This article by Jonah Goldberg, while I guarantee it'll make your liberal blood boil with indignation if not downright loathing, carries a deeper message for me. For the first time in my memory, I'm seeing conservatives react like, well, like pissed-off liberals! Not cocky and smug and full of their own disingenuous vitriol (yes okay there's still plenty of disingenuous vitriol in this article) but over-the-top angry and bellicose, as though their golden balloon might suddenly be getting in serious danger of going kaboom.. The thought that they might actually be this desperate, really actually worried, hot under the collar - and this essay is over-the-top - is actually heartening in its dismal, depressing way... Just like their president, when things go south with their own misbegotten plans, they always know where to point the finger - at someone else, a convenient scapegoat.
Still, you may do as I did as a conscientious objector to this war from long before it became a reality and fire off a righteous email telling him to look long and hard in a mirror and save his indignant shame for no one but himself and those like himself who wholeheartedly supported this president, banging their fists against their self-righteous chests, as he ran pell mell into a war for which he was not prepared... but don't bother - his email is completely full (probably with emails not unlike my own) and your message will just get bounced back...
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Kerry won easily, but he could have buried Bush if only he would have said this
With one fell swoop Kerry could have carried tonight all the way to the White House. When Bush AGAIN surprise surprise refused to acknowledge any mistakes in his presidency - and made the question an Iraq issue which it was not, at least not specifically, and I believe not even subliminally - and ended by mentioning that he had made some cabinet appointments that he regretted though he didn't want to name names because he "didn't want to hurt their feelings" - this would have been an absolutely perfect moment for Kerry to quote President Truman and say, the President should always declare as Truman did that the BUCK STOPS HERE. Never, never, does President Bush take responsibility for the events under his watch, absolutely never. The buck always stops far,far away from the Oval Office. There is always someone to blame, and he will blame them. Whether it's previous administrations, terrorists, cabinet members, privates in the army, anyone, anyone else but him, President Bush will never take responsiblity himself. He wants to declare himself a strong leader but a strong leader takes responsiblity for not only his own actions but the actions that occur under his watch. And Bush, like a spoiled child (obviously Kerry wouldn't be able to go that far) will spend all of his days pointing his finger at someone else.
The other response that Kerry wouldn't be able to give to this response because it would be patently disrespectful is: "Yes, of course you won't attack them by name, Mr. President - you'll get someone else to do it for you like you always do."
The other response that Kerry wouldn't be able to give to this response because it would be patently disrespectful is: "Yes, of course you won't attack them by name, Mr. President - you'll get someone else to do it for you like you always do."
The good news
is that there does seem to be some semblance of actual sanity growing in the conservative world. Andrew Sullivan esp. has been taking Bush strongly to task for a while and at the moment believes there is no possible outcome at this point except for a huge Kerry landslide. I wish I held his conviction. And he himself points to the current cover of the National Review as evidence that yes, even conservatives are becoming capable of admitting the truth about Iraq, amazingly right now in the hottest heat of this current campaign.
Post number 100, aka W the Wonder Boy in a Plastic Bubble
And I love the fact that it happens during these debates...
It amazes me - as much after this debate as after the first, though Bush did much better (God knows he couldn't have done worse) - that anyone can look at that man and think, "He's my idea of the United States President." Staggers me. The man is belligerent, poorly spoken, a hot head, he was at times just all-out rude, not just kind of rude but truly beyond the pale and for no reason, he's occasionally completely lost behind that pained expression when it looks as though a small gremlin is drilling a hot poker through his third eye, he enters vapor lock far far too often, he can't take responsibility for his actions to save his life, his only real position in this entire campaign is that Kerry is a flip-flopper, since he has nothing of a record to stand on, and yet a portion of this population - apparently a large enough portion to vote him once again into office - believes that he represents our brightest hope. To me, it is just abysmally depressing to imagine a populous that could watch that man shout and twitch and then, when he manages to actually respond halfway coherently with complete sentences, wink and grin like he'd just pulled off a real number on someone and isn't he the clever one. Historically, I have not a doubt in my mind we'll look back on this footage, and even the most stalwart Bush supporter will feel an empty sick twist in their gut at the idea that they could ever have taken this man seriously as President. As a friend just said tonight, I wouldn't buy a used car from someone like that - and it's completely true - it's just crystal clear that a person who speaks like that is lying through their teeth or at the very least has something major to hide. And yet an actual large portion of our populous will buy him as Commander in Chief. But we all know what P. T. Barnum said, and he wasn't kidding... and what a circus they make all of this.
It reminds me of a moment in Donnie Darko, which takes place during the 1988 Presidential campaign, when the father is watching one of the Dukakis-Bush debates and Bush Sr. mentions in warm, oh-so-sincere, yet somewhat pleading tones, what a good man General Noriega is. There's something about the whole thing - as brief as the snippet is, and it's seconds long - that communicates just comically pathological mistruth, and yet you know at the time that Republicans were 100% (or at least 90 or 85%) behind Bush Sr. at that moment. "Yes, that wonderful Noriega", I can see my mother and father thinking watching that debate from another time during another Republican sliming campaign, "so misunderstood." It's a brilliantly telling moment that five seconds or less long as it is has reverberated in my thinking about politics since. Reading Bob Woodward's Shadow, it became very clear to me that Bush Sr. had a bad problem with pointing the finger at others for his own problems. Every day it becomes more and more clear that this unfortunate trait is amplified a thousand fold in the son. And yet somehow 53% of our population - including my own parents - see this man, this rude belligerent truth-mangling so-called Christian who doesn't even attend church, as a true leader, a moral leader no less. It's no wonder I cling to gallows humor like the one true last outpost of sanity in the world...
It amazes me - as much after this debate as after the first, though Bush did much better (God knows he couldn't have done worse) - that anyone can look at that man and think, "He's my idea of the United States President." Staggers me. The man is belligerent, poorly spoken, a hot head, he was at times just all-out rude, not just kind of rude but truly beyond the pale and for no reason, he's occasionally completely lost behind that pained expression when it looks as though a small gremlin is drilling a hot poker through his third eye, he enters vapor lock far far too often, he can't take responsibility for his actions to save his life, his only real position in this entire campaign is that Kerry is a flip-flopper, since he has nothing of a record to stand on, and yet a portion of this population - apparently a large enough portion to vote him once again into office - believes that he represents our brightest hope. To me, it is just abysmally depressing to imagine a populous that could watch that man shout and twitch and then, when he manages to actually respond halfway coherently with complete sentences, wink and grin like he'd just pulled off a real number on someone and isn't he the clever one. Historically, I have not a doubt in my mind we'll look back on this footage, and even the most stalwart Bush supporter will feel an empty sick twist in their gut at the idea that they could ever have taken this man seriously as President. As a friend just said tonight, I wouldn't buy a used car from someone like that - and it's completely true - it's just crystal clear that a person who speaks like that is lying through their teeth or at the very least has something major to hide. And yet an actual large portion of our populous will buy him as Commander in Chief. But we all know what P. T. Barnum said, and he wasn't kidding... and what a circus they make all of this.
It reminds me of a moment in Donnie Darko, which takes place during the 1988 Presidential campaign, when the father is watching one of the Dukakis-Bush debates and Bush Sr. mentions in warm, oh-so-sincere, yet somewhat pleading tones, what a good man General Noriega is. There's something about the whole thing - as brief as the snippet is, and it's seconds long - that communicates just comically pathological mistruth, and yet you know at the time that Republicans were 100% (or at least 90 or 85%) behind Bush Sr. at that moment. "Yes, that wonderful Noriega", I can see my mother and father thinking watching that debate from another time during another Republican sliming campaign, "so misunderstood." It's a brilliantly telling moment that five seconds or less long as it is has reverberated in my thinking about politics since. Reading Bob Woodward's Shadow, it became very clear to me that Bush Sr. had a bad problem with pointing the finger at others for his own problems. Every day it becomes more and more clear that this unfortunate trait is amplified a thousand fold in the son. And yet somehow 53% of our population - including my own parents - see this man, this rude belligerent truth-mangling so-called Christian who doesn't even attend church, as a true leader, a moral leader no less. It's no wonder I cling to gallows humor like the one true last outpost of sanity in the world...
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
More great news from the NYTimes
There's a lot to be encouraged by in this poll. The gap has vanished, Bush's approval ratings have dropped again, and Kerry is clearly back in the game. After that debate, how anyone could take Bush seriously is beyond me, but perception is apparently a strange and wondrous thing... I keep thinking about certain moments, for example the strange and bizarre moment when, with no one speaking to him and with plenty of time left on the clock, Bush suddenly blurted out, "Wait, let me finish!" Apparently revealing the invisible antagonist always whispering in his ear... "Mexed missages" was another particularly rich Bushism, considering he'd only repeated the phrase at least thirty times previously. But of course it was the pained, petulant expressions on his face that were truly priceless... and somewhat rattling actually. This is our PRESIDENT? Of course I've got no love for him or his policies or the people he chooses to surround himself with and do business with. But I at least try to reassure myself that he can keep it under control. I'm no longer reassured, not in the least...
Missing in Action
The Onion nails it. That absurd garbage about the CBS memo - what a bunch of besides-the-point nonsense. And come to think of it, thirty years is kind of besides the point as well. This is what it's all about.
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