Thursday, September 02, 2004
True colors
I didn't watch or listen to the RNC last night, since I don't have that kind of tolerance for frustration, anger, and base insults. But I did read some of it today, esp bits by Zell Miller. I was as appalled as erstwhile Republican Andrew Sullivan, Joshua Micah Marshall, Joe Klein, William Saletan and hopefully every other sane democrat in America.
The message of the RNC, made abundantly clear last night, is that John Kerry is a threat to national security, a wuss, a liar, an enemy sympathizer, a "Frenchie", maybe even a traitor. This message is supported with bald lies drawn from intentional misreadings of Kerry's record (voting against an amendment to fund a particular weapon system does not imply treason or weakness on defense), the conflation of Kerry with anything said by anyone on the left (Kerry does not equal Michael Moore, or Noam Chomsky, or whoever), and a lot of dangerously nationalistic warmongering.
The central lie under the RNC agenda is that are either for every war, and ever act in every war, that the American government participates in, or you are against every war, against the troops, against national security. This is so stupid that surely most Republican leaders know it is lie; even they can see that not every situation demands war, not every war helps national security, not every presidential decision is correct, that blind loyalty to a president is neither good nor required of American citizens. They sure felt that way about Bosnia, about Clinton, and even today, Bush shies away from confrontation with North Korea or Iran, two bigger nuclear problems than Iraq ever was.
To choose a small example, Zell Miller complained that Kerry voting against funding for the B-1 bomber. But it is widely known that the B-1 is a boondoggle, a poor performer, and a deathtrap for pilots. It's a bad investment if you care about the effectiveness of our armed forces, it's bad if you "support the troops", it's bad if you can tell the difference between chanting pro-America, pro-war slogans, and actually choosing the policies that best advance American interests and security. Now Miller appears a bit unhinged, so maybe he doesn't fully understand all this.* But lots of people in the Republican party surely, surely do. Which makes them not better, but worse people, for they are trying to bury any discussion of what is good for the country in a load of hate speech, fearmongering, McCarthyist smears of their opponents, and good old-fashioned mindless nationalism. That's not a mix that works well in democracies, and people from all of the political spectrum should comdemn it, as Andrew Sullivan had the guts to do. We don't need fascism in this country. We need instead the wisdom of a Roosevelt, who in a far more dangerous era told us that we should let go of fear, even as he led us through recession and world war.
If we had a leader so truly strong as FDR today, the Republicans would probably brand him a girlie man, a gutless internationalist, a pansy who won't recognize the great threat of terror and quake obediently when the leader says to be afraid.
And if we had a party as mindnumbingly reactionary as today's Republicans in the 1930s and 1940s, I doubt we would even recognize our country today.
*Update: TPM links to this interview with Miller, in which CNN reporters call him on many items from his speech, pointing out that Bush and others in the admin have referred to the "occupation" of Iraq (a rather factual description), and that Cheney and others opposed the same weapon systems Kerry did, on solid national defense grounds (that the weapons were a poor use of limited military resources). But Zell appears unable to comprehend that he's set a double standard---when Democrats do these things, they are traitors, but when Republicans do them... well, he doesn't want to talk about that. At least the convention is representative of the level of intelligence in the modern Republican party.
The message of the RNC, made abundantly clear last night, is that John Kerry is a threat to national security, a wuss, a liar, an enemy sympathizer, a "Frenchie", maybe even a traitor. This message is supported with bald lies drawn from intentional misreadings of Kerry's record (voting against an amendment to fund a particular weapon system does not imply treason or weakness on defense), the conflation of Kerry with anything said by anyone on the left (Kerry does not equal Michael Moore, or Noam Chomsky, or whoever), and a lot of dangerously nationalistic warmongering.
The central lie under the RNC agenda is that are either for every war, and ever act in every war, that the American government participates in, or you are against every war, against the troops, against national security. This is so stupid that surely most Republican leaders know it is lie; even they can see that not every situation demands war, not every war helps national security, not every presidential decision is correct, that blind loyalty to a president is neither good nor required of American citizens. They sure felt that way about Bosnia, about Clinton, and even today, Bush shies away from confrontation with North Korea or Iran, two bigger nuclear problems than Iraq ever was.
To choose a small example, Zell Miller complained that Kerry voting against funding for the B-1 bomber. But it is widely known that the B-1 is a boondoggle, a poor performer, and a deathtrap for pilots. It's a bad investment if you care about the effectiveness of our armed forces, it's bad if you "support the troops", it's bad if you can tell the difference between chanting pro-America, pro-war slogans, and actually choosing the policies that best advance American interests and security. Now Miller appears a bit unhinged, so maybe he doesn't fully understand all this.* But lots of people in the Republican party surely, surely do. Which makes them not better, but worse people, for they are trying to bury any discussion of what is good for the country in a load of hate speech, fearmongering, McCarthyist smears of their opponents, and good old-fashioned mindless nationalism. That's not a mix that works well in democracies, and people from all of the political spectrum should comdemn it, as Andrew Sullivan had the guts to do. We don't need fascism in this country. We need instead the wisdom of a Roosevelt, who in a far more dangerous era told us that we should let go of fear, even as he led us through recession and world war.
If we had a leader so truly strong as FDR today, the Republicans would probably brand him a girlie man, a gutless internationalist, a pansy who won't recognize the great threat of terror and quake obediently when the leader says to be afraid.
And if we had a party as mindnumbingly reactionary as today's Republicans in the 1930s and 1940s, I doubt we would even recognize our country today.
*Update: TPM links to this interview with Miller, in which CNN reporters call him on many items from his speech, pointing out that Bush and others in the admin have referred to the "occupation" of Iraq (a rather factual description), and that Cheney and others opposed the same weapon systems Kerry did, on solid national defense grounds (that the weapons were a poor use of limited military resources). But Zell appears unable to comprehend that he's set a double standard---when Democrats do these things, they are traitors, but when Republicans do them... well, he doesn't want to talk about that. At least the convention is representative of the level of intelligence in the modern Republican party.
