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Edited on Sat Sep-27-03 08:07 PM by angka
Over the course of several heated threads, I have had the pleasure of debating many types of people, from the insightful to the (surprisingly) inane.
A particularly lengthy exchange with a certain individual got me to thinking about the nature of compromise, and the relative weight of larger objectives. Clear thinking on this subject has helped me rethink some things. You might or might not agree.
I, like Howard Dean, am not taking a sufficiently nuanced approach in judging some of the present Democratic presidential candidates. I recognize that all these men are, on the whole, decent—center to left. I may despise Lieberman, for example, for his collusion with Bush on foreign and security policy, while remembering somewhere in the back of my mind that he usually votes the way i would on many other issues. The same story would apply for me to Kerry, Edwards and even Larouchelike-predictable candidate Dick Gephardt. They do their job for the party, which largely shares its stated agenda with me.
But i have a major problem with what has happened to this country since 9/11. I told my wife on that day, right after the second tower fell, that the only thing worse than what was happening then was what would happen next to liberals in this country. It's been worse than I could have imagined. The left's retreat from a huge position of strength, the massive and almost immediate blitz on freedom, passed by these democrats, followed by a crushing electoral defeat in 2002. Because they wouldn't challenge the president. Unbelievably, it took the present sweeping national outrage—barely still covered up by the media—over the Iraq war to convince these guys that well, yes, maybe the people might actually back them up.
This is why I enjoy saying the name 'Al Gore' in presidential threads these days. Here's mud in your appeasing eye—you know, the appeasment which began when the Democrats decided to let Bush have his fraudulent victory in 2000. The only thing i enjoy more is how much these uncomfortable truths seem to piss people off. I know he's not running.
It is vital to understand that I am referring to four, maybe five specific presidential candidates. Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards, Gephardt, and Graham (he still gets the asterisk*, although i'm really not sure why).
But here's what's most important: I will still vote for any of these men if they are nominated. Anybody who tells you they're ready to go third party if their specific boy doesn't get the nod is a fool. This is not the time for progressives to entertain silly, fractious notions like voting Green.
Additionally, the more I think about Dean (and myself) needlessly running down candidates with over-generalized demagoguery, the more I recognize the self-serving folly of this practice. Howard Dean's claims about these Democrats (for example) supporting Bush's pillaging tax cuts are incorrect and not warranted. Dean's comments about his supporters being 'non-transferable' are irresponsible and potentially dangerous to the Party. Despite this character flaw, which is like my own—a tendency to get really pissed off about equivocation, I still (of course) enthusiastically back him for President.
All of these Democratic candidates have fought for issues that each of us as individuals hold hear. The collective power of our imperfect Democratic Party is nevertheless the only thing holding back the New Right's horrific vision of our future; and that includes these four (or five) career public servants. I do believe, however, that Dean (and myself) are perfectly justified in taking these men to task for key ways in which they aided and abetted war abroad and tyranny at home. But i cannot rationally dismiss the fact that if my first choice does not get the nomination, such imprecise past rhetoric can only serve as a tool for our mutual enemy.
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