A reflection on the election

I have been avoiding politics lately -- partly because I don't think I can add constructively to the billions of words that have been circulating about this election, and partly because I find this election so disturbing. But two days before the event, I'm going to try once more to articulate what I find so disturbing.

Briefly, it's the "Bush-bashing." Not opposition to Bush, but hatred of the man that spills over into denigration of those who dare to support him.

My most recent post sums up this phenomenon by quoting Leon Wieseltier's NYT review of Nicholson Baker's "scummy little book," Checkpoint. Wieseltier observes:

For the virulence that calls itself critical thinking, the merry diabolization of other opinions and the other people who hold them, the confusion of rightness with righteousness, the preference for aspersion to argument, the view that the strongest statement is the truest statement -- these deformations of political discourse now thrive in the houses of liberalism too. The radicalism of the right has hectored into being a radicalism of the left.

Yes, as the lefties age, folks who used to pride themselves on tolerance now turn to virulent and destructive hatred. They justify their attitude by speaking of the intolerance of those they hate -- of gays, of the poor, of African-Americans, etc. They also claim being disturbed by Bush's inflexibility and insularity. But hatred distorts their vision. They ignore, for example, the irony that these supposed lovers of all the world's people should scorn Bush's idealism, denigrate the Iraqis' impulse for freedom, and despair about the economic rise of third world countries at the expense of our own jobs. And in any event such hatred cannot be justified by the supposed errors of its target.

What causes this attitude is not Bush, the man, but something he represents. I believe that this is Bush's faith-based reasoning. The "thinking" class -- journalists, novelists, pundits -- finds this posture disturbing because it resists their own supposedly nuanced, perceptive, educated appeals. Give us back one of our own, who speaks French, and probably reads books.

Bush-hatred does not spring from the left's revulsion over the war in Iraq. At most, that provided convenient fuel. After all, the left rejected the man who would have ended that war, nominating instead the "war hero" who has endorsed it, while of course appropriately holding his nose. No, Bush-hatred antedated Iraq. Consider the following excerpts from an email Michael Moore broadcast on 9/12/2001. It's worth reading now, a couple of days before the election (and a couple of days after OBL has officially taken credit for 9/11).

Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the “terrorist threat” and today’s scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn’t add up. Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path? Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today? Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don’t know. . . . .

[O]ur recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the federal government.
From the first minutes of today’s events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that?
Maybe it’s because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It’s much easier to get us to hate when the object of our hatred doesn’t look like us. . . .

In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. . . . .

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity…Let’s mourn, let’s grieve, and when it’s appropriate let’s examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.

Reflect on what this initial reaction to 9/11 says about the attitudes of Moore, and of those in his wide and enthusiastic audience. A day after 9/11, Moore's impulse was to blame Bush and his policies. As the identity and nature of our attackers became apparent, Moore and his friends had to devise more elaborate explanations of how Bush was at fault. Not surprisingly, OBL noted in his recent message that Bush cost lives by continuing to read to the school children after he learned of the attack. OBL must have read Michael Moore's email -- if they'll believe that, they'll believe anything. And the worst injustice of the attack? Killing Democrats!

I only hope that, if Bush wins on 11/2 (or sometime thereafter) as expected, our supposedly best and brightest can get past blind hatred and back to thinking, and the tolerance of different ways of thinking that used to characterize liberalism.

Comments

[Ron]

I have appreciated your wise past restraint on political commentary, I wish you had kept to it, but I do understand. It is difficult to act appropriately when so many are not. I regret that my fellow liberals too often come off sounding like the rabid rightwingnuts who started this diatribe. But I understand that too.

[doctorbong]

"I regret that my fellow liberals too often come off sounding like the rabid rightwingnuts who started this diatribe."

Nothing like the left to try to get in a dig while decrying political mudslinging. Note the 'balanced' rhetoric that compares "fellow liberals" to "rabid rightwingnuts". Note, too, that according to Ron, this was all started by those on the right.

Reminds me of a comment about Palestinian whining: "It all started when he hit me back"

[Mr. K]

Excellent post. Whether you love or hate Bush does not really matter. What matters is that people understand that the threat posed by Islamic terrorism may be the greatest threat our country has faced since its inception. It is our number one enemy.

Unfortunately, fighting tooth and nail for the number 2 ranking is the main stream media and the liberal establishment, right here in our own country.

There was plenty of other ammunition to use in the election battle. Health care, employment, the environment, and on an on. But assailing the validity of the war in Iraq, which really is only a part of what will be a long war on terror, jeopardizes our chances of winning the overall war. Or, at best, means that we will postpone the confrontation, and it will be much more destructive, maybe even on a nuclear scale.

[Gabriel Chapman]

One would hope that the angry left can "moveon" but I am one who does not see that ever happening, especially if Bush wins this election and the GOP retain a stronger hold on the congress. As the Democratic party and its fringe elements who are becoming more and more part of its mainstream, continue to fall out of power. They will continue to become more desperate, more hateful, and devolve further into a fever pitch with each passing loss. 2000 which their champion Gore still cannot move past, 2002 where McAuliffe led them to defeat for a second time, and more likely 2004 where Bush will win and by a wider margin than the polls and pundits are predicting, will compound the hatred.

What we see today is the smug elitism of the modern left. Bush is a smirking chimp, too stupid to be President, who only got the position because of his daddy’s contacts and Supreme Court “selection”. Someone who has faith in a religion instead, who was actually changed by 9/11 instead of simply bothered, someone who sees terrorism as a threat and not a “nuisance.” Someone to whom some aspects of foreign policy can be seen in black and white, where every decision need not be hand wrung till the event or situation passes like we had during the Clinton years.

This mindset that seems so prevalent in the ivory towers of education, the “objective” newsrooms, and the posh dining rooms of the Hollywood elite, spills over into the mainstream through those three institutions. Movies, media, and education all three work in concert to push a disdain and hatred of all things counter to their core ideology. Until the stranglehold of those three institutions is relinquished, you will continue to see a not so subtle pushing of their viewpoint on the masses and you will continue to see the Bush hatred grow.

What is perplexing about all of this is from a conservatives standpoint, Bush has been a failure on many of the core values of conservatives. Farm subsidies, big government, lax immigration policy, pork spending, massive entitlement increases, and many more run totally counter to the primary ideology of conservatism and almost embrace fully traditional left views. But the hate is still there even though the policies if enacted by a Democrat, would almost certainly be met with praise. It’s truly perplexing, and goes to the core of Bush hatred which by and large is irrational and emotional in nature and not logical or rational.

[poll troll]

OT

Best Poll for undecided voters;

Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president

http://www.weeklyreader.com/election_vote.asp

Weekly Reader kids select Bush in Presidential Poll

The students who read Weekly Reader’s magazines have made their preference for President known: they want to send President Bush back to the White House.

The results of this year’s Weekly Reader poll have just been announced, and the winner is President Bush. Hundreds of thousands of students participated, giving the Republican President more than 60% of the votes cast and making him a decisive choice over Democratic Senator John Kerry.

Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president, making the Weekly Reader poll one of the most accurate predictors of presidential outcomes in history.

[Harry Barracuda]

More pointers to the winner: Apparently the Redskins loss points to a Bush loss; a virtual global poll gave 77% of the vote to Kerry; and Harry's Bar gave it to Kerry as well. I wouldn't put money on them, but....

I don't really like being called a Bush hater just because I want him to lose.

You see, Moore's delivery of messages somewhat distracts from the point.

Kyoto is important to the world, and it should be to America. Bush reneged on it.

Durban was an issue for many; Bush walked away.

Many people want Israel to be forced into a less hostile stance over Palestine; Bush gave them the way out with their own "war on terrorism" (which neatly sidesteps their own, constant, extrajudicial killing of civilians - the natural, vengeful reactions can be called "a war on terrorism").

These are few examples of global issues that America could influence positively, but which under Bush have been cast aside for political and personal expediency - and a whole shitload of money.

This election affects the whole world, yet we outsiders don't get to vote on it. Bush is a threat to world peace, yet we can't kick him out. I suppose that frustration is what makes us "Bush haters".

I'd rather America withdrew behind its own borders and made it impossible for itself to be attacked.

Because without America's help, the bullies would fall, the rest of the world would sort itself out, and the people who are regularly in danger of terrorism might actually be able to sleep at night.

Let's not forget who made Saddam Hussein, who sold him WMD's, who financed OBL. The rest of the world hasn't.

One final point. In a discussion this morning, one of my colleagues said that Bush would lose because he doesn't know how to handle the economy ("the deficit last year was $413 Billion").

All I can say is that anyone who can blatantly steal that amount of money for himself, his friends and his contributors certainly knows how to handle the economy!

I believe that Bush will go down in history as the most successful thief ever.

Personally, I'm hoping to God that Bush gets voted out.

And I'm hoping even more that the US public get at least some of their money back.

But I doubt it will happen.

Good luck to the ordinary American people. You certainly need it, if only to make sure the vote is indisputable this time.

Regards,
Harry

[wheels]

"Kyoto is important to the world, and it should be to America. Bush reneged on it."

If it was so important, why didn't Clinton submit it to the Senate for ratification in the three years after he signed it? And why is it so "important to the world" if the best estimate is that it would reduce global temperatures by 0.1 degrees in 2050 from what they would otherwise be?

"Durban was an issue for many; Bush walked away."

Why was it important for us to attend a "world council on racism" that only deals with Arab complaints against Israel and the US?

"Many people want Israel to be forced into a less hostile stance over Palestine"

Because we all know that people who draw maps that don't show Israel are amenable to polite discussion, right?

"I'd rather America withdrew behind its own borders and made it impossible for itself to be attacked."

So you're in favor of implementing a total police state, deporting all noncitizens, fortifying our borders, cutting of any foreign trade that doesn't go on US carriers, and implementing a "Star Wars" anti-missile shield?

That's about the only way that can happen, and even then, it's unlikely to be effective. US isolationism didn't work for long before (ref: Zimmermann telegram).

[Gweipo]

"I believe that Bush will go down in history as the most successful thief ever."

Sorry, the UN has that distinction, thanks to the Oil For Food program.

"without America's help, the bullies would fall, the rest of the world would sort itself out, and the people who are regularly in danger of terrorism might actually be able to sleep at night."

This is just too ridiculous. I wish the rest of the world WOULD sort itself out. Bullies don't magically "fall" by themselves - it's up to you to fix things. Finding a convenient scapegoat won't solve your problems. You don't need a voice in choosing the leader of another country, you need to focus on your own responsibilities.

[Tyler]

Great post! Just found your blog and your viwes are very intresting.