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Mon. Sep 27, 2004

Our Candidates: Disgraceful and UnAmerican

I’m not sure how much I’ll be writing about politics over the next month or so. It’s begun to feel a bit like a 98 pound weakling standing between two brawling heavyweights. No matter what you say, one or the other is going to swat you for it. Or both. They’re too wrapped up in the Big Brawl to do anything else, and you’re just in their way.

You don’t have to cruise the blogs or their comments sections to hear this ugly tenor. These two polar opposites are well represented in our national press this weekend. Imagine what it is like to stand between these two views. On one end, we have the claim that Kerry’s campaign tactics are “Disgraceful” and “sufficient grounds for concern about his fitness to be president.” And 180 degrees opposed, we have the view that the President’s campaign is “Un-American,” and “the people running the government clearly regard keeping Mr. Bush in office as more important than maintaining a united front on the most important threat to the nation.”

Those are from the Weekly Standard and the New York Times. I suppose it could almost as easily be Fox and CBS. And perhaps that’s exactly the point. In the Blogosphere, in newspapers, magazines, on TV and cable news networks, our cup runneth over with “disgraceful” and “un-American” (“biased,” too).

I’ve got a surprise for you: these are not mutually exclusive positions. But Heaven forbid that you suggest that both of them may be at least partially right. That’ll just get you swatted. Both of the linked pieces above boil down to the same claim: the campaigns will say almost anything they think might help them get them elected (or re-elected), with little regard to any impact on other little areas like, for example, national security. Or any area outside their precious polls. And often, with little regard for the truth.

This creates a circumstance I find most perplexing. 95% of people (those not “undecided”) will quickly agree, that Other Guy doesn’t shoot straight, offers political spin rather than substance, and his rabid supporters are even worse. They’ll readily give you examples. They think they see the problem. But they only see half of it.

No matter which “side” you may have chosen, you likely can’t see that it, too, is guilty of most of the things you charge the Other Side with doing. And when someone like me points it out, the reply is, “maybe, but they’re far worse, and it’s just done in response to them.”

So, rather than get all exercised each time one campaign or the other does something stupid, or maintain the pipedream something will break them out of this vicious cycle that reduced our choice to “Disgraceful” or “Un-American” ... I may just shut up.

Mostly.

I started off with a poor metaphor about being between two heavyweights. Other people have described this election with a familiar old metaphor; it’s like watching a slow motion car wreck, and you know it’s going to be ugly, but you can’t turn away. The problem is, that metaphor is dependent on a “sideline observer” who will be unimpacted by the car wreck. If you’ve picked a candidate, you’re in one of those cars, the red one, or the blue one. Win or lose, there’s going to be long term damage.

Consider me the pedestrian in the crosswalk. Though I can’t stop your wreck, and therefore should probably shut up about it, I reserve the right to occasionally overheat and shout, “you idiots, you could’ve killed me!”