I have been reading a lot about the latest liberal attempt to bring George Bush's National Guard service into question in attempt to deflect attention away from the hard questions being posed to their own candidate that they don't seem to want to answer, and it's fascinating. Frankly, I think it's fascinating totally independently of my own views on which candidate will make a better president. The latest go-around reminds me of the various Tom Clancy novels I've read.
Look at it - CBS runs a report about some newly discovered memos that are supposed to somehow impugn Bush's service record despite his honorable discharge. The high-tech internet crowd starts digging into the facts and the memos turn out to be pretty badly forged. CBS stands by their story, but the idea that the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry campaign put this stuff in their hands to make them do the heavy-lifting around making such a story stick and damage their opponents. Now CBS feels duped. But the DNC doesn't want to fess up to it, so they start talking about how they had doubts. But then, others in the DNC and the Kerry campaign starts floating this idea that somebody put the forgeries in their hands on purpose to get them to raise a stink and look bad when the forgery was discovered. Who? Why, the diabolical Karl Rove! That's right, it's all an idea hatched and carried out by the Republicans to ultimately discredit the Democrats, the Kerry campaign, and the partisan media!
Personally, I think that anyone that could come up with that kind of coolness to discredit opponents is probably actually demonstrating the kind of thinking I want focused on enemies that want to kill us, so if Karl Rove and the Republicans started this, then they are more awesome than I thought. But setting that aside, what a cool storyline that would make in a work of fiction. I don't remember the title of the specific Clancy book (Executive Orders?), but in one of them there's a subplot where the vice president is trying to get the courts to declare Jack Ryan's presidency as illegitimate, and it involves documents that are destroyed (ooh, a Sandy Berger connection!), forgeries, lawsuits, and more.
That was a huge book and I read in very little time because it was exciting, detailed, interesting, and you could really see such things happening. Now, I say we don't even have to imagine, it's going on right in front of us. How cool is that?
Before I ever used to listen to politics, my friend Bobby used to tell me that he'd keep stuff like C-SPAN on in the office all the time because it was far more interesting to hear what was going on, who was doing what to whom, and listen to all the posturing as politicians try to get the upper hand and hide their real agendas. At the time, I was unconvinced. It seemed boring. No more.
I just thought of another parallel - Roger Zelazney's Chronicles of Amber. The main characters are a family of powerful immortals. During the series, a given character will first seem like a bad guy, then later a good guy, then later a bad guy again. All because the characters are complex and have motivations they hide from one another. Truly intriguing stories. That's what American politics is like, and probably the politics of many countries.
Maybe I should run for office, 'cause I'd love my job?
6 comments:
[Political] [Picky Point]
"The high-tech internet crowd starts digging into the facts and the memos turn out to be pretty badly forged."
Really? So far, no one has come forward with any definitive proof on the docs one way or the other. Sure wish an expert from MS or IBM would come forward to examine them so we can get back to important issues like the constitutional amendment to protect marriage and our newfound ability to purchase assault weapons. Now there's some fiction we can all appreciate!
http://www.flounder.com/bush2.htm looks pretty darn definitive. Here's the fellow's resume: http://www.flounder.com/resume.htmWhat do you think?
[politics]
I think the whole thing is a made up mystery to distract everybody from stuff that matters. There seems to be plenty of evidence that George took the easy way out of Nam. He was hardly alone. Clinton did too. But as long as attention can be focused on 30 year old nonsense, it can be kept off of Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and the other fine examples of inept foreign policy in today's world of amateur administration.
"Personally, I think that anyone that could come up with that kind of coolness to discredit opponents is probably actually demonstrating the kind of thinking I want focused on enemies that want to kill us ..." might be more comforting if it were aimed at our enemies. Aimed at the American public, it really discourages me.
It's good to see that you have finally expressed one of the same dissatisfactions I have with the Kerry campaign. You are right, the focus on these thirty year old events, whether it's Kerry's four months in Vietnam or Bush's attendance during his National Guard duty, are largely irrelevant. Ever since Kerry put his Vietnam service at the center of his campaign, it's been impossible to tell what he would offer to the future, so we only have Bush's accomplishments or failures in office to consider and no clear idea what the alternative would be. This is bad, and I, too, hope that they will move on and we will find out something real and current about Kerry. My hopes for a better alternative are low, but for now, we just don't know. Perhaps the upcoming debates will clarify things.
It isn't that Kerry is wonderful; it is that Bush is the more dangerous of the two. Kerry might or might not flounder around, going one way, then another. But it is likely that, perhaps in uncertainty, he might listen to people outside his clique. Bush seems terribly determined to listen to no one but his inner group, none of whom have any depth in diplomacy or domestic policy. They may have been captains of industry, where charging ahead only costs money. But that isn't the game they are in now. If I thought that Bush could back away from "God is on our side", I might be able to stomach him, despite his strange ideas about borrow and spend being better than tax and spend. But if you take apart his domestic programs, there is little in them but an expectation that increasing profit will make everything better. I don't think it is that simple. I wish it were.
I find it interesting that 'anonymous' spouts the same thing I've heard about every Republican president in my lifetime: they're dangerous. Come on, it's just simply not true. It's like calling every Democractic president fiscally irresponsible and morally soft.
In reality, Clinton was more dangerous with respect to foreign policy because his administration did nothing to quell any threats, other than offer olive branches to North Korea (there's a good strategy) and shoot some cruise missiles in the wrong places (that one seems to have been swept under the carpet lately, eh?).
The current administration has made some big mistakes with Iraq, but they are correctable. Action as opposed to inaction has a) made Pakistan a willing, cooperative ally, b) convinced Libya to come clean, c) kept Syria at bay, d) made North Korea quit saber-rattling. The war on terror came to us: we did not, as is mysteriously commonly touted, go seeking conflict. I would rather have a leader who makes mistakes of action as opposed to waiting until the right course of action is soapparent that it's too late to be effective.
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