BRIAN LIBBY

Bad prunes, Velma Pate, and “darkness to the light” with Barack Obama

At about 11PM on Monday night, I felt an ominous discomfort in my stomach and a suddenly throbbing headache. Within moments, I was on my knees in the bathroom vomiting, the first of about ten times over the next six hours.

My mind immediately flashed to a decision made while cooking dinner earlier that night: to use a package of dried prunes even though they were a month past the expiration date. I don’t make a habit of eating dated food, but I thought there would be a bit of a buffer zone. Plus, the packet was still sealed and I’d be cooking the prunes, in a sauce with Dijon mustard over chicken. But I learned my lesson the hard way.

Wretched as the food poisoning bout felt, alternating chills and sweat as I’d sleep for fifteen minutes, scoot to the bathroom, sleep for a half hour and return, it occurred to me at some point that perhaps I this was my body’s way of purging eight years of the George W. Bush administration. My six hours of nausea, after all, had stretched into the first few hours of Election Day.

Later that morning after a few hours’ solid sleep, I felt much better and my stomach was settled enough to have a piece of toast and watch election coverage on TV. I quickly became engrossed by a phone interview on CNN with an elderly Illinois woman named Velma Pate. As a young child, her father and other family members had marched with Martin Luther King. Today, Velma wept while casting a vote for Barack Obama.

After a few minutes, the anchor was clearly trying to wrap up the segment, and began thanking the interviewee for her time. But Velma persisted, saying she wanted to tell the American people that today they were moving from darkness into the light, just as god had prophesized.

As I describe the episode and the moment, I’m of course aware of how maudlin or melodramatic it might sound. Yet it’s a testimony to what an extraordinary moment Barack Obama’s election as president really is that my usual cynicism, and that of so many others, has for a time cleared away like a rainstorm giving way to sunshine.

I’ve been thinking today, this glorious day after the victory, of exactly when it was I lost my faith in the country. Was it 2004, still to me the most baffling choice by the American electorate? Was it 2000, when the election very well may have been unfairly taken from Al Gore? No, I think for me it went back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. I don’t know, and frankly today don’t want to know, what disappointments and tragedies lay ahead. But it’s not time for those worries and threats just yet. First I want to listen to Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” without apology.

It would be cause enough to celebrate merely having the Bush-Cheney era come to an end. Or to see a Democrat elected president. But this is something more. Granted, I thought that was the case with Bill Clinton, too. His election was transformative for me in a personal way, going from my conservative upbringing to left-siding political views. It was also a generational change, and the joy of watching such an effortlessly brilliant politician at work. Even for me, though, with the hindsight of history, Obama's moment feels like the greater opportunity to make a new history for the United States that is bright and promising as the last eight years were horrific and shameful. Regardless of Clinton's fans like me, he was a divisive figure. But with Obama, ironically, given his heritage and the racism that stil exists, it's clear that a greater power to unite exists.

Today I visited the Portland Art Museum to see two exhibits: a collection of historic 19th and early 20th century Columbia River Gorge photos, and M.K. Guth's "Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping", an installation that premiered earlier this year at the prestigious Whitney Biennial. It featured a single very long braid that contained hundreds of felt strips onto which people had written their ideas about what, either literal or conceptual, was most worth preserving. In both exhibits, I was moved by the notion of a river as a metaphor for the day, a narrative continually flowing with ideas. It feels better thinking of the country, and the democracy here, as a livng organism we can still renew and restore when it is needed.

During my bout of nausea, it was the middle of the night and I kept only a small nightlight on in the shadowy bathroom as I purged the prune sauce. By the time Obama’s election was secure as the clock struck 8PM Pacific Time it was dark too. But as I stood under a streetlamp outside our apartment in the rain, my slippers soaking up water like sponges and yelling “Woo-HOO!” like a gleeful child at a winning football game, or as I watched Jessie Jackson cry and cry on television, or Obama himself looking so exquisitely presidential at Grant Park making his acceptance speech, I thought for this night at least that Velma was right: that we had indeed made it from the darkness into the light.

And less than 24 hours after being KO’d by bad prunes, I was already back on cheeseburgers.

Obama's 4th quarter lead

Four years ago the presidential race was neck and neck, with an utterly despicable George W. Bush fighting back from a small deficit in the polls to the pathetically un-charismatic John Kerry, which would ultimately lead to a narrow if unbelievably insane victory on election day. If America was stupid enough to re-elect a man who stole the election of 2000 and then used September 11 as justification to attack Iraq without real cause, I wouldn't dream of saying that this year's presidential race is over. 

But Obama's lead is substantial. According to today's numbers at www.ElectoralVote.com, if the election were held today the Illinois senator would command roughly 357 electoral votes to McCain's 181. 

Although politics are always important, particularly surrounding the economic crisis this year, I think voters see an unmistakable difference between the even-keeled Obama and his opponents. In fact, Christopher Hitchens summed up the Republicans' problem in Slate a few days ago in just 17 words:

"Vote Obama. McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace."

Even so, McCain and his rifle-wielding beauty contestant granddaughter from Alaska could unquestionably still win. I mean, Barack Obama is black for one thing, and America is still a racist country. Can we really act progressively enough to elect this man after four years ago choosing his antithesis?

Many swing voters and Republicans have in the past felt loyal to McCain because he seemed like his own person: the "maverick" brand he's exploited to the hilt. But watching McCain in this campaign, it's become increasingly clear that he is a exceptionally dangerous risk taker. Anyone who would choose Sarah Palin, for example, is willing to make a deal with the devil in order to win. And if McCain himself weren't the candidate, you'd expect a "maverick" like him to admit the obvious: that regardless of policy convictions, she isn't even in the same zip code as a qualified vice presidential candidate, let alone someone next in line for the presidency itself. And because McCain is clearly old and frail, that'd be a very major worry.

15 years ago the idea of a President Quayle was enough for t-shirt makers to co opt the famous painting "The Scream" as emblem of potential disaster waiting to happen. And Dan Quayle was actually far more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin. And maybe even less ignorant. (You know, just stupid instead of really stupid.)

It's as if the GOP has to have some kind of ridiculous extreme in the vice presidential candidate. Dick Cheney, VP for the last eight years, has acted almost as a lone coup d'etat within the US government. He is to the GOP what the NSA is to the CIA: more dangerously covert than the dangerously covert.

First when Bush got the nomination in 2000, Cheney was called upon to choose a running mate for Bush, and summarily treated all the candidates as personal enemies, using private investigation to undermine all of them and nominate himself for the running mate's slot. 

Then after the election, Cheney came to epitomize what the New York Times recently called "an administration that is a quicksand of deceit." Bush had come into office as a moderate Republican, but with Cheney leading the selection of a cabinet, the administration took a much more conservative turn. Worse yet, much of the vice president's machinations were even done behind the back of George W. Bush himself. In my mind, Cheney is the Emperor Palpatine to Bush's Anakin Skywalker.

But Palin is more like C3PO, charming but totally clueless amidst the struggles going on all around. And the fact that she's a woman makes it all the more painful to watch, as if the strides made by Hillary Clinton have spit at by the GOP.

When a sports team I support has a fourth quarter lead, it's a time for tense optimism. Obama doesn't hold a multiple touchdown lead here, either. More like a one touchdown lead. (Kerry was leading Bush by a point or two at this point.) But something as big as a terrorist attack between now and November 4 or some other wild card initiated by the increasingly desperate Republicans will at this point be required for them to win.

Obama taking the White House seems almost too implausibly wonderful and reason for optimism to actually come to fruition. But maybe, if things hold for another three weeks, it will have taken one of the worst presidencies in American history to produce the conditions for one of the best.

If not Bill, then Barack (but Hillary deserves better)

For several months I wrestled with the choice of voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

My starting point was that I felt very loyal to Hillary, quite frankly, because she is Bill Clinton's wife. Bill will always be a favorite president of mine. He's who I switched sides for in 1992 after growing up in a Republican household as an aspiring Alex Keaton. I even got in a car accident the day after Bill Clinton was elected because the roommate who normally drove us to work called in sick, because we were hung over from drinking champagne in celebration the night before. And I still love the guy.

While other people may gripe or feel cynical about the partnership that she and Bill have always had politically, with her being his most important adviser even though she occupied no official role in the administration, I've always considered it a strength. Just as she was an asset to him when he was president, so too would Bill be an asset to her as president. Of course there may be differences between them as leaders, but I certainly wouldn't apologize one bit for essentially voting in both the Democratic primary and the general election to re-elect Bill and Hillary, or Hillary and Bill.

In fact, I think the elephant in the room of this entire campaign, as well as over the course of the George W. Bush administration, is that we as America's voters should have been able to keep electing Bill Clinton.

I've always been against the constitutional amendment limiting presidents to two terms. That's a matter of checks and balances that should be left to the voters. The Republicans ran through that amendment after the Franklin Roosevelt administration when he beat them in the general election so many times in a row. But that kind of multi-term presidency had always been the exception to the rule in American history anyway. It isn't as if FDR's extra long stay in the White House signaled some dangerous new era where presidents would grow into dictators with a permanent grip on power.

I think it's treating the voters like children to suggest that we can't be trusted to elect the same person president for more than two terms. It's one thing if you don't like Bill Clinton and don't want him to be president. Vote against him! But if the majority of the country would prefer him as president to any of the 2000, 2004 or 2008 candidates--and I believe that is the case--we should be allowed by the law to make that choice.

And as for Republican opposition to this idea, let me ask: What if Ronald Reagan had been twenty years younger in 1988. Do you really think the Republicans wouldn't wish he could run for a third term? And even as a Democrat, I say in that hypothetical situation that the voters should have had that option. I'd have rather won at the ballot box than because somebody was prevented from running.

But obviously Bill Clinton isn't going to return as president. So is Hillary the next best thing? Well, that's what I felt for a long time. And I would still love to have her as president. Absolutely positively. Hell, anybody would be an improvement.

Ultimately, though, I've come to see more of the young Bill Clinton who I fell for politically in Barack Obama than in Hillary. A cynic might say it's merely all about me being seduced by great male charisma. Obama is the first person in either party to come along since Bill Clinton who is just overflowing with it. But there's more to both guys than just charisma. It's about hope. And looking back the last fifty years, those from the left who have projected and radiated hope in that way are really maybe only Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and John F. Kennedy.

As president, Obama would probably require a learning curve that Hillary wouldn't. I really liked one of Hillary's campaign slogans: "ready from day one". She definitely would be more ready at the beginning than Obama.

Ironically, though, thinking about Hillary being ready and experienced from the beginning makes me think with great regret back to all the time wasted during Bill Clinton's eight years. First the years of learning how to get things accomplished without gridlock, then hemmed in by a Republican congress after 1994, and then that totally ridiculous Monica garbage. I actually keep a newspaper clipping on my bulletin board from last year with a headline that reads, "Gingrich admits Clinton-era affair" as a reminder of the gargantuan hypocrisy that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment, and how it all just didn't matter at all. I couldn't care less if Bill is a weasel in his romantic/sexual life. Better that than a perfect husband who makes America the world's biggest pariah, and all after that rarest of moments following the 9/11 attacks when all the usual political barriers, both domestic and international, faded away in an outpouring of goodwill. Can you actually think today of the semen stained dress that captivated the media during the Bill Clinton impeachment and not bust out laughing at the absurdity?

When I sat down to write this, the idea was to talk about why I intend now to vote, however reluctantly, for Obama over Hillary. But I guess you can't talk about those two without talking about Bill.

One other thing I've got to say about Hillary, though. Today, as I glanced at The Oregonian's opinion page and found what seemed like Jack Ohman's 10 millionth cartoon based around Hillary being a mean bitch, I started to feel like I wanted to vote for Hillary just out of spite to all those who vilify her. In all my life following politics, I've never seen anyone attacked so much as she and Bill, by the media and the general populace. Many millions of Americans seem to outright hate Hillary Clinton as if she's an Antichrist with an ever-changing hairdo. And after 16 years, I feel really fed up with it.

Yet unfortunately, it's that very hatred of Hillary that also may play a role in my not voting for her. Like I said, I'd love to see the first woman become America's president, and for it to be Hillary in particular. But in the general election, what I want is for "Democratic Candidate X" to defeat "Republican Candidate Y". And I'm not sure Hillary's baggage, however unfair to her it may be, will allow that. I don't know if that means America is just still too sexist, or if people just have it in for her. But I think history will remember Hillary Clinton as someone brave and tough who took much more flak than just about any of her male counterparts.

Meanwhile, a much greater specter awaits in November. After being left for dead politically as a presidential candidate, John McCain now seems like the most likely one to get the Republican nomination. It's true I'd have much preferred McCain to George W. Bush, but in 2008 he represents something that feels unthinkable even though it's extremely plausible: the Republicans keeping the White House for a third straight term.

Funnily enough, after all this talk of presidential politics, I haven't even mentioned that Barack Obama is black. The stunning possibility of a black American president—with apologies to Jesse Jackson, easily the closest we’ve ever come--has been muted somewhat, I think, by the fact that we also have a female as the other main Democratic candidate.

Given what a horribly tragic and tumultuous racial history this country has, maybe my almost forgetting he's black is the best compliment you can give Obama. I don’t mean that I need to forget he’s black to vote for Obama—just the opposite, actually. If anything, in a general election I'd be extra inclined to vote for an African American candidate. Maybe I'm even guilty of some small measure of benevolent racism in that regard.

Even so, I find myself wanting to vote for Obama because he's Obama, not because of his culture or race or anything like that. Much as those things make us who we are, and how we are perceived by others, I think Obama has risen up into a class of people whose message and sense of self demand to be counted as something beyond such knee-jerk labeling. I'm not sure I believe in Americans enough to make him president, but I'd sure love to be pleasantly surprised.

And regardless, January 20, 2009 is going to be cause for a party.

Noble Words, Treacherous Intent

Ever since last November’s election, I’ve tried to pay as little attention to politics as possible. Sure, I read the paper every day to keep abreast of what’s going on, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I oppose the view of most people in power and I’ve got to live with that.

But a headline in today’s New York Times drew me out of dormancy: “Rice asks Arab allies to pursue liberty.” The article quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (I’ve never had to spell her name before – are there really two Zs?) saying the following:

“For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.”

I used to think the problem with the Bush administration was its ties to religious fundamentalism or its related strain, Texanism. But now I’ve come to believe the greatest danger is how the president and his minions are drunk on the notion of promoting “liberty” and “freedom”, corrupting both principles as part of a smoke screen for imperialism.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not the best friends the US has ever had. In particular, Saudi Arabia is responsible for promoting institutionalized Islamic fundamentalism through its mosques and schools to the rest of the Arab world. But make no mistake: we’re very lucky to have these countries as allies. In both cases, those nation’s leaders are going against the overwhelming tide of domestic public opinion to maintain friendly diplomatic relations with America.

The Bush administration seems to be asserting that a more democratic Middle East will give a healthier, less violent outlet for those to express their frustration with the United States or their own countries. That may be true. But threatening or forcing some of our only allies in a hostile region to drastically transform their political systems is a dangerous approach. Bullying our few friends in a hostile area is not the way to make America safer from or less hated by the religious fundamentalists of the Middle East.

If George W. Bush really wants terrorism to go away, the United States ought to concern itself more with its own image in the region. People there overwhelmingly believe that America is an imperialist bully seeking to take over the entire Middle East, if not the world. When we threaten not only our enemies but also our friends with violent reprisal if they don’t kowtow to the political system we see fit for them, it’s only going to fan the already massive flames of hatred.

All throughout history, great empires have invaded and attacked foreign lands under the guise of liberating the people there. And to the overwhelming majority of the world’s people, words like “freedom” and “liberty” that America holds so sacred are really just inflated rhetoric camouflaging the inevitable bombs and rockets and gunfire.

I’m afraid that the Bush administration believes the only way to win the war on terror is to become an even greater threat to the world than the ones we face. And that’s something I want no part of.

New England, Texas, and Class Confusion

There was an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Oregonian by political consultant Kari Chisholm, one of many post-election postmortems to appear in the media since Black Tuesday, this one focusing on how the Democratic party should look to candidates from the west. Part of Chisholm’s argument got me thinking:

“Let’s face it: For all of his strengths, average middle-class American families simply couldn’t identify with John Kerry…He always came across as [a] prep-school liberal, part of the brie-and-chablis scene back East. Conversely, George ‘Dubya’ Bush has portrayed a regular-guy image, comfortable with the NASCAR-and-barbecue crowd. While Kerry tried to fake it with L.L. Bean camouflage hunting gear, Bush looked at home in his blue jeans and cowboy boots.”

What interests me is why in a contest between two rich blue-bloods, one seemed a man of the people and one didn’t. The difference, I think, is between our perception of New England and the Northeast versus our perception of Texas. In Texas, it seems, no matter how rich and privileged you are, somehow it’s still possible to maintain—at least to outsiders—this façade of being an average Joe. But I think a better way to explain it is that no amount of money can make a Texan seem culturally sophisticated.

In other words, then, John Kerry suffered against Bush because his home region is a modern, enlightened place, while Bush’s home is still one that takes the rough-and-tumble frontier as its cultural emblem, with intellectualism in effect frowned upon as being uppity. As a result, Kerry going snowboarding, however genuine a passion it may be, rings false, while Bush in cowboy boots and jeans on his ranch is, however phony it may be, rings true.

As Valarie pointed out last night when we were having this same conversation, why is it that so many American voters resist the idea of electing a president who’s smarter and more culturally sophisticated than they are?

The issue of class in America never gets spoken about much any more, especially in comparison to somewhere like England, where it remains a veritable obsession. But clearly it matters a lot here too. In the end, John Kerry seemed to come from a more upper-class background than Bush did, even though that of course is not true. Polling shows that voters lean Democrat on the issues themselves by a comfortable margin, so that means personality loomed large in this election. It didn’t help matters that Kerry was wooden and uncharismatic, but I think there was more that worked against him. For all the importance of Iraq, the deficit, and moralistic crusades and all the other issues, I can’t help but think millions of voters swindled themselves.

Limbo

It has been nearly two weeks since I last posted an entry on this site. I’ve been trying to come up with something to say for most of that time. But after the presidential election, it’s hard to go back to posting an entry about, say, leaf blowers. (I went for a walk today and they were blasting everywhere. Maybe I’ll stroll through the industrial district where it’s quieter!) Yet so many of my feelings coming out of the election seem half-formed, and I don’t have the energy to flush them out.

Take the possibility of election fraud. In the two states that essentially decided the election, Ohio and Florida, there are reasons to be suspicious. But I want to be careful about embracing conspiracy theory, because it’s clearly self-serving. At the same time, I’m very suspicious of electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail and are owned by GOP-friendly corporations. It practically invites conspiracy theories. And I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Bush administration to cook the books.

I’ve also thought in recent days about moving to Canada. It sounds facetious, something to crow about just for affect. But I’ve been serious. After all, more than any time in my life I feel just outright ashamed of my Americanism. But as one friend reminded me this week, leaving the country to those who hold power now is not the answer. More importantly, though, I’ve been fortunate enough to carve out a life for myself here in Portland, writing and taking pictures for a living, and I don’t want to give that up and start all over again.

Another question the election has wrought is my faith. I don’t want to go to Hell for not believing, but I also feel a profound guilt by association when it comes to sharing beliefs in any way with those conservative Christians marching in step with the president and moralizing about everyone but themselves. Valarie has even considered converting to Buddhism, and I don’t blame her. I’m appalled by how Bush and so many in the Christian right have taken the terrorists’ bait and practically embraced a religious war. And don't even get me started on gay marriage.

Ultimately, of course, life will go on. Even if, as I worry, the seeds of World War III are being sown by George W. Bush as much as by Osama Bin Laden, hopefully Armageddon will come a few decades down the road. Maybe that sounds selfish, but regardless of what side you’re on we all just want to get back to our lives. Strict Muslims on the other side of the world want to pray to Mecca without bombs and McDonalds cluttering the way. Here at home we want to keep standing that house of cards made of IRA accounts, organic produce and i-pods. Whether they’re wearing turbans and hunched in caves or waddling through their McMansions in elastic-waste Dockers, I just wish we could wrestle back the world from whackos and get on with our lives.

The Horror, The Horror

Well America, happy? Because you fucked up. Big-time.

As I write this, there’s an urgent warning on the web of a dense fog advisory. How fitting. At least half of the people of this country obviously were wandering blindly through the voting booth.

I can understand electing George W. Bush in 2000 (I use the term ‘electing’ loosely, of course), what with his smokescreen of being a moderate. But now? After all we know?

I want to know just who are you fucking retards who said to yourselves, “Invading another country with no sufficient justification? Check. Incurring the hatred of pretty much the entire world? Okey dokey. Going from a budget surplus to trillions in debt? Priceless. An attitude about civil liberties reminiscent of prewar Germany? Sounds like the way to go. An economic policy that overwhelmingly favors the richest one percent? I’m down with that. A self-righteous, arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude infultrating every last policy decision? Super-size me!”

This morning, just minutes after John Kerry has officially conceded, I can’t help but feel that the country is headed in a downward spiral from which we may never recover. And this time there is no terrorist to blame. We did it to ourselves.

We are living a moment in history when millions of Muslims around the world have declared a religious war upon the United States, and instead of approaching that challenge with reason and level-headedness, we’ve given the reigns to a religious fundamentalist of our own. Imagine if during the Cold War we’d elected somebody like Curtis LeMay, the Air Force general who felt the only way to defeat the Soviet Union was with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. That’s the kind of mentality we have in the White House.

And it isn’t just the rich people and religious fanatics who re-elected Bush. What truly pains me is to think of the regular people—those who may go to church but don’t get in your face about it, those in the middle class whose pocketbooks will be hurt as much as their ultimate security—who also cast their votes Republican this year. They seem to think it’s wrong to vote out a wartime president. You poor saps.

I’ll probably take some criticism for saying this, but the next time there is a terrorist strike in America, as much as my heart will go out to the victims, in the back of my mind there will be the inevitable thought that, as a nation, we were asking for it. We had the choice to restore sanity and reason to our leadership, and we went the other way. We actively sought the downward spiral.

Nice going, all you voters whose states are marked red on the electoral map. You stupid, clueless motherfuckers. You can take your stars and stripes and shove them up your assholes. I want to barf all my stomach acids right on to Old Glory right now, because I’ve never been so ashamed to be American.

Why Joe Sixpack Chooses the Dark Side

Partisan as I may be regarding this presidential election, as a writer I also find interesting on an intellectual level the issues of Kerry and Bush communicating—or failing to do so—with the voters. An op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times by David Brooks nicely summarizes the conundrum undecided voters face with respect to the messages they hear from the two candidates:

“Kerry thinks obsessively about process questions, but can’t seem to come up with a core conviction; Bush is great at coming up with clear goals, but is not so great about coming up with the process to get there.”

I’m a pessimist at heart; I prefer to expect the worst with issues out of my control, as a kind of self-preservation mechanism. So it should come as no surprise that I don’t like Kerry’s chances right now. But the reason I think Bush will win, despite overwhelming evidence of countless lies, a fundamentalism cut from the same cloth as the terrorists, and countless domestic policy horrors, is that in this post 9/11 era, the average American is looking above all else for someone to say bluntly, “I will do whatever is necessary to protect you from terrorists.”

In terms of communicating their message, Bush-Kerry is like Reagan-Mondale or a lot of other Republican-Democrat contests. The very thing that makes the political left a better choice, with its intelligence, rationality and diverse tent of followers, is what hampers it from communicating a simple and concise message. Kerry has done better than, say, Dukakis, when it comes to fighting back against Bush’s attacks, but he continues to seem wooden, not very personable and—worst of all—unable to reduce his message to simple, vital terms that resonate with voters.

I hope I’m wrong – I really, really, (later that same day) really do. And I do believe Kerry still has a chance. He has a track record of finishing strong, and Bush is of course vulnerable in light of countless offenses. But I think it’s hard to stop Joe Sixpack from reasoning that it’s better to stick with the steadfast cowboy with resilient, clear intent than to take a chance on the latest cerebral Democratic bore who has the audacity to see the world in more than black and white terms.

Al Gore and "What If"

Long before the presidential race began heating up earlier this year, it already seemed the world had forgotten about Al Gore, the man I and millions of others continue to believe is the democratically elected president of the US. A long but exceptional New Yorker profile this week by editor David Denby reminded me of the these buried (because of the countless Bush-related atrocities since the 2000 election/coup) but never forgotten memories. Ironically, Al Gore seems almost happier today than at any point in his life. Perhaps for the first time, he's free of the burden of aspiring to become president. He's also getting rich, although not in the value-compromising way Dick Cheney and others have done.

There's a passage in Denby's article when Gore, queried about the media and the public sphere, in one 28-minute talk at his kitchen table references the following:

"German philosopher Jurgen Habermas...the brain imaging center at New York University; 'The Alphabet Versus the Goddess' by Leonard Schlain; 'Broca's Brain' by Carl Sagan, an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times about the decline of reading in America; the lack of research on the relation between the brain and television--'There is just nothing on the dendrite level about watching televison'; Gutenbertg and the rise of print; the sovereign rule of reason in the Enlightenment; individualsim--'a term first used by de Tocqueville to describe America in the eighteen-thirties'; Thomas Paine; Benjamin Franklin...Samuel Morse...the sinking of the Titanic; David Sarnoff; the agricultural origin of the term 'broadcast'; 'the nineteen visual centers of the brain'; an article on 'flow' in Scientific American; the 'orienting reflex' in vertebrates; the poignancy and 'ultimate failure' of political demonstrations as a means of engaging the aforementioned public sphere...and, finally, Gore's own 1969 Harvard thesis on the effect of television on the Presidency and the rise, at about that time, of image over print as a means of transmitting news."

And roughly half (or slightly less than that) of the American voters picked...who? At a certain point I feel that my indignation and disappointment about the 2000 election is directed not at George W. Bush, Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, or Ralph Nader. It's at the people with "W 2004" stickers on their SUVs. I can even understand voting for Bush four years ago. He sounded a lot more moderate than he turned out to be; Gore correctly argues, I think, that Bush is not unintelligent but on the other hand not strong enough to stand up to the right-wingers who have hijacked his presidency and left sane people in the administration like Colin Powell mere figureheads at best. But what it's hard to come to terms with is those middle-class Americans who look at the last four years and say to themselves, "Okay, foreign policy: check. Economy: great. Environment: uh-huh. Relationship with the rich and big-business: right-on." It must come down to the fact that there have so far not been any successful major terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda on American soil since September 11.

We are clearly living in an age and culture of fear, and it's sad to see people succumb to it. To be fair, I've been guilty of that myself sometimes. I really thought the Apocalypse was just around the corner after the Trade Center attack. But at a certain point in politics I think you just have to force yourself to be optimistic. Unless you're rich with a lot of potential tax payments to protect from the government or religious and moralistic enough to believe that things like gay marriage and abortion should be banned, what is there to give Bush your vote?

Despite that impressive intellectual display (something I'm admittedly almost always a sucker for), Al Gore certainly has his faults. The entertaining personality he shows offstage and off camera transforms into a wooden public figure. I also really think he made a mistake distancing himself from Clinton in the campaign four years ago. Gore actually took Clinton's infidelity seriously enough that he couldn't see clearly what a partisan witch hunt the impeachment was. But for me and so many people in light of these last 4 years (or more specifically the three years since 9/11 as of the day after tomorrow), Gore represents, and probably always will, the what-if of all what-ifs.

The Politics of Candidates' Past

Leading the headlines lately is the controversy over John Kerry's war record and a Republican commercial that questions whether the Democrat's actions in Vietnam were as heroic as portrayed. It reminds me of a similar campaign issue twelve years ago when George H.W. Bush questioned Bill Clinton's participation in demonstrations against the Vietnam War while a graduate student at Oxford. The similarity isn't just that both accusations came from Republican father and son presidents named George Bush. What's more important, I think, is that these ploys were and are sure signs of the GOP getting desperate.

Unless there is a major terrorist event conveniently timed to happen just before the presidential election (and I wouldn't be surprised at this point), I see Kerry as having a very good chance of knocking off Bush. So let's just sit back and see over the next few weeks which presidential candidate plays the dirtiest. Admittedly I'm partisan, but I think it'll be Bush. Will the president and advisor Karl Rove (a close fiend of the man bankrolling these controversial anti-Kerry ads) score with voters in the same underhanded way his father and late strategist Lee Atwater did against Dukakis in 1988 with the Willie Horton TV ads? Or will it smack of futility like it did in 1992, when Bush's playing the Vietnam card seemed in comparison to Clinton's razor-sharp focus upon substantive policy issues in the campaign?

And then there's the unequivocal double standard at work here. What if we were to go digging into George W. Bush's past in the 70s and early 80s? Honestly I don't know the truth from the exaggerations, but there have been a lot of whisperings about cocaine use and alcoholism. Are they all 100% unfounded? Hmm. And that's not even touching the more indisputable fact that the younger Bush easily avoided Vietnam as a child of privilege.

Let's say for argument's sake that John Kerry's heroism in Vietnam has been highly exaggerated. Isn't how he spent the late 1960s still a lot more honorable?

Al Qaeda and the November Election

Today Department of Homeland Security head Tom Ridge announced intellegence indicating that Al Qaeda is planning a major terrorist attack to disrupt the November elections. If that's true, I think Al Qaeda is not just dangerous, but stupid too.

Although both the Democrats and Republicans are resolved to fight terrorism, it is the Republicans who are more inclined to be hawkish when it comes to unilateral action in the Middle East as a response to that terror. That's precisely what Al Qaeda is trying to stop the United States from doing. They want the US out of Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. But if there were to be a major terrorist strike shortly before the presidential election, it would help George Bush secure re-election much more than it would erode voters' support for him, as happened in Spain. We'd rally around the president, like everyone (even me) did initially after September 11. Does Al Qaeda really want to support George Bush? Talk about strange bedfellows...the Bush family's connections to Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family residing there not withstanding. But maybe Al Qaeda knows how dangerous Bush is for the United States even better than its people do. Maybe they think that he's more likely to take the bait on the kind of full-on religious war they seem to want to fight.