Earlier this week former Vice
President Al Gore chose to hop on the Dean bandwagon. During the summer
of 2002, I started looking into Howard Dean closely, since a family friend
was considering doing advance for him. I liked what I saw then, and
became a devotee for his principled stand against the war in Iraq.
You can assail his stance, and impugn his motivation as tactical if you
want, since he had relatively little to lose, since he was a second tier no-name
candidate at the time, and he didn't have to confront the issue directly
with a vote in Congress. But the situation is what it is and he rose
to speak when most Democrats were cowed into silence. For that he has
my unwavering support.
However, he clearly has many flaws, as due most candidates for higher office.
What I’m more concerned about these days though, is what candidates do,
and how they govern once they are ensconced in office. Lets just take
a look at Bush's record: he ran as compassionate but has governed as a die
hard conservative, especially on environmental, social and tax issues (Are
there any other issues?). He ran as a fiscal conservative, yet government
spending has exceeded rates of growth under the "spend-happy" Clinton administration,
and we all know what the surplus is called now: a ballooning deficit.
He ran as a foreign policy realist, someone who didn't think it was America's
interest to take an active role in the events of foreign nations.
Now he accepts chapter and verse the grand vision of remaking the map of
the Middle East in the fashion a few influential neo-cons fancy. He
lectures about the need for democracy in the Middle East, while turning a
blind eye and a deaf ear to an illegal wall being built in the West Bank.
He has turned a tragic event that transformed world opinion in our favor
to one in our deficit. His bluster of “Bring ‘em on” and “Mission Accomplished”
would make Attila the Hun blush.
He has governed by division, fear and calculation, above all else, for
what will bring him what to date has been unjustly denied the Bush dynasty,
a second term.
He has forgotten the name Osama Bin Laden, once referred to as "Dead or
Alive." I guess now it's "whenever."
Dean may not be the best candidate. He may even lead the Democrats
into an electoral buzz-saw. But maybe he won't. And maybe those
who are knee-jerk supporters of Bush are touting signs of an economic recovery
a little too soon. And maybe they don't really have a grasp on the depth
of people’s uneasiness about daily body counts coming out of Iraq, no matter
how much they supported Saddam's removal. Maybe a growing number of
people are tired of being divided by class, gender, race, or by swing state.
Maybe a muted but growing sector of society is frustrated and offended by
the none-too-subtle suggestion that to dissent with this administration and
their policies to aid and give comfort to the "enemy."
Maybe a majority (for the second time), and this time Electoral College
wise, will refute the policies and penchants of those who all too often seek
to govern for a privileged few.
Hopefully people will realize that governing is, in fact, serious business,
not just assembling a team and delegating responsibility. Hopefully
people will elect someone who has the intellectual, spiritual and emotional
curiosity that they might care enough to pick up a newspaper and form their
own opinion on a few things of import going on in the world.
Some can, on the surface, point to many Bush legislative and policy "victories."
“Medicare reform” is only the latest example of a bill that seems to cater
to the interests of the campaign donor class ahead of a deserved sector
of American people. But these achievements are dubious I'm afraid,
and extremely hollow.
The devil that is most assuredly in the details will soon enough rise to
the surface. Whether or not enough people are paying attention at
that time, the press included, is a question for another day.
And if Bush does win reelection, the sky probably won't fall, and I'll
probably keep the shirt on my back, but I can hardly fathom another four
years of this kind of governance. The worst part about Bush is the
peace of mind that I've lost with him at the helm. One day he's abrogating
the anti-ballistic missile treaty and the next he's proposing a next-generation
nuclear arsenal. This sort of draconian approach to our national security
only insures that imagined threats will rise to meet our doomsday scenarios.
But I do remain supportive of recent suggestions for a return trip to the
moon.
I have a special someone in mind for who we should leave there.
