority of Americans' perception of President Bush as an effective war time leader earns the adjective "Sisyphean," in my opinion. Still, it might be worth a try. Krugman is correct. Bush is not an effective wartime leader ... he just "plays one on TV."

I find it supremely disconcerting to find myself at this stage in my life politically aligned with such people as Michael Moore and the gaggle of protestors who descended on New York last week. There is still a rebellious part of me that wants to vote for Bush despite my better reason. Call it my Id ... I know of no better word for it. I want to "vote my gut," in imitation of Bush's own stated decision-making process. If I voted my gut, I'd vote for Bush just to piss off all my liberal friends and co-workers. There is a naughty part of me that enjoys doing that, defeating others' expectations of me, I mean.

There is also a darker side of me that likes war, probably because I myself have never participated in it. I have studied war, but I have lived in times of peace, mostly. Peace is boring. War is a stimulus to feeling amongst people who no longer feel anything. War results in a wealth of creative output from writers and artists who would otherwise create works of ennui and decadence. War revives the mythic struggle between good and evil, the simplicity of two combatants brutally struggling for dominance. The patriot finds a cause again in wartime. The boy goes off to war and becomes a man; or else he dies, not necessarily heroically, but having at least done something, absurd as it might be.

It is all a myth, an empty myth, but then humans believe in all kinds of comforting myths. What kind of world would be the result of people living free of the lies we tell ourselves and each other? One can fool one's self into believing such a world would be better. I am unconvinced.

As long as I can keep my darker urges in check, I will vote for John Kerry. But if George Bush wins, I won't be depressed. There may be a lot of Democrats suddenly filling prescriptions for Zoloft, but not me. I really don't feel strongly that life is going to be appreciably better or worse whomever is elected in November. And maybe Bush really does have the correct long-term vision for this country. I say, let the Fates decide. Whatever will be, will be.

The end of all of that

Suddenly, summer is over; and appropriately enough, the past two days
have been rainy and drear. The change in the weather reminds me of
that old Billie Holiday song, "Gloomy Sunday." Well, perhaps things
aren't quite that bleak. A better choice would be the Johnny Mercer
tune "Autumn Leaves," as sung by Nat King Cole (or perhaps Edith Piaf; I
like both versions).

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hand I used to hold

Autumn is my favorite time of year, even at its gloomiest. I much prefer autumn to summer. Autumn is for me as much a beginning as an end. Autumn is the beginning of school and all the possibilities entailed therein; my birthday is in October, so there again, in that end is my beginning. In autumn, I am reminded of the evenings I spent squirrel hunting in
West Virginia, when I was a youth. I remember sitting on a hillside, my back to a tree, feeling the still-warm sun on my skin, waiting and watching; and then a chill wind blew through the tree tops, shaking down a shower of gold and red leaves. The leaves lie like a brilliant, thick carpet all across the forest floor. Peace. Peace is a wooded hillside in autumn. Sometimes I think that when I am dead, I should like to be transported back to West Virginia and left lying in the open on some hillside or other, any hillside, where my corpse may become food for the buzzards and coons and possums, flesh slowly seeping back into the forest floor, scavengers scattering my bones. I want no Christian rites when I die.

One of my favorite Hitchcock films is The Trouble With Harry,
not because the plot is particularly memorable, or Hitchcock's directing
is superior. The film as a film is sub-par. I like this movie
because of the setting, New England in the Fall. The technicolor
radiance of the New England village, the woods and fields, are
incredibly beautiful. One suspects this film was made in the early
days of color film, and Hitchcock looked for a place to showcase
color. I don't know why, but the directors of films from the fifties
always seem to highlight reds and oranges in their color schemes.
The Seven-Year Itch is a red and orange film, with Marilyn's gold hair and white dresses standing out in a striking manner. I also like The Trouble With Harry because it features a young Shirley Maclaine. What a beauty she was with her red hair and red lips! I think one reason I married a red-head was because of early exposure to the young Shirley Maclaine. Even though it is in black and white, The Apartment from 1960 is another film that features the young, lovely Maclaine. I fall in love with her every time I see her in an old movie.

All my best memories are autumn memories. Paris in November, for
example. For me, the smell of Paris is the smell of cold rain mixed
with diesel exhaust. Paris was so cold the first time we went, back
in 1998. It was one of the coldest Novembers on record, but the
weather was perfect as far as I was concerned. I remember standing
along the parapet on the roof of Notre Dame, hands shoved deep in my
coat pockets, scarf pulled tight around my face; I stood looking out
over the foggy, cold, wet, diesel-smelling city, and thinking "This is how
Paris is supposed to be: cold, foggy, medieval."

Since you went away
the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Perhaps that olfactive memory of Paris has deeper roots in my past. Perhaps it all goes back to West Virginia, like everything else. When I was an infant and cranky, my grandfather used to take me to the barn and sit with me on the tractor, its engine idling. When she relates this story years later, my mother tells me that the noise of the tractor soothed me; or perhaps the diesel fumes choked me and I lapsed into a carbon monoxide-induced unconsciousness. Who knows. But I've always liked the smell of diesel.