What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, October 12, 2004

JUST THE FACTS, RICK

On the opinion pages this morning, "Slate asked a variety of prominent American novelists, ranging from Edwidge Danticat to John Updike, for a frank response to the following question: Which presidential candidate are you voting for, and why?"

Richard Dooling makes a good point that writers should be "political agnostics" but totally lost me with this comment:

The left-wing political road rage directed at George W. Bush for being dumb and lying about the war reminds me of nothing so much as the right-wing obsessive invective directed at Bill Clinton for being smart and lying about sex.

This is an unbelievable comparison. Bill Clinton had many flaws but none of them led to the catastrophic effects of Bush's idiocy. I don't understand anyone who could equate lying about personal sexual behaviour with lying about a rationale for a conflict that has killed thousands of people.

I do recognize Dooling's "rage" idea though -- it's an issue I've been wrestling with for some time. I don't like admitting it but I hate George W. Bush. More than any politician I can think of, I absolutely hate this guy. Even more than Reagan, who I could admire from time to time while still finding his policies grotesque. Canada's flirted with electing right-wing demogogues like Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day yet I never looked at them with the same contempt I feel for this...imposter.

I still maintain, however, that all of this stems not from irrational, knee-jerk politicking but from Bush's own history. I watched this nepotism-winner stumble his way through that campaign against Al Gore and was stunned by how incapable he seemed. Then came the real shocks: first, the Florida election debacle; then, the way the Supreme Court cut off a recount and handed Bush the presidency. He was the first president to have protesters at his inauguration and Rick Moody, author of "The Ice Storm," asserts in Slate's interview that, over the last four years:

it became self-evident, I think, that the Bush presidency is the most corrupt in modern history. Under the cynical disguise of evangelical Christian moralizing (and don't even get me started on Bush's moronic theology), Bush conducted (and continues to conduct) a fire sale, in which he auctioned off the entire nation to the highest corporate bidder, piece by piece. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes he didn't even bother to take bids. And this is not to mention a war based on outright mendacity, in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed.

Too much rhetoric? Maybe, so here's a more pragmatic take from Chang-Rae Lee:

I would be voting for Kerry as a protest vote against the Iraq war alone, but even without that horrid mess, Bush and his handlers are heading us in the wrong directions in energy policy, the environment, civil liberties, tax issues, health care, education, judicial appointments—-the list is endless.

Even if you agree, as a few of the writers interviewed do, that Bush is the stronger war-time leader and that the war in Iraq was necessary, this Republican administration's handling of the war has been abysmal and their record on nearly every domestic issue has been awful bordering on terrifying. And I say this as a Canadian, a safe distance from the fire but close enough to feel the heat. Kerry will not be the perfect leader -- he's yet to truly inspire -- but at least he'll be practical and sane. And that's just the cold, hard truth.

Labels: Canada, George W Bush, religion, Stephen Harper