> The fact remains that the Democrats are pretty much the same thing as
> the Republicans. The hysteria about defeating Bush is just
> hypocritical. If one looks at all the reasons why the ABB crowd raises
> as reasons to defeat Bush, one can pick through them and see the
> blatant contradictions. Oppose the Iraq invasion and occupation? Kerry
> greenlighted Bush's course of action. Bush will set back gay rights
> and reproductive rights? It looks to most of us like gay rights have
> been advanced despite who was in the White House. And Clinton didn't
> exactly throw up any roadblocks to stop Republican assaults on
> reproductive rights. The mixing of state and religion? That increased
> during Clinton's regime and there is news this morning that a
> conservative Supreme Court ruled against religious scholarships.
>
> The ABB line of thinking is hysterical, hypocritical and reactionary.
This whole dispute, which I am growing increasingly tired of as it cycles around and around like a dryer in a laundromat (and is about as fascinating to watch), boils down to two issues:
(1) Pragmatic vs. symbolic politics
It's not as though this controversy was invented yesterday. It probably goes back to the days when the Athenian democrats were fighting the oligarchs. It's a hoary perennial: some leftists believe in making a deal with the devil if there's some pragmatic pay-off from it. Others feel that any true leftist must shun Satan and all his works.
This ABBster (and probably most others) doesn't believe that Kerry has any particular virtues; we're not looking for a man on a "white horse." I don't think there's anything positive to recommend him (unless you go for presidential-looking ugly guys -- if he's nominated and elected, we at least won't have to have an argument about whether he should be put up on Mt. Rushmore: he looks as though he's already there). He's just the shnook who, if elected, will be stuck into the White House to replace W.
So all of the anti-Kerry campaign speeches the anti-ABB camp comes up with, like the one I quoted above (which sounds as though it had been written by Bush's speech writers, BTW), don't impress us at all. To do that, you will have to argue that there's no particular reason for replacing W at all. Which brings us to the second issue:
(2) Hey, Bush is not so bad, after all!
If you believe that, fine. Proclaim it as loudly as you please. At least we'll know who to blame when Shrub puts his hand on the Bible, Laura beaming with pride, next January.
And don't kid yourselves. Everyone who is on record as having advised people not to vote for the Democratic candidate will be at the top of the shit-list of every group and constituency that suffers from the second Bush administration for many years. And that will be a lot of folks.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.