Pat Stack » George Bush

President Barack Obama … Unbelievable

Pat — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:40:12 +0000

… and by a huge victory, at that.

People are chanting “Obama! Obama!”, honking their horns, pounding drums and clapping in unison outside my window in Ann Arbor tonight, and it’s 2:40 a.m. This is louder than any Michigan game and is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Even when I discount partisanship, the tone feels so much different than the Bush wins of 2000 and 2004 — when I look at the victorious mood I saw back then, it felt that the tone of the celebrations was more, “We won and you didn’t; we proved our ideas right and defeated yours.” Yet today the nature of the happiness seems different, like a huge sense of relief that things really can be what we hoped they could be. Maybe that’s just because it’s been so many years of the other side winning, and so the left side doesn’t know how to gloat; maybe not. But it seems like the difference between a fan who watches his favorite team trounce the visitors versus a guy passing a test that he studied for and still worried he’d fail.

Even up until the last minute, I just didn’t believe Obama would win. It’s not so much that I thought America was racist, but that it was too set in its ways to make such a historic shift in such tumultuous times. People cling to the familiar, I thought. We rally round the known. Yet tonight I saw that so much of the country was so desperate to better things after eight years of the worst un-American leadership it has ever seen that it moved beyond any familiar model and was ready to listen to new ideas.

The old, heroic American John McCain made a reappearance tonight, just as I thought he would under winning circumstances. That he did so even while losing is a testament to Sen. John McCain. Maybe if he had stayed in his own personality earlier and avoided handing his campaign over to the worst of his party, things would have gone differently. But I don’t know that Republican circumstances could have allowed him to avoid running the campaign he did — there are too many influentials in the Republican Party who continue to bay for liberal blood even after eight years of government dominance, and getting past that obstacle to win the nomination is all but impossible. No matter what the worst of Democratic partisans say, we all saw that McCain never warmed to the ugliest of the attack-dog nastiness that was demanded of him by the party poo-bahs, and that’s why he was ultimately ineffective at it. Perhaps another scored-earth partisan like Bush or the oily Rudy Giuliani would have been able to exploit the nation’s worst attitudes enough to take down Obama, but McCain just seems incapable of that — and that’s a compliment.
I really did feel a great sadness watching him concede tonight, because the entire nation knew that this was the end for a guy who gave his body and so many years of his life to his country. The fact that McCain never would have been able to run the campaign that he probably wanted to run is what has made me so cynical about our political system, because it chews up positive and pure ideals as the barrier for entry into the public forum. Yet watching McCain return to the Senate to ultimately fade from the scene, even with all of his failings — there’s something sad about it all.
What will make the victory easier to accept for the nation is that there’s no question of the winner — Obama won not only Ohio, but Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, New Mexico, Colorado and potentially even Indiana and North Carolina. (As of now.) Seismic, indeed.
I keep my emotions in check over political events, but I almost teared up watching Jesse Jackson, Oprah and Obama’s other black supporters weeping with joy at the Grant Park rally. My grandpa who emigrated from Ireland greatly admired John F. Kennedy, and in the Irish admiration for Kennedy and the parallel black support for Obama on dispay tonight there’s something really profound: no matter how awful the things history has done to your race or your nationality, with time and human spirit it’s possible to rise above it and get to a better place. Even if it takes generations, it really can be done. To finally get to witness the end triumph is something very special indeed, and no matter your political leanings, that was special to see tonight.
As I looked at the McCain rally’s audience today, I wondered more than ever just how the Republican party is going to move into the demographics of the 21st century. While Grant Park was a total mishmash, I couldn’t find any non-white faces in all the Arizona crowd shots and panning shots that I saw. No matter what you consider the “real America”, when that America has to share space with demographic reality, you had better find a way to move towards positive integration.
Sarah Palin will be back for sure. She won’t stay the national joke many would hope she is.
I’d like to end on one strange political note, and to acknowledge a historical man who has indirectly led to the greatest racial advance this country has ever seen. You probably won’t guess his name.
He is George W. Bush.

Bush is that reviled type of historical figure who inherits a bad situation, then complicates it and makes it worse to a degree far beyond its original nature. As the worst president in American history, he has in fact done such a poor job for the nation that many of those older voters in Ohio or Virginia who would have otherwise been far too focused on Obama’s race likely said to themselves today, “Race used to be a directly negative factor in a politician, but after the incompetence this country has endured in the past eight years and how angry it has made me, I will vote for anybody the opposition party can offer who represents a break from the present situation.” Obama has a funny name, he’s not white, and he has liberal ideas, but he is something new and became a vessel for hope about a different and better future. That won him the election tonight, and strangely George W. Bush did a lot to open the door.

The Endorsement

Pat — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:54:09 +0000

My old compatriots at Slate did their incredibly lopsided list last week of which staffer is voting for whom. Since I used to work there, I figured I might as well pile on.

Because it’s late, I’m tired from the immense amount of work being dumped on my head — never listen to someone who says business school is a joke — and I think we’re all nervous and exhausted to see how this crazy thing will turn out, I’ll get this out there:

I still like some things about John McCain. His socialist / terrorist name-calling campaign makes me really pissed (and legitimately scared for Obama’s life), but sadly you can chalk a lot of that up to the cynical desire to win at all costs that lives at both ends of the political spectrum. (And Obama has it a lot easier: he just has to say “George Bush and John McCain are both Republicans” and that’s all the negative advertising any candidate could ever need.) I like his military experience; I think that’s undervalued in public office these days. I like how he used to buck his party and criticize its worst elements — again, I think most of the not-bucking these days is based on cynical political stuff. Most of the time leading up to late summer, I even thought McCain would make a good president.

But McCain took the win-at-all-costs thing one step too far when he placed a divisive, creationist, happily ignorant hypocrite as his second for the keys to destroy human civilization. Presidents die, it’s happened plenty of times, and choosing your potential successor is not a decision to make based wholly on cynical political considerations. Her handlers let her face the press just a few times, but fortunately that seems to have been enough to scare most voters back to reality. I think there are still good things somewhere under McCain’s ugly 2008 political shell; I think he’ll somehow try to come out of it if elected, though that will be more difficult than ever after yet another year of scorched-earth, “real America” (there’s fake America?), hate-inducing campaigning. But because of Palin, and McCain’s total lack of “country first” principles in choosing her, I can never support their election.
To get to the other side, I’d like to say off the bat that the cult of personality around Barack Obama weirds me out. After seeing the sausage being made, I don’t get the fawning over a politician. And particularly after 2004, putting your faith in politics is a bad proposition.
But before I get too cynical, one thing I really believe is government as arbiter — non-state actors like business make this nation go more than government ever can, but for that to happen we need fairness, information and protection for when we can’t get it ourselves. This is where we need government: to build our roads, defend our citizens, protect our environment, bring expert knowledge to bear and keep things square all around, at least as best it can. It’s entirely true that government should get out of the way when smart people are out to get positive things done. But the past president actively took government in the wrong direction and treated it as a tool for the powerful and the cynical, not as a protector for America’s best interests. America is a lot more than fattening the top 1% and making false gestures at morality, and the military, the budget, the environment and the consumer have all suffered because the worst administration in American history didn’t bother to look at the whole picture. And when I compare the two candidates, I gotta back the. one who I think is better at seeing and thinking about that whole picture: Obama.

McCain-supporting readers who want to sway me before I vote should know that I learned from all those Bond-villain soliloquies, and have in fact carried out my plan before informing you of it. Your bad. But I hope that you get out and vote no matter who you are -- let's do this.

Pointing Out David Addington

Pat — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:20:46 +0000

John Yoo got the bulk of the negative publicity for his torture memo, but I’ve read many times that David Addington has been the real advocate for scrapping the rule of law in the Bush Administration. This Bob Herbert column on Addington makes that point better than I can.

Gay Marriage and the 2008 Campaign

Pat — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:01:32 +0000

I didn’t think this one would be back again as a campaign issue, but it seems that it will be.

There are a few differences this time around. First, if campaigning were a video game, the G.O.P. already used the one-time, battleground-state-gay-marriage-ballot supermove to defeat the 2004 Democrats, leaving them without the ability to use it again. You can’t write the same amendment to a state constitution twice, so that’s out of the question in important electoral states like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky It thus can’t be used to quite the same right-wing-voter motivation effect.

Second, Barack Obama doesn’t even support gay marriage. I had no idea that this was the case until I read it tonight. Liberal groups are apparently so excited that a liberal has a decent shot at the presidency that they have swept this normally liberal-upsetting factoid under the rug. (How mature of my fellow bleeding hearts to accept political nuance for a change.) Though Obama has an otherwise pro-gay-rights voting record, he is on the record against gay marriage. So it’s not really something that can be used against him the same way it could against John Kerry, who was more vague on everything.

I do, however, say that even as people continue to buy the Muslim rumor even after weeks of high-decibel tongue-clucking over Obama’s Christian pastor, so figuring out which smears will stick isn’t much of a logical pursuit.

Third, McCain is the candidate who is potentially the most impacted by this. Does McCain come out strongly against the California court in a bid for more religious-conservative support? Or does he stick to his relatively libertarian past talk on gay issues, in which he said he didn’t support a federal amendment banning gay marriage? (That’s libertarian by moralistic-Republican standards; he still opposes gay marriage on moral grounds and supports “don’t ask, don’t tell”.) I don’t think he’ll do anything beyond reiterating the “Marriage is between a man and a woman” boilerplate b.s.

Meanwhile, Godwin’s law has already come into play in this campaign—by the President himself!—and we’re still five months out from the election. While Bush technically compared Obama to Neville Chamberlain, I’m going to say that it still counts because Nazis were explicitly mentioned.

“Moral Vacuum”

Pat — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:14:09 +0000

This column was deeply unsettling and thought-provoking:

The Age of Irresponsibility

For a President who believes so deeply in good, evil and the need for justice, why does he think a situation with no consequences isn’t going to bring out the worst in people? And for those who argue that counterinsurgencies—from the American West to Ireland to Malaysia to Kenya—have always involved (or even “require”) violent excesses by the occupiers, I think it’s obvious who deserves the blame for failing to learn that and promising the opposite in Iraq.

Iraq

Pat — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:15:35 +0000

Understanding the logistical impossibility of maintaining the troop surge, and disregarding whether or not you really believe that the past few months’ effort has worked, I can’t quite wrap my head around this one.

When you say spend months arguing that a certain strategy will work, then you believe that the strategy does indeed work, why then do you abandon the strategy for the very reason that, well, it worked? Apparently the President is assuming the troops’ presence allowed some other societal facet to bloom that will provide ongoing stability. But it seems to me that other than the troop level, there aren’t other variables that have changed from spring 2007 to now: even if violence is down, we haven’t seen a big Iraqi government breakthrough (ask the White House), nor is there any kind of factional reconciliation to speak of.

This is like when a patient takes medication for a chronic condition, then after realizing he feels better, says, “Man, I feel great–looks like I no longer need to take my medication.”

They Seem Made Up, And Yet They Aren’t

Pat — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:48:31 +0000

As my friend Steve put it, “these sound a lot like people doing imitations of him”:

The 50 Dumbest Things …

I’m particularly fond of Nos. 50, 44, 39, 35, 26 and 14-13.

Why Do Special Olympic Athletes Hate America?

Pat — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:58:21 +0000

Today’s testimony from the outgoing Surgeon General is probably the best one yet in the never-ending parade of scientists who don’t like the current government. Not only did your man Dr. Carmona (dude has one hell of a c.v., btw) testify that administration officials suppressed his reports on stem cells, contraception, global health and secondhand smoke and asked him to mention the President three times on each page of his speeches, but he also said that senior officials actually asked him why he would support the Special Olympics when the Kennedy family is involved in that charity.

I think that all future “The Administration is politicizing [x]” testimony has jumped the shark, because after the idea that it’s a worthwhile thing to diss mentally disabled people just so you can stop your ideological opponents from scoring points, where do you go from that?

This is an example of how far one’s leadership culture should extend. The President, spiteful and unsympathizing as he is, would not have given anyone specific orders to go and hate on Special Olympic athletes and families so the Kennedys would miss out on added support. The problem is that he seems to have let the suck-up culture run wild underneath him to the point that staffers would think, “Hey, dissing Special Olympics is a great idea,” and carry it out. I think we’ve all encountered the in-your-face, unprincipled one-upping type of staffers we’re talking about here—they’re a chance to use the awesome word “sniveling”—but it’s the leader’s job to set the tone and smack those people down so the honest people can be heard.

Meanwhile, only 19 more months!

Libby: G. Gordon or Scooter, They’re All Criminal To Me

Pat — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:49:12 +0000

I guess I’m supposed to be mad at the commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence, but normally you have to be taken aback by something to be angry, and this is probably the most predictable presidential action since the last bad decision Bush made. (Choose your own; there’s no shortage.) But the point is, it was predictable.

The time to be mad about this was probably when he was convicted. If on the day of the conviction, you somehow thought Libby wasn’t going to be pardoned, you should probably also see a doctor about the inordinate amount of time you spend submerging your grill-piece in grains of silica. I will give Bush credit: he surprised us with the speed that he arrived at the incredibly bald-faced decision we knew all he’d eventually make. I was thinking fall 2008 or so, but it’s not even mid-summer 2007 and we’re already witnessing the bending of justice. (Note to Tony Snow: keeping Libby away from justice is clearly worse than Clinton’s pardons, because it’s pretty obvious that Al Gore didn’t go to Marc Rich and order him to break the law. We can’t be quite so sure about Dick Cheney going to Libby.)

Keith Olbermann is certainly right here, but we’ve come to the point where we have two options: impeachment / resignation (as if!), or battening down until January 2009. (The latter being contingent on us not going to war with Iran. Should he opt for that, all Bush has to lose are many thousands of human lives, and that hasn’t proven to bother him so far.)

Though I think the president’s actions more than warrant impeachment, the Republicans unwittingly did themselves a favor by impeaching Bill Clinton: that was such a partisan joke that the pooch of impeachment has been good and screwed for at least a generation or so going forward, and it just doesn’t seem like something the country is willing to go through again, even though the case for Bush’s impeachment just gets stronger and stronger all the time.

I still can’t believe all these G.O.P. jokers I see interning on the Hill, like the events of today aren’t even happening. Is impeachment justified? I think so. Will it happen? F no, it won’t.

2009, where you at!

Hung, Then Tried, Then Shot?

Pat — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:20:36 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with this guy:

Rage Against the Dixie Chicks