disconnect

I've had a few thoughts this past week about election stuff, but haven't really gotten around to writing them down. So here's some of them before getting to my main point.

There's the news from earlier this week on "Good Morning America" that Bush supports civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Despite the fact that the Republican Party platform which he endorsed at the convention says the opposite. And that he supported an amendment to the Constitution which would make said civil unions illegal. Um, right. I think this is summed up best in only one word - a word that begins with "flip" and ends with "flop". I'll let you figure out what that is.

Then you've got this whole Al Qaqaa missing explosives thing, where once again, from the viewpoint of the President, any attempt to criticize the President or his administration or Rumsfeld's war planning is somehow equivalent to going out there and kicking the soldiers directly in the groin. The Bush administration's excuses for this have been almost too numerous to count, but Talking Points Memo has all the gory details on the subject, including this post which would seem to prove that some weapons were there after Saddam's regime fell, making it our responsibility to make sure that terrorists or criminals or whoever didn't get their hands on them, and thus our fault that they've gone missing. To make things crystal clear, if we didn't guard weapons caches because there weren't enough troops there to guard them all, that's not the troops' fault. It's the fault of the people who didn't send enough troops in the first place. It's not difficult to figure out. And this isn't a new story, just the latest piece of evidence of the mismanagement of the war in Iraq by this administration.

Finally, I've been trying to think lately about what it would mean if Bush or Kerry won. I wrote a post two days ago about the effect I think either one would have on partisanship and division in Washington and in the country, but I didn't post it because I found it boring. I go back and forth as to who I think will win in four days, but this morning I was thinking in terms of a Bush win, so I started thinking more specifically in terms of the thought of, "How bad would it be?" In thinking about that, I kept coming back to a quote I read two weeks ago in a NY Times article titled Bush vs. the Laureates: How Science Became a Partisan Issue.

The quote that really caught my eye was from the President's science advisor, John Marburger, regarding the administration's filtering of scientific work to fit their agenda. The quote is in bold below.

Dr. Marburger argues that when scientific information is flowing through government agencies, the executive branch has every right to sift for inconsistencies and adjust the tone to suit its policies, as long as the result remains factual.

He said the recent ferment, including the attacks from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Democrats and environmental groups, all proved that the system works and that objective scientific information ultimately comes to the surface.

"I think people overestimate the power of government to affect science," he said. "Science has so many self-correcting aspects that I'm not really worried about these things."

I could devote an entire post to this administration's record on science; there's a great anecdote in the article's fourth page about a woman being interviewed for a presidential panel to shape research on issues including drilling in the Arctic - the first and only question of the interview was "Do you support the president?", but I want to make a broader point.

It seems that a lot of people are taking this attitude that alarmists are making too big a deal of things, and that we or science or things in general will just survive. In this example, Marburger thinks these scientists are making too big a deal about government's meddling in science, and that science is strong enough to survive it. I've heard it said several times this year that Bush may suck, but we know what he stands for at least, and we can "survive" four more years of him. You hear it sometimes with regard to climate change, that we don't even know if we're causing global warming, but people make too big a deal of it and we'll survive it.

First off, if you undermine the kind of safeguards, checks and balances, and all-around barriers to government intrusion into scientific truth that have allowed us to survive to this point, I think you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish. Perhaps the word Lysenkoism means something to you. And Bush likes to make a big deal about how Americans can accomplish anything, so why couldn't we accomplish our own destruction? But more importantly, it seems people have this false sense of security, like it's not really a problem if we elect a government that screws everything up, because everything always works out, or it's been ok in the past, or because God will protect us from the worst. And true, I think we and science and whatever will likely survive, but the question is not whether or not everything we know and love will be destroyed, but whether or not what survives is everything it can be.

I think some of this may be based on the idea that Bush will be better in a second term. Let me give you my view on that: he won't. Why would he be? Has any failure in this administration resulted in action? Has anyone taken the fall for our huge budget deficits? For losing Osama bin Laden? For a net loss of jobs? For intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war? For not preventing 9/11? Even at Abu Ghraib, the only people to face punishment there were the dumbasses stupid enough to take pictures of themselves breaking the Geneva Conventions, and even that would have probably gone unpunished were it not for whistleblowers leaking what was going on in there. The people who encouraged the mindset that the Geneva Conventions no longer apply still call the shots. I mean, if you can get reelected whether or not you do a good job or a bad job, whether or not you tell the truth or lie, then you won't care what kind of job you do or how truthful you are. You'll just do whatever's easiest or politically expedient, which often happens to be what most would consider "bad", like not going into Iraq with enough troops because that would require sacrifice at home, or like going massively into debt as a nation, because to do otherwise would require people to pay their fair share of taxes or to make politically dangerous spending cuts.

Allow me to make a prediction - if Bush wins, things will be worse four years from now, and probably 5, 6, 7 years from now and further down the road. The question then is how much worse... will the "Republic be in danger", as right-wingers say about the possibility of John Kerry's election? I don't know... it's possible, but unlikely. More likely is the possibility of more lost jobs, a military unready to fight because of mismanagement and the quagmire in Iraq, a health care crisis, and possibly further down the road, a financial crisis. The last one is the most likely in my opinion, simply because the current financial situation in this country is pretty unsustainable. Obviously you can't continue to just borrow money forever and go deeper into debt - and this applies to both the federal government and the populace that seems to think having $20,000 on your credit card is normal. Eventually, there will have to be a reckoning for the $25,260.66 that every man, woman, child, and new immigrant to this country owes, particularly when you keep borrowing more.

But exact predictions aren't really the issue here - it goes back to the quote I started with, the idea that we can "survive" incompetency and ignorance. Will the United States survive four more years of George W. Bush? Probably... but what will it be like at the end? Will we still be the most prosperous country in the world? Will we still have allies abroad? Will we still have no more terrorist attacks at home since 9/11? Will we have defeated al Qaeda? Will we leave Iraq better than we found it? Will we still have Social Security and health insurance (for those who actually have it now)? Will we be better off four years from now than we are today? I don't think so. If you go back to science, science can survive four more years, but what research will be stifled for political reasons, and what fiction will be passed off as scientific truth to justify some pet project of the administration? If you look at climate change, we can survive global warming, but New York City might not. It's not so much a question of survival, as it is doing the best job possible and creating the best future for ourselves and whoever comes after us.

Let me close with what I'm most worried about, and I've mentioned it before, but I think it bears repeating. I went to Paris a few weeks after the war in Iraq started, but I didn't meet with any anti-Americanism. I think people around the world, and even in the Middle East (to some extent) can differentiate between the government of the U.S. and the people of the U.S. They think it was possible that we didn't know what we were getting into in 2000, and they give us the benefit of the doubt. But if we reelect Bush with full knowledge of all the things he's done wrong, all the countries he's pissed off, all our allies he's alienated, and all the people his policies have killed, we're as bad as Bush. In the eyes of the world and in our enemies, each and every citizen of the country who reelected him is just as bad, and Bush's mistakes become our own. I certainly don't want to take responsibility for the mistakes he's making and would continue to make in another term, nor do I want to face what the consequences of those mistakes will be, even if we "survive" them.

I'm aware of the limits of the readership of this blog, and that most of the people who read it already have their minds made up regarding the election. I don't know how many undecided voters may be reading this, whether or not they can be influenced, and whether this site is capable of influencing them. Nevertheless, I want to offer my endorsement for John Kerry here explicitly, both to clarify the reasons why I'm supporting him, to add my voice to the chorus of those demanding change, and in the hope that it may serve to influence the opinion of others in whatever reasonable way possible.

As this election is for the reelection of George W. Bush, it is primarily a referendum on him and his performance, so that's where I'll start. The failings of Bush's presidency have been widely chronicled both here and elsewhere so I'll refrain from enumerating them as fully as I could. While I don't believe he could ever be a great leader of this country, the opportunities lost by his administration are greater than I think most could have imagined. The failures and wasted chances extend to every important policy and every corner of the globe. Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts have been enacted and hundreds of billions of dollars have been added to the national debt, and the best we can do is a year of rather tepid growth and a net loss in jobs. Over 120 billion dollars, over 1000 American lives and over 10,000 Iraqi lives have been lost in the war the President sought and got in Iraq, and the best we can do is a quagmire. Civil liberties have been curtailed under the Patriot Act, John Ashcroft has been given sweeping authority as Attorney General, and a department of homeland security has been established, but the most dangerous terrorist we've caught here is Cat Stevens (all joking aside, no terrorists have been prosecuted in the United States). And perhaps most sadly, with the sympathy and will of the entire world with us after 9/11, the best we could do was alienate both friends and enemies alike, enrage the Muslim world, lower the probability that any ally (including Britain) will join us in a conflict in the future, and raise anti-American sentiment to levels not seen in my lifetime.

In another post I'll compile links to information on this site that point out more specific problems with the Bush administration, but for now I'd like to turn attention to John Kerry. Few people seem to be pleased with Bush's performance as President, but I hear numerous excuses why Kerry can't be elected. "I'm afraid he'll raise my taxes," "He might not see the situation through in Iraq," "I don't want big government controlling my health care," or "He's too polished." It seems that the most minor detail is enough excuse to withhold a vote for the challenger, even if it's based on a false soundbite from a Bush/Cheney campaign of fear, while the President's glaring problems don't rise to a level where a vote for him isn't warranted.

A lot has been said of the shortcomings of John Kerry as a candidate, and I agree with some of them. It's true, the man's not perfect. But I have some bad news... no candidate will ever be. Assuming a man of perfect integrity, honesty, character and experience ever got through the political process to head a party's ticket for President, a well-honed political attack machine awaits him for eight months of relentless grinding attacks. Trying to lead a country and represent the interests of all citizens is a difficult job, and it's understandable that many people find faults in many things the two candidates say and do both in their campaigns and in their political careers. Nevertheless, this is the choice we have. To me, it's relatively clear. To you, it may be between the lesser of two evils. But I can assure you that it's an important choice, there are distinct differences, and the choice has real consequences.

Even if John Kerry had no specific plans, I think a Kerry administration would be better than four more years of Bush for reasons I will outline in the next paragraph. But Kerry does have specific and sensible plans: At home, he will restore a sense of fiscal discipline that has been utterly lacking under Bush. He will roll back tax cuts on those who can afford them and shift the tax burden away from a system where work is taxed more than wealth. He will work to fix what can be fixed with corporate taxes, ending some loopholes and using the resulting income to lower the corporate tax rate. He will not subject Social Security to a risky privatization plan with questionable benefits and no plan to pay for it. And, he will lead health care reform, something that this President has spent the past four years utterly ignoring, with the exception of a Medicare prescription drug program which manages to be both extremely expensive and confusing and unusable for many seniors. Abroad, he will seek to rebuild America's standing in the world and bring more international help to our side in the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Granted, this is a difficult task given how thoroughly the current President has dismantled our alliances and discredited our country, but electing John Kerry would certainly be the first step to rebuilding other nations' and peoples' trust in us.

These are difficult challenges we face, particularly in foreign policy and war, and there are tough problems to be addressed. But to address problems, you have to realize that they exist, and the modus operandi from day one of this administration has been to shirk responsibility and deny that there's a problem. The lack of accountability in this administration has been astounding in its depth and breadth. Bush and his high-level aides evade responsibility for problems they help create like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. No problem is too small for them to pass blame onto someone else for, yet no success is too small or short-lived to proclaim in banners on aircraft carriers. Of course, a quick look at the President's life would have shown this coming. His past is filled with dodging responsibilities, shirking duties, and getting by with the help of cronies and dirty tricks. So, it's no surprise that we've had an administration that refused to take on the responsibility of planning for post-war Iraq, shirked the duty of doing everything possible to watch for threats after receiving a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," put incompetent cronies and yes men in high levels of government, and engaged in dirty tricks and character assassination against not only their opponent in the 2004 election, but members of their own circle that dared to speak out against them.

Whatever the failings of John Kerry as a man or a candidate may be, the failings of George W. Bush's presidency have been far greater. We can do better than this as a nation, and John Kerry can do a better job as President. He has the experience to deal with foreign leaders to restore our credibility and he has the experience to fight for Americans and our allies with any means necessary. He has an honorable record of service in government, taking on thankless tasks in the Senate such as the POW/MIA issue and breaking the back of international banks with powerful allies engaged in money laundering for both terrorists and influential Washington figures. He has the ability to realize he may not always be right about everything, and to change his course when necessary. Most, if not all, of these traits are less distinguished or missing entirely in George W. Bush - a president who has a track record of failures in his office almost too numerous to mention. To reverse these failures, to lift the veil of secrecy that has been lowered over our democratic institutions, to reinstitute reality and reason as the primary motivation behind our actions, to restore credibility and honor to this nation, its leaders and the citizens who choose them, and simply to get this nation back on the right track again with respect to both prosperity at home and conflicts overseas, I support John Kerry for President, and I urge others to consider these reasons in doing the same.

After hearing Bush say that Kerry's claim that the President let bin Laden get away at Tora Bora in December 2001 was "the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking" and an "unjustified criticism of our military commanders in the field", I thought I'd reference the first paragraph of a Washington Post article entitled U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight:

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

So Bush doesn't remember what the Bush administration concluded. Maybe it was the other Bush administration, his father's, that concluded that. The unmitigated gall it takes to get up there on stage and say things with no basis in reality, to brush off any criticism, no matter how warranted, as blasphemy... I guess I know why he only lets loyal believers in these campaign rallies - the head of anyone who wasn't already convinced of whatever he says would probably explode, creating a big mess. They'd probably have to bring in some minorities to clean it all up... just not a good situation. Seriously though, have you seen the crowds at these Bush rallies? Bush will say something stupid, like the Tora Bora claim, or some Kerry flip-flop line, and the crowds get pretty nasty, shouting and booing and yelling. If there was any dissent in there it could get ugly fast, like that guy who kicked a female protester who was down on the floor at the Republican convention.

More info on Tora Bora at Talking Points Memo. It's just amazing how nothing is this administration's fault. The slightest thing goes right, be it a good quarter of economic growth or a successful start to the war in Iraq, and break out the flight suits, it's party time! But terrible failures in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib and the unemployment office, and suddenly it's buck-passing like you've never seen.

A few recent developments: Over the past few days, I've had some electricians come over to fix some electrical stuff on the new house, as well as some delivery guys come over to deliver an armoire. Both times they approvingly noted the "Kerry/Edwards" sign in front of the house. So that's a good thing.

Also, my mom sent me this Boondocks comic this morning. It about sums up my current feeling about things.

Then there's this story about the 380 tons of high explosives that went missing in Iraq. John Kerry is hammering the Bush administration for the failure to protect them, as well he should. This sort of thing is what we invaded in order to avoid: deadly weapons getting into the hands of terrorists. If there actually were WMDs in Iraq, would we even have protected those after we took the country? Or would we have let them sit unguarded also? Bush will probably pass the blame on this one, or say that it hurts the troops to admit our errors in Iraq. Certainly he won't admit that any mistakes were made, not that that's a big surprise. The thing is though, I don't know that you can call it a "mistake" when we never put any planning or thought into this in the first place. I mean, if you stick me in a nuclear power plant control room, overload the core and the thing melts down, my failure to prevent it wasn't a "mistake" on my part. I just didn't know what the hell I was doing and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Just like we should never have let a President this incompetent and foolish take us into Iraq in the first place. It's too late for that, but at least we have the chance to get him out now. You wouldn't give me four years as head of nuclear plant safety after I let the core melt down, in so obviously over my head, would you?

Apparently some may... here's a choice quote from this NY Times article about undecided voters. Now I understand how some people could be torn between sides even now, but Jeebus H. Criminy, at least have a good reason for it:

Ms. Parmer, who said she is firmly planted in "the very low middle class," also saw the Bush tax cut as poorly timed. She normally votes for Democrats, she said, but is not sure this time.

"One is too polished; the other one, I think to be honest, I don't know how he ever got to be president," Ms. Parmer said. "I am really surprised he has gotten as far as he has in life. I do think he's honest."

Even so, Ms. Parmer said, she thought she might vote for Mr. Bush. "If you actually look at him, and he stands up next to Kerry, you just kind of feel sorry for him," she said. "I feel he's more of an underdog, he's had a hard go of it in the last four years."

Aw... that poor Bush. He's had such a rough go of it, what with losing the popular vote, losing Osama bin Laden, botching the war in Iraq, and having to pander to all of those religious fundamentalists. I just feel so bad for him... can't we give him four more years of the most powerful job in the world? Pleeeeease? Look at those puppy-dog eyes... you'll make him sad if you vote for Kerry!

Now I was only born just before the 1980 election, but somehow I doubt the same sentiment was voiced before the Reagan-Carter choice was made. I mean, Jimmy Carter had a "hard go of it" in his four years, what with the inflation and the oil embargo and the hostages and the malaise and all. People didn't feel sorry for him, did they? Or if they did, they voted him out anyway. But hey, let's just keep the guy who launched a war to prevent Iraq's weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists, and then failed to keep the few weapons Iraq had from falling into the hands of terrorists. I mean, when your whole presidency is basically defined by one idealistic campaign in Iraq, and then you botch that campaign miserably, well, everyone just feels so bad for you they keep you in power just to buck up your spirits!