Howard Dean recently got a lot of heat for noticing that 99 percent of Republican federal, state, and local legislators are white and in state legislatures alone there are 3,643 Republicans, only 44 of whom (1.2 percent) are minorities. He called them “pretty much the white Christian party”. Of course, that was outrageous and over the top. There are plenty of non-white, non-Christian people who vote Republican… they just don’t get elected as Republicans. They know their place.
The important lesson here: don’t make sweeping generalizations impugning the integrity of the people who follow a particular political philosophy.
Dean also had remarked that many of the leaders of the Republican Party “hadn’t worked an honest day in their lives”. Again, grossly overstated. Sure, George Bush grew up in a rich family, had every educational and business opportunity handed to him on a silver platter, and always had daddy’s friends to bail him out of financial trouble or an impending military draft. But there are plenty of Republican voters who supported Bush who are struggling to work two jobs in order to provide for their runaway health care costs, rising gas and heating oil prices, pay for child support, and buy body armor for their oldest son to go to Iraq.
The important lesson here: don’t assume that all of the people who support certain leaders share all the same characteristics of those leaders.
Then Senator Dick Durbin got in trouble because he read the FBI accounts of the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo. He read the accounts of beatings, chaining prisoners to walls and floors, forcing them to piss and shit on themselves, sexual humiliation, and said “If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”
Well, this remark was just out of line! Sure, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot beat, chained, defiled, humiliated, abused, and disrespected their prisoners, too, but then they went on to experiment on them, force them to hard labor, and murder them by the millions. We’ve got a long way to go to reach that level of depravity. Durbin would have been better off saying the report read like prisoner abuse perpetrated by the Eqyptians, Indonesians, or Saudis (you know, our allies).
The important lesson here: Don’t exaggerate the actions or motives you condemn. Make your case objectively.
So that takes us to the recent remarks by Bush’s Brain, Karl Rove:
But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.
Note the lack of sweeping generalization, impugning integrity, or exaggeration. I remember when I watched those planes hit the Towers, how I thought, “wow, somebody needs a hug.” Oh sure, on the outside I was crying and angry and screaming for the head of Osama bin Laden on a pike, but deep inside I was wondering about how the family dynamics of being but one boy of fifty-seven children might have affected Osama’s self esteem.
In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be to “use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States.”
How ridiculous of us, as citizens, to band together and ask our government to use moderation and restraint. We should have been 100% gung-ho to invade Afghanistan, rout the Taliban, and capture Osama bin Laden… oh, wait, we did support that 100%! We did think it was a good idea to go after the perpetrator of and the staging ground for 9/11. It was that idea of taking the eye off Osama in order to get Saddam; that’s where we wanted some moderation and restraint.
I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.
My first thought was, “how in hell did four simultaneous hijackings occur and three planes crash into two of our most prominent buildings, when we have the greatest military and intelligence in the world?” My second thought was “who’s in charge of protecting this country and how could there have been such a serious failure when, since 1993, all our security agencies have indicated the threat of radical Islamic terrorism in the United States is our number one priority?”
Some people say I blame America first when I should be blaming the terrorists. Well, of course I blame the terrorists! But suppose you move to scorpion country. You’re taking a new job out in the desert. The guy whose job you’re taking tells you you’re going to need some heavy boots to protect against the scorpions. A few of the other workers have already been stung by the scorpions. Everyone tells you to watch out for the poisonous scorpions. Then one day you’re running around barefoot and you get stung by a scorpion. What good does it do you to blame the scorpion for stinging you? You knew you were in a scorpion-filled desert. You know what scorpions do. Everyone told you to wear the boots.
The fact that Rove is able to promote George Bush by bringing up 9/11 is a political feat unmatched in history. He’s the leader of the government that presided over the worst intelligence failure in our history and then uses the 3,000 preventable deaths from the worst foreign attack on American soil as a friggin’ calling card. A President Gore in a similar (yet far less likely – he thought al Qaeda was important) circumstance would’ve been impeached before the end of that year.
MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies.
Most of all, we should understand who our militant radical fundamentalist Islamic enemy is and not be distracted from pursuing him through the mountains of Tora Bora while President Chimpy settles an old score with a contained stable secular dictator of no threat to us or his neighbors.
Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.
Yes, we all hate America. How dare we notice the warning signs of atrocity, repression, and fascism and compare it to the worst examples of the 20th century? We should be like the good conservatives who’ve signed on to Operation End Justifies the Means. It doesn’t matter what we see or hear about the war, because we’re a great nation, no matter what we do.
Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.
Wow, five 9/11‘s and a Twin Towers to boot, topped off with a “putting soldiers in danger” riff! If only Senator Durbin hadn’t said anything about Guantánamo, all those Muslims worldwide would love us by now. Well, then there’s those unflattering photos from Abu Ghraib, taken by those few ‘bad apples’, but the Washington Post didn’t have to publish them.
Oh, and as far as the agreement of the American people, according to the latest Washington Post Poll:
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, while two-thirds say the U.S. military there is bogged down and nearly six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting — in all three cases matching or exceeding the highest levels of pessimism yet recorded. More than four in 10 believe the U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming analogous to the experience in Vietnam.
Perhaps most ominous for President Bush, 52 percent said war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States…. It was the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home.
Overall, more than half — 52 percent — disapprove of how Bush is handling his job, the highest of his presidency. A somewhat larger majority — 56 percent — disapproved of Republicans in Congress, and an identical proportion disapproved of Democrats.
There were signs, however, that Bush and Republicans in Congress were receiving more of the blame for the recent standoffs over such issues as Bush’s judicial nominees and Social Security. Six in 10 respondents said Bush and GOP leaders are not making good progress on the nation’s problems; of those, 67 percent blamed the president and Republicans while 13 percent blamed congressional Democrats. For the first time, a majority, 55 percent, also said Bush has done more to divide the country than to unite it.
Enjoy those falling numbers, Karl. Time for another orange alert. Break out the American flags and start bashing the American fags. And for God’s sake, don’t utter a sentence without throwing 9/11 in it!
