Stop Beating Around The Bush
The election is finally upon us, which means all you mythical undecided voters are going to have to get off the fence. Our own William Broyles and Paul Burka have known for months who they’re supporting and why.
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I don’t think that John Kerry is any less patriotic than George W. Bush or any less concerned about terrorists. But if I look beyond them to the people who will be giving advice, I believe that when it comes to foreign policy, conservatives tend to be realists and liberals tend to be idealists, and I feel much safer with the realists in charge. Perhaps it is our unfortunate choice to have to choose between a team that is too comfortable with the use of power and one that is too uncomfortable, but if that is the choice I have to make, then I choose the one that is too comfortable.
TO: Paul
FROM: Bill
October 5, 11:02 p.m.
Realists? To call these guys realists is a joke. You’re thinking of what Republicans used to be, back when they balanced budgets and looked clear-eyed at the world. These guys are caught in the traps of what the president’s father once called voodoo economics and, even more dangerous, in the naive rapturous vision of spreading freedom with the 101st Airborne. As Bush himself said in 2000, nation-building is not the function of the military. Your argument sounds good, but it ignores the defining fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The country that furnished the money, the leadership, and almost all the terrorists who attacked us was the Bush family’s old ally, Saudi Arabia. Not a penny, not a terrorist, came from Iraq. Al Qaeda is in sixty countries. We can’t send Marines into all of them. We have to count on cooperation, on allies, on good solid intelligence. Saddam’s biggest enemy was Iran. We have been carrying the ayatollahs’ water. They’re developing their nuclear weapons in Tehran today, laughing at how gullible Bush was, how he fell hook, line, and sinker for the pro-Iranian Chalabi and his disinformation. These Bush guys aren’t realists. They’re chumps. They just talk a good game.
In the vice-presidential debate tonight, Cheney had this hypnotic drone that against my will I found to be convincing, even though I knew he was ducking and evading and downright misrepresenting. He and Bush have hitched their star to the idea that they were right then, they are right now, and they will always be right, end of discussion. That handily takes care of all the recent news about no WMDs, not enough troops, and no links to Al Qaeda, and the increasingly desperate situation on the ground. On that hypnotic certainty, I think Cheney wins the debate, at least on the Iraq part. Edwards unaccountably didn’t make the strong point Kerry did about how Bush is neglecting our safety here at home. In the second half Edwards did better, but I found myself drawn to the Twins against the Yankees—and how about all those double plays?!? Thank God for baseball.
TO: Bill
FROM: Paul
October 6, 7:06 p.m.
So little was at stake in this debate that I found it tedious to watch. So, like you, I’ll talk about Iraq. You’re wrong about Saddam’s biggest enemy. It wasn’t Iran; it was us. Invading Iraq was never about 9/11; it was about the threat this unstable tyrant represented to us in the future. As Brutus said of Caesar, “Lest he may, prevent.” The threat was real then, it is gone now, and how are we not safer for it? And while Iran appears to be developing atomic weapons, you can’t lay that at Bush’s doorstep. They were doing it anyway. The one thing they are not doing—contrary to what you say—is laughing at us. Not with an army on their doorstep. Oh, I almost forgot. Cheney. He looked more like a grown-up than Edwards did, and his answers were sharper, but what he gained in demeanor and knowledge he lost with transparent evasions and lies. Can we amend the Constitution, quick, so I can vote for Bush without voting for Cheney? So, who won? I think you had the right idea: the Minnesota Twins, 2–0.
TO: Paul
FROM: Bill
October 9, 10:48 p.m.
I thought Bush was different in the second debate than he was in the first, but not better. Like Gore in 2000, he switched personalities, from dour and tired to overcaffeinated and shrill, almost desperately insistent. He’s like the guy we all know who insists on driving the car, then gets lost, but is too boneheaded to ask for directions. The problem is, everyone else knows we’re lost. The deficit is historic. Three years after 9/11 and three tax cuts later, the economy is still anemic. Clinton averaged 250,000 new jobs a month. In September Bush created 97,000. He’s lost, but he’ll never admit he made a wrong turn. He’s going to keep on driving, right over the cliff.
Is America going to be like UT, stuck with Mack Brown, who keeps on losing to OU—or like the Astros, who switched leaders and won? We need someone who is not wedded to bankrupt ideologies and failed policies. That’s Kerry. He showed in the debate that he’s willing to walk through the complex issues of reconciling personal morality with public policy; how he could think abortion is wrong but not believe it should be against the law. I understand that, and I think most Americans do too. I trust Kerry to preserve our freedoms, to protect my environment, my food supply, my water, my kids’ education, and my safety. And I trust him to be competent in commanding the patriotism and sacrifice of young Americans like my son David who are fighting so bravely now in Iraq. I no longer trust George Bush to do any of this.
TO: Bill
FROM: Paul
October 10, 1:13 a.m.
Were we watching the same debate? I thought Bush killed Kerry last night. He was the alpha male, and he forced Kerry into being the very thing he said he wasn’t: wishy-washy. Especially on that question about using federal tax dollars for abortion. Kerry’s answer was all nuance, no message, talking about complexity and his personal views instead of about the issue. Debates are not about nuances; they’re about messages. Kerry had none. Even on the issues where I disagree with Bush, such as stem cell research, he gave the better, more heartfelt answer, about the need to balance ethics and science. When Bush called him a liberal, Kerry whined about labels. Bush confronted him and Kerry didn’t stand up for what he believed. To be honest, I was beginning to doubt Bush’s ability to lead the country myself after that first debate. I wondered whether he was in over his head, but tonight he seemed like the president, and Kerry seemed like he was a minor leaguer. If I can be allowed to mix my metaphors: This may be game, set, and match.
TO: Paul
FROM: Bill
October 13, 3:44 p.m.
Actually, Kerry is like the Astros. You think he’s on a losing streak and he keeps coming back. Bush can’t defend his own record, so he attacks Kerry’s. Bush labels Kerry a flip-flopper, but he himself has flip-flopped repeatedly. Remember how he was going to keep the social security surplus in a “lockbox” and never touch it? It’s gone. He flip-flopped on his vow not to use troops for nation-building. He flip-flopped on No Child Left Behind by not funding it. He was right on those issues the first time. The only two things he has truly been consistent on are tax cuts and Iraq, and they are his two biggest disasters.
Tonight Kerry should hammer him on jobs and tax cuts for the rich. He shouldn’t let Bush get away with the hoax that those tax cuts are to help small businesses. And Kerry should pound Bush on energy. We are paying billions more at the gas pump, pouring money into the hands of the Saudis and the very religious schools that breed terrorists. But the big question is, will we even be watching the debate? Go Astros!!
TO: Bill
FROM: Paul
October 14, 7:00 a.m.
I thought Bush did well in the third debate, but Kerry did better; Bush pitched his answers to his base, but Kerry pitched his answers to swing voters. Advantage Kerry—but the built-in Republican edge in the electoral college and brother Jeb may yet see him through to a second term. I found myself feeling a little melancholy afterward. I hope you, and the country, saw tonight that George Bush is a good man. His answers to the closing questions about faith, about being married to a strong woman, about immigration, about assault weapons, about how a “uniter” became a “divider” were totally genuine. For a few minutes the country saw the man I knew as governor of Texas. His answers were fluent and unrehearsed and smart, and he could reach through that TV screen and touch people. Where has that person been for the past four years, and why did his handlers keep him so isolated and controlled? I actually felt sorry for Bush tonight when he lamented, “Washington is a tough town.” It wasn’t the Democrats who wouldn’t let him be a uniter; it was Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay and the GOP strategists who scorn compromise and bipartisanship. If Bush loses, it will be the ideological zeal of the Republican party that did him in. So sad.
TO: Paul
FROM: Bill
October 14, 9:04 a.m.
You like George Bush. So do I. But the issue is not whether he is a good man but what he has done as president. In 2001, when President Bush reached out to Democrats on education and then, after 9/11, when he eloquently brought the country together, I thought the man I knew as Texas governor was in the White House. But that man is long gone. The man who most resembled that George Bush last night was John Kerry. So I feel sad too. But George Bush is not some helpless victim; he is the most powerful individual on the planet.
If he wanted to do something about assault weapons, he could. If he wanted to help Americans who are not in the top income bracket, he could. If he wanted to build bridges and allies, he could. Kerry would. Bush won’t, because he himself decided to abandon his own legacy and champion the extremist ideas of the far right. The moderate Republicans in his Cabinet have been purged. Colin Powell is clearly on his way out. For the sake of our country’s future—its safety, its environment, its education, its Social Security, its economy, its standing in the world, and its very bedrock traditions—we can’t afford four more years of this kind of leadership. We need a change.
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