Soapbox

Submitted to The Columbus Dispatch Saturday March 27th 2004

Editor:

The Bush administration has been running around “with their hair on fire” over the testimony of Richard Clarke to the 9/11 Commission about a lack of action in the fight against terrorism. In a panic to diffuse this election-year bomb, they are trying every weapon in their arsenal.

Clarke has been called “disgruntled” because he didn’t get the job he wanted. He has been called “clearly partisan” because a good friend works for the Kerry election team. He has been labeled “an opportunist” because of the timing of his book release, and “irresponsible” for speaking out when there’s a war and an election going on.

This is the same smoke-and-mirrors game of character assassination and stonewalling that the administration used after the exposure of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife and the calls to investigate that incident. But let’s suppose for a moment that all the outraged accusations about Clarke are true this time. Let’s suppose, despite evidence to the contrary, that Clarke is a greedy, partisan slime-ball. What does that tell us about his testimony?

Nothing. For all their righteous indignation, no one has produced any meeting notes, transcripts, memos or any actual evidence to prove that Richard Clarke isn’t telling the truth!

One can only assume that they attack his character because they cannot attack his veracity.

Sadly, honesty is something that the Bush administration just doesn’t seem to get. It’s not the failure to show up for a few weekends’ duty in the Alabama National Guard; it’s the refusal to come clean about it. It’s not the failure to find WMD in Iraq; it’s the lies about having absolute proof. It’s not that anyone thinks President Bush deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen; it’s his inability to admit that, in hindsight, he might have done anything differently. On this subject most of all, America needs the truth.

When normal people make a mistake, they apologize and go on. When George Bush makes a mistake, he lies about it, and then lies about having lied, and then lies about having lied about having lied. A president who has never accepted personal responsibility cannot understand how gratifying it was for America to hear Mr. Clarke stand up and simply say, “I failed you…and I’m sorry”.

The Bush administration would do well to realize that, for the American electorate, deliberate dishonesty is much harder to forgive than a simple mistake.

The big story in the news this week is the furor caused by the revelations of Richard Clark, former terrorism expert to 7 presidents, including George W. Bush. In televised interviews and in his new book, Clark charges that the Bush team largely ignored his warnings about the imminent danger posed by al Quaeda in the months before the September 11th terrorist attacks. According to Clark, Condoleeza Rice, the National Security advisor seemed not to even have heard of bin Laden’s terrorist group.

Of course the White House flatly denies all of this, and has set their political dogs to maul Clark with a savagery that must make John Kerry nervous, knowing he surely is next.

The administration’s counterpoints against Clark are many and varied. Press secretary Scott MacClellan charges that Clark is a disgruntled opportunist because he retired over a year ago but is only now, “in the heat of the presidential campaign” coming out with these “irresponsible” statements. They complain that a friend of Clark works for the Kerry presidential campaign, so this clearly must make him biased. The point is also made that Clark worked for Bill Clinton for 8 years before September 11th, and only 9 months for George Bush, so clearly Clinton bears as much or more blame for any failure to stop the terrorists.
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I had to laugh at the story in today’s Columbus Dispatch, “Kerry refuses to Apologize for remarks about GOP critics”. The Republicans have had their delicate sensibilities offended by John Kerry’s aside after a speech in which he refered to “the most crooked, lying group I’ve seen.” House Speaker Dennis Hastert said it showed Kerry’s true nature as a “tax-and-spend” democrat. (At least he realizes that you have to tax if you’re going to spend! Someone tell that to the President, please! )

Indignant, the Republicans charge that Kerry’s words are “unbecoming to a presidential candidate”. What a hoot! They have apparently had a convenient memory lapse about Bush’s little open-mike gaffe in 2000 wherein he called a reporter “…a real ***hole!”

As for the accuracy of Kerry’s remark: didn’t anyone notice the story on page 4 detailing how a government employee was told he would be fired if he didn’t lie about the true cost of the President’s Medicare program? Add that to the list which includes the WOMD scam, the real cost of the war, “middle-class” tax cuts for the rich, the scientists who have been strong-armed into changing their reports to fit administration policy, a Patriot act that is blatantly unpatriotic and all the boxes and boxes of documents that Bush has had sealed, redacted or just simply refuses to turn over, I would say that “crooked and lying” is a pretty generous summary of the past 3 years in Washington.

Of course, Bush is not the first president who should thank his lucky stars that his nose doesn’t grow when he lies. Lord knows the previous administration told some whoppers~ though, as the saying goes, “when Clinton lied, nobody died.”. I don’t know Kerry’s record well: perhaps he’s been guilty of a good bit of lying himself. If he has, his statement could correctly be called hypocritical: it was NOT, however, incorrect.

“Well the world seems bent, and the President
Has no good idea who the masses are.
I’m one of them and I’m among friends:
We’re trying to see beyond the fences in our own back yards.”

~Let it Be Me by the Indigo Girls

This week, President George W. Bush fired the opening salvo in what is sure to be a long and bloody war for the White House. The President began with an ad campaign that he no doubt thought would warm the hearts of Americans everywhere and show what a towering statesman and fearless leader he has been.
Some of us have always said that Bush is living in a fantasy world, and this just proves our point.

Survivors and victims’ family groups from September 11th were quick to speak out against the ads’ use of scenes from 9/11 to further the President’s political ambitions, despite his having promised in 2002 never to use the tragedy as a political issue. A woman who lost her husband in the twin towers said that she wouldn’t mind it so much if she had a sense that Bush had demonstrated any real leadership as that terrible day unfolded. She also pointed out the hypocrisy of Bush using 9/11 to make himself look like a hero when “he has done everything in his power to thwart investigation into the death of 3,000 people.”

The president of the International Association of Fire Fighters called the ads “political opportunism” and cited Bush’s dismal record of financial support for emergency services while he tries to “trade on the heroism of firefighters to promote his re-election.”

Of course, not everyone objects to the ads. A Bush advisor said that the commercials feature a “very, very tasteful image”, which certainly applies to the pictures themselves, if not Bush’s use of them. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said that Mr. Bush’s “leadership on that day is central to his record…”.

His leadership on that day? I’m sorry: wasn’t he HIDING in a bunker in South Dakota or some such place while firefighters were risking their lives?

If George Bush would run on his real record, and not the fairy-tale confection that his campaign spins, John Kerry could just move into the White House today. But first it’s necessary to separate the Bush fantasy from harsh reality.
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I heard on NPR this morning that “liberal” is expected to be the dirty word in politics for the next 8 months of nastiness; as in “John Kerry is too liberal for the American people”.
How can that be? Lets take a little stroll through our friendly Random House dictionary.

lib-er-al adj. favorable to progressive reform … of or pertaining to representational forms of government, rather than aristocracies and monarchies… favorable to or in accord with concepts of individual freedom, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by government protection of civil liberties….permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief…free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant…characterized by generosity.

And this is a bad thing?

A person may call themselves a liberal and subscribe to policies which others find counterproductive or poorly reasoned. A person could claim to be liberal and be just as ignorant, corrupt, greedy and even prejudiced as the opposition campaign which seeks to somehow defame them with the label. Their fault, however, would lie in their policies and not in being “liberal”.

There is plenty of room for disagreement on positions and issues on all sides of the political spectrum, and clearly, things will get very ugly very soon. As Dylan said, “A hard rain’s gonna fall” and anyone with a television is going to get wet. But please, let us not make a label and an epithet out of a concept with which, in and of itself, we surely all agree!

Neither “liberal” nor “conservative” is a bad word, and neither should be treated as such. If one wants to question an opponent’s record or current stance on issues, take issue with the actual opinion itself, not by labeling with a term that by definition is not even derogatory. That merely shows the speaker’s poor command of the English language.
If “liberal” is a sin, may we all be guilty.