The Storm Ahead
When has a national election not been filled with rancor, and, more to the point, wouldn't it be strange and disingenuous if George W. Bush and John Kerry pretended they were competing for the leadership of a croquet association? Bush's call of congratulations to his rival on Super Tuesday notwithstanding (in itself a calculated tactic), it'll be business as usual from now until November.
Kerry's already described Bush's strategists as "henchmen," a barb that's fully consistent with similar comments made by Republicans about Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and mild compared to Clinton's demagogic charges in '96 that black churches would burn in the South if GOP candidates were elected. This hypocritical hooey about the upcoming nastiness is just another example of how lazy the media really is. If you're talking "regime change," as Kerry said last year about Bush in the midst of the Iraqi invasion, why not start with the communications industry?
Last week's manufactured "controversy" was over the president's initial volley of television commercials, which began running on cable stations in 17 states, one day after Kerry finished off John Edwards and became the de facto Democratic presidential nominee. The 30-second spots, too gauzy and over-designed if you ask me, dared to show snippets of imagery from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Imagine that: An incumbent president, who heroically led the country in the aftermath of the single most defining event of the past 50 years, and he has the gall to remind voters that it wasn't just an awful nightmare.
I'll leave aside the objections of those citizens who lost family members in the attacks?regardless of their political affiliations?to the advertising. They're entitled to say anything, even if Democrats (like the radical group MoveOn.org) dictated the talking points with less than noble intentions. But the outburst from Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a union that endorsed Kerry last year, is one for the books. He told the Washington Post, in an article that appeared on March 5, "We find [the ads] absolutely disgraceful and disgusting," adding, according to reporter Paul Farhi, that he'd have condemned his candidate if the Kerry campaign invoked Ground Zero in its own advertising.
The New York Times, as usual, provided its own anti-Bush spin in last Friday's paper. Noting "by day's end, the Bush campaign had issued a statement from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, supporting Mr. Bush's right to invoke the attacks," the daily, unlike its competitors, didn't see fit to include a quote from Giuliani.
The Times editorialized the same day, no doubt more in sadness than anger, that such advertising debases a civil discussion of issues between the two candidates. The paper said: "It is inevitable that such a pivotal event as the 9/11 attacks should surface in the presidential campaign. The fact that President Bush did not hesitate to underline the tragedy in his new wave [actually, his first "wave"] of campaign commercials puts voters on early notice that they must bring their considered judgment to the bounds of the debate? When we think of 9/11, we think of loss, and of the heroism of average people who reached out in ways great and small to help their fellow men and women. Any political candidate who attempts to piggyback onto those emotions deserves to be shunned by the electorate."
When I think of 9/11, I also remember the "average people"?like two of my cousins, one a firefighter, the other a policeman, who spent four months at Ground Zero?and seeing people, from the rooftop of my nearby apartment, jumping to their deaths. I remember the chaos, evacuations, the rush of New Yorkers running willy-nilly from the scene, people weeping in the streets, and, not incidentally, the endless television replays of those two planes crashing into the towers. Not to mention the countless commemorative editions of magazines dedicated to that day, the hundreds of thousands of for-profit souvenirs sold in New York and elsewhere and numerous tourists trying to bribe cops to procure bits of rubble from the site.
And I also remember the president's swift destruction of the Taliban, as well as the subsequent and necessary overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Ken Auletta's recent book Backstory, a collection of his New Yorker articles, contains a telling description of former Times executive editor Howell Raines' reaction to 9/11. Auletta writes: "Raines? likened his role to that of Ulysses S. Grant: Before attacking the biggest story of his career, he would concentrate his forces? In a September 12th e-mail to the newsroom, Raines wrote, 'Thank you one and all for a magnificent effort in putting out, in the midst of a heartbreaking day, a paper of which we can be proud for years to come? In a different context of violence, Yeats wrote that 'a terrible beauty is born.'"
Maybe Kerry, who regales gullible reporters by reciting lines from the most famous T.S. Eliot poems, ought to choose Raines as his veep.
The Times ignored Giuliani's remarks, a remarkable demonstration even for Kerry's print mouthpiece, but the Daily News didn't. "This is part of the President's record," the former mayor told the tabloid. "It's part of history. He did such a good job it would almost be false advertising not to include images of 9/11." Asked if the Bush campaign put him up to speaking out, Giuliani said he "volunteered to do it." In addition, the Washington Post, which will certainly endorse Kerry this fall, sought balance in its article, quoting Giuliani as saying, "[Bush's] leadership on that day is central to his record, and his continued leadership is critical to our ultimate success against world terrorism."
One of Kerry's spokeswomen, Stephanie Cutter, gave ABC News a soundbite last week, in a very scary preview of what an administration led by the Massachusetts senator might presage. She said: "Here's the bottom line: George Bush can't rewrite history with $150 million. George Bush is going to spend more on this election than any candidate in the nation's history to help whitewash over all his broken promises on jobs, health care, education and national security. The real story here is what's not in the new Bush ads, because this president acts as though the last three and a half years never happened."
That's not a typo.
Cutter has the balls to lie to an admittedly sympathetic network about Bush's first term in office. One can agree or disagree on any range of Bush's accomplishments or failures, depending on political mindset, but for a Kerry aide to suggest that Bush has acted as if the "last three and a half years never happened" is such a vile statement that maybe this election will be more vicious than those in the past. Since 9/11, nearly everything Bush has done has been in reaction to an unexpected war that happened to occur during his White House tenure.
The Wall Street Journal's lead editorial on March 5, which also held that the "exploitive" ads were mild, offered a unique perspective. "We write this from offices that are 200 yards from Ground Zero and were rendered uninhabitable for almost a year by the attack? The threat of another such assault, and how to prevent it, has dominated our politics for three years. From tax cuts designed to save the economy from the double-whammy of terrorism and recession, to the Patriot Act, to regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of Mr. Bush's 'forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East,' just about every recent major policy is inextricably linked to the event so mildly depicted in these Bush ads. Isn't an election supposed to be about such things?"
I suppose there's the risk of being branded a traitor and charged with treason by Kerry supporters in the media and some states as well, but if 9/11, and images of those bloody attacks in New York and D.C. are considered verboten, is it not too much to ask that Kerry cease and desist all mention of his service in the Vietnam War? Might DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe?wisely being shut out of the senator's campaign?who called Bush AWOL from the National Guard, not consider that if not for the President's vigorous homeland defense, absurdly considered insufficient by Democrats, he might've been blown to smithereens by now?
It bears repeating that if anyone in the United States were told on Sept. 12, 2001 that as of March 2004, another attack would not have taken place on this country's soil, they'd have been amazed. That's obviously not a reason for complacency?that astonishing record could be broken at any minute?but it does refute the absurd charge that U.S. citizens are not safer now than they were two and a half years ago.
Make no mistake about it: This election is a referendum on George W. Bush and his war on terrorism. Kerry's a bit player, an indecisive senator who may become president depending on national and world events that have yet to unfold. But as it stands now, there's no issue more crucial than the 21st-century scourge unleashed by suicidal fanatics devoted to destroying Western culture and democracy.
Everything else is secondary or just trivial: the cyclical economy, gay marriage, the deficit, steroids in sports, Martha Stewart, and the debate over Social Security. Citizens in Wisconsin, say, might not feel threatened by truck bombs or chemical weapons imported here, but if New York?along with Washington and maybe Los Angeles, the only other serious targets?is blasted again, the entire country, and civilized world, will be devastated.
[mug1988@aol.com](mailto:mug1988@aol.com)