Seriously Obsessed with the Election

I'm going to apologize in advance for the many episodes of capitalization and the ranting nature of this post (especially to the much esteemed Mr. Johnso, who has heard it all before), but seriously: ever since the debates, and even more after seeing that film about John Kerry, I have been seriously preoccupied with the election. I've spent hours reading election news and punditry of all kinds for the past week, and lately, I've actually stooped to watching TELEVISION NEWS, such was my hunger for details about what the hell is happening in "the horserace." Here's the thing that strikes me hardest about the debates, both the Kerry/Bush battle and the scrum last night between Cheney and Edwards: the Bush campaign thinks we're stupid, and so does television news.

Ever since last Friday, the Bush campaign has been harping on Kerry's "global test" comment, saying that Kerry would submit America's defense to a veto by foreign countries, which is explicitly the OPPOSITE of what Kerry actually said. Do they think we can't understand the words in English that Kerry actually spoke? Last night, John Edwards correctly stated that the coalition forces have sustained 90% of the casualties in the Iraq war. Cheney said he was wrong, and changed the basis of the numbers to include Iraqi casualties. Huh? Edwards said COALITION FORCES, and he was right on the numbers. It's ridiculous to include casualties sustained by the country we invaded when talking about a lack of COALITION in that action. On top of that, Dick Cheney looked straight into the camera and said he had never asserted a relationship between the attacks of 9/11 and Iraq. Pardon? He must really think we're retarded to sit at home and absorb that bald-faced lie without question when he is on VIDEO, over and over again, saying exactly that. Edwards very creditably took on the subject of specious medical malpractice lawsuits, and Cheney turned around and acted as if he had never even acknowledged the problem. Dick, we are WATCHING the debate. We can hear John Edwards speaking!

Meanwhile, television news is nothing but ridiculous punditry and spin, where they come on for hours after the debate and TELL US WHAT HAPPENED. Like we can't see and hear for ourselves. "Cheney took Edwards to the woodshed!" "Edwards looked cuter!" SHUT UP, BITCHES! The only useful purpose served by televised news broadcasts following the debates is to check the facts put up by the candidates. It does not help anyone to hear Kerry and Bush's campaign managers tell us their man won, as if we are incapable of thinking for ourselves. All that crap does is inure the viewers against actually making an attempt to process what they have just seen on their own terms. I don't need anvils dropped on my head, thanks.

Moreover, both Bush and Cheney huffed and puffed, scowled and looked affronted by every criticism leveled at the actions of their administration by Kerry and Edwards. Bush looked like he would rather have been anywhere but at that debate, and Cheney flattly ignored questions raised by Edwards on the topic of Halliburton and gave no substantive response to questions about the mis-representation of the facts leading into the invasion of Iraq. Instead of seeing these debates as an opportunity to clarify and explain themselves - something they OWE us as elected public servants who work for us - Bush sputtered petulantly, and Cheney talked down to Edwards as if he were an errant teenager. Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle actually used that rankled Dad act as evidence of Cheney's superiority in the debate, but Edwards asked questions that I, for one, want to hear answers to, and Cheney's refusal to address them is offensive to all of us as citizens who pay the bills for those policies. We're not electing a despot, we are electing a PUBLIC SERVANT, and we have a right to answers to those questions. If it's a specious question, I want more than exasperated head-shaking; I WANT TO KNOW WHY.

My dad, an ardently conservative Bush-supporter, is fond of telling me that "if you aren't liberal when you're young, you have no heart, and if you aren't conservative when you get older, you have no brain." I think it's his way of reconciling our divergent positions, or giving us both an excuse for being wrong without getting into the shouting match that would be sure to follow in the event that we actually talked politics; something my dad, Cheney-like, refuses to do with me. It sounds good, but like a lot of things that seem to come out of the mouths of folks on that side of the aisle, it's an aphorism that is meant to STOP further thinking. Similarly, this administration is truly asking us NOT to think. They think we should simply come along, docile and trusting, and shore up our leaders when they are faced with "evildoers" and their "axis of evil." They don't want to give us answers about the choices they've made, or submit to any kind of questioning, because they know what they're doing, and we can't possibly be expected to understand it. Instead of addressing legitimate questions, they give us ideology, black and white presentation of complex and difficult issues, and exasperated sighs when we press for answers. This letter home from a Wall Street Journal reporter (and all the news we hear everyday) underscores the fact that it is pretty goddamned important to ASK SOME QUESTIONS. Things are not going well, and no amount of mediation from our current leaders can change that.

Memo to the Bush/Cheney ticket: NOT ALL OF US ARE RETARDED.

On the other hand, I wish Kerry and Edwards would quit dumbing it down and take off the gloves. Why on earth do they keep defending on the charge of flip-flopping? An intelligent and thoughtful person MUST change their thinking when confronted with information. I think it's time to trot out a little Emerson and remind the president that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Also, I am so tired of hearing politicians play both ends against the middle on the subject of gay marriage. Marriage is not the government's business. If a church will marry a gay couple, then they are married. Period. There's an easy answer to that debate, and it's to let the government mind it's business and record civil unions, and leave the application of the word "marriage" to churches, where it belongs. Repeating that marriage is between a man and a woman is a bad strategy, and comes off as pandering to people who are terrified of fags. There's nothing those terrifying homos can do to erode the sanctity of marriage that straight people aren't creditably taking care of themselves. GET OVER IT!

PS. Don't get me wrong, people: I love my dad very much, DESPITE HIS POLITICS, and since we're both residents of California, I can cancel out his vote, and the Dems will still win. Dad, if you're reading this, LAUGH IT OFF! Don't get all mad! We still have Tyler Hamiltongate to agree on!

Comments

[Matt Ambrose]

I heard that.

I'm so sick of that "liberal when young/ conservative when older" aphorism. Total bullshit. Most of the people who use it don't even know where it came from, and they pretend that they made it up themselves. The first person to say it was Malcolm Muggeridge, a famous mid 20th century secular liberal who, as an older man, converted to Catholicism and became an infamously rabid conservative.

Isn't his little epigram so conveniently self-affirming?

[Erin Lady Byrne]

Your friend Steve is hot.

[Jane Herself]

ELB, that is a truth that fire cannot melt out of me.

STEVE, YOU HOTTIE!

[rcjohnso]

Steve is indeed hot. I absolutely 100% agree with you on that.

[Erin Lady Byrne]

If he ever needs library fines cleared, I may be able to help him out. You know, if he's ever in Tulsa.

[Coelecanth]

I really think my head is going to explode. I mean, just how long does it take you folk to elect a president? Get on with it already! I can't stand the suspense.

If the worst happens and W gets back in feel free to come north. Canada has been losing smart people to the U.S. for decades, be nice to get some back.

[Matt Ambrose]

Omigod. I'm SO on a plane to Canada if this tyrant is "re-elected." I seriously have the immigration papers already. I would even learn French if it would improve my chances of getting landed immigrant status. Jane, who knows me well, knows that when even I'm prepared to learn French, the shit's serious.

BTW, Steve IS a complete hottie, but it's rcjohnso who really cranks it up to 11. Git ovah here so I werk on that zippah baybee...

[rcjohnso]

Go on and do your little half-assed "moving to Canada" thing, Matt. I understand, some of us can only go halfway.

But as for the REAL seething Bush haters out here on the west siiiiiide, let me go on record saying that you're all a bunch of freakin MODERATES, man. If that baby-eating grandmother-raping Satanic racist foul smelling pregnant woman punching flower hating Nazi Bush wins, I will REALLY get out of this totalitarian god-forsaken immoral sty of an unredeemable cesspool of a militant dictatorship-run country by pouring gasoline over my filthy media-saturated villainous American head and lighting a match. So vote. PLEASE, vote.

(And as for the hot-o-meter, YOU, my friend, have been known to hit 12. Stand back.)

[Matt Ambrose]

You SO called my bluff. Alright. I'll give up the snowy north, rcjohnso, if it means I can burn with you. A nice slow burn. ...growl.

This shit's too torrid for TV, Jane.

[Erin Lady Byrne]

I'll be the judge of this hot-o-meter contest. Now, who is this rcjohnso character?

[Matt Ambrose]

What is this, The Judgement of Paris? Don't start another Trojan War, ELB.

rcjohnso is a man (and a Trojan) who drinks his scotch straight. Now if only he would wear a leather skirt.

[Coelecanth]

People, people, come now Canada isn't so bad. You only need French if you're going to live in Quebec or want a federal goverment job.

A large part of our older artistic community is made up of Vietnam draft dodgers, you folk would just be continuing a tradition.

Now, I'm not much of a judge of male beauty but that there Steve there is a fine lookin' specimen so if RC and Matt are even hotter then Canada would welcome you with open, er, arms! Hmmm, on second thought I don't need the competition, you'd better stay home and try and subvert Dubbya's empire from within.

[Jane Herself]

Yo, yo, yo, people. It's Las Vegas Jane, checking in to check the latest fracas. Let me weigh in to tell all y'all that Steve and Mr. Johnso are in a dead heat, and I do mean HEAT, baby. But RC, you need to quit with the playa-hatin', bra. Bush eats babies. GET WITH IT!

[rcjohnso]

I don't think the question is whether I'm hatin', Jane. I think the REAL question is... are YOU hating enough? Does every cell in your body reek of malice towards the unwashed Fox News-watching masses? Is your heart black enough? Is your rhetoric extreme enough? It isn't enough to call Bush Hitler, missy. My Fox News-watching Christian Coalition GRANDMOTHER calls Bush Hitler. Will you step up and call Bush the most evil form of Fox News-watching life ever to draw breath on this planet?!?!

Is ALL reason and rationality pushed out of your system in a rush of adreneline-stoked anger and hatred? Cause if not, you're on the Fox News-watching fence. And if you're on the fence, you're just another jelly brained Fox News watching American Fox News-watching scumbag (who incidentally I would have to HATE.)

Just think about it, Jane. That's all I'm asking. Turn off Fox News and give it some real hateful thought. Then join us. I'll be waiting.

:-)

[Jane Herself]

Mr. Johnso, I get that you are presenting the ironic counterpoint to my Bush-hatin' attitude, and lord knows, I have NO LOVE for that smirking chimpanzee who has no mother tongue; but I can't help but point out that your devil's advocacy doesn't pack much punch on the reason and rationality scale, either. Plus, I don't recall mentioning Hitler even one time.

Now, if you want to hoover up Fox News all day long and vote for a retard, HAVE AT IT, CHAMP; you're still hott.

[Coelecanth]

I work in retail, my hatred for humanity is stoked on a daily basis and yet I can't keep it up for Bush. I mean, er, you know...anyway, I kinda feel sorry for the knob. It must be hell to be so in over your head that you're prayin' for the end times, as I'm sure he's doing.

So glad there's a cadre of venom spewing, Bush rattling, diatribe ranting hotties to take up the slack.

[rcjohnso]

My total lack of irony (and these ass-less leather pants) are the source of my hotness, CJ. And I assure you, the W's not getting my vote.

Now excuse me while I shake my air-cooled cheeks like a madman.

[meg]

Coelecanth: Actually, knowing French gets you extra points on the immigration sweepstakes, and they've got their own special test for it (including pronunciation, damn their eyes... make that "damn their eyes, eh, feckin' Mo'real"). It's not just a question of ordering poutine.

CJ: It was, indeed, the bicycular bloviations that brought me to your delightful doorstep in the first place.

MA: Muggeridge. Feh.

The rest of you love-festers: Get a room, ya pimps!

[Jane Herself]

Don't start shakin' it until I get over there with my camera, Mr. Johnso. That's precisely the kind of action I would HATE to miss, and I mean that without a single shred of irony.