Watch Out, Democrats!

Today, and perhaps for the next several days, I am going to pretend to be a prophet, a political prophet. This does not make me a real prophet, but it surely makes me a pretentious one. Nor does this imply augury, divination, seeing into the future through blogfeeds or by looking for patterns in the grindings left by burning brakes along the guardrails of the Jersey Turnpike. I am not plying through the entrails of pigeons; I am not pursuing scatology to inform my eschatology. What my pretense means is simple: I am playing. And playing, as you know, is all about having fun.

What could be more delightful, really, than to take a shot at what will happen to the Iraq War should the Democrats take control of the United States Congress?

A DIRE WARNING TO ALL VOTERS (followed by one to all Democrats):

Trust the mighty prophet: The Democrats have no intention of ending the Iraq War -- or "occupation", or "quagmire", or "regime-change strategy" -- or even bringing US troops home in the next two years. Why? Because they need Iraq to remain unstable, unpopular and chaotic so a Democrat can win the White House in 2008. Does anyone really think that the next Congress, one controlled by Democrats, is going to allow President Bush to do as he hopes, which is to win in Iraq and scale back troop deployments? Come now! Who are you kidding? Democrats NEED Iraq to fail, continually, for the next two years. And we know this because they are exploiting the war NOW in order to win the popularity of the masses: a successful Iraq campaign renders the Democrats superfluous and thoroughly impotent. But a quagmire; a mistake built on lies; a botched campaign; a boondoggle; a civil war fomented by incompetence. These are a Democrat's ticket to power!

So, my dear friends, particularly my anti-war friends, prepare yourselves for the biggest political disappointment of your lives. My sources tell me that the Democrats in Congress are poised to bring Washington to a halt with impeachment hearings, you know, Impeach Bush procedures. And those will be followed by Impeach Cheney hearings, and, well you get the picture: political chaos and quagmire for pure political gain, and pure control of US Treasury disbursements. Oh, and there is one more thing: much of the impeachment motivation comes from those who believe Bush was NEVER duly elected. In other words, it's about payback.

But our troops will be hung out to dry by congressional Democrats intent on maintaining their vision of a better governed world.

AND HERE IS THE CRAZY WARNING TO DEMOCRATS: Look for the offsides trap

In soccer, there is a defensive play called the offsides trap. It occurs when defenders, pretending to maintain a position between the goalkeeper and the nearest attacking forward, suddenly move to a position behind the forward when a ball is sent into the scoring zone. If a referee is paying attention, the forward will be caught offsides, and the whistle will be blown. The defending team regains possession of the ball with a free kick.

Remember the Vietnam War.

Let's look back at that fine time for a moment. Recall that it was Democrats in the White House (presidents Kennedy and Johnson), and Democrats in both the House and Senate (some of the largest Democratic majorities in modern US history), who escalated US involvement in Vietnam. In fact, both the executive and legislative branches under Democratic Party control escalated US involvement to dizzying heights, so high, in fact, that 50,000 troops would die in that distant land.

But remember what happened in 1968. Republican Richard M. Nixon won the White House at a time when popularity for the war was extremely low. And what did the Democrats do? That's right. They turned the Vietnam War into the Nixon War. They made Vietnam a Republican problem. After all, how many school kids today -- in America -- learn that Vietnam was really a Democratic Party failure? How many kids learn that it was the Democrats who drove American soldiers deep into that jungle quagmire?

So, let's talk payback now. Impeach Bush might be a Democrat strategy for doling out vengeance on the allegedly stolen 2000 election (and the alleged theft of Ohio in 2004). But Republicans not really fighting to keep control of the Congress today might in fact be an offsides trap being played -- in a great gamble -- by Republican strategists as payback for, well, everything (including Vietnam). Iraq, perhaps, is about to become the Democrats' War.

If there were just two types of teenagers in 1968, they were these: those who were anti-establishment, counter-cultural and anti-war, and those who were none of those things. Now, today, those two types of teenagers, 40 years older, are sitting in the White House, in Congress, in the offices of the RNC and DNC; they fill academia and the media. What you are witnessing, then, is a gargantuan struggle between those who believed that Vietnam was a lost cause and those who believed it could have been won (had we only FULLY stayed the course and supported US military actions there). In other words, if George Bush -- the establishment man -- wins in Iraq, it will not only mean that the Iraq-is-a-failure folks are wrong today; they were wrong in the golden protest years of yesterday about Vietnam. And if the anti-establishment hippies of the 1960's who are now in their 60s are right about the failure of Iraq, then, well, they will no doubt feel vindicated about Vietnam.

In reality, what you are seeing is a flashback of 1967-72. There might not be as much acid now as there was then, but there is surely more acid speech. But the Democrats need to watch out for the offsides trap.

Trust me. They don't know what they are about to win.

And remember: I am just a pretend prophet.

One final note to all voters: Does anyone really believe that the Iraq War is unnecessary, a war of mere choice, one completely begun at the President's bidding? For if that was the case, would he not have begun to withdraw troops on the eve of the elections, elections his party will lose? And if Bush and Co. control oil prices and oil fields, don't you think that, if they did so control them, we would have seen gas prices fall back to popularly low levels by now in order to secure political victory at all costs? And does anyone really think that President Bush is holding Osama bin Laden as some sort of ace-in-the-hole as we watch Republican popularity wane? Where, oh where, have the conspiracy theories gone? Were they all false prophecies uttered by false prophets? Are not false prophets supposed to be rejected, condemned; stoned to death outside the city walls?

But we all know they've been stoned before.

Peace, from your favorite prophet.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Election 2006, Democrats

Talking Their Language: John Kerry Tells A Joke With "Nuance"

I had not heard the story until today. I read about it in the recent column of Chicago Tribune essayist John Kass, and it sheds light on John Kerry and his Ohio loss in 2004. Kass reflects on that exciting time, just before Americans rushed the polls to cast their vote for President; Kass muses about sundry Kerryisms that may have not played well in the American heartland:

My absolute favorite Kerryism was the time he tried to sound like Jethro Bodine from the old "Beverly Hillbillies" TV show.

That's the one that cost him the presidential election in 2004, by losing him Ohio.

He dressed up in hunting gear so new there must have been tags hanging from the ankles. He had a shotgun, since the symbolism was about manliness, as he moseyed into a general store with several TV news cameras.

Kerry would purchase a hunting license and go hide in a field and let a guide shoot some geese, which another aide would carry so the senator could have the benefit of the symbolism without the responsibility of goose blood.

But first he needed the license. Yet instead of asking for one in a normal voice, Kerry inexplicably decided to use country dialect.

"Kin ah git me a hunting license here?" said Kerry, the country man.

The folks in the general store were frightened to hear an odd twang emanating from Kerry's Boston adenoids. Perhaps he thought that they weren't highly educated, and so he had to talk "their language."

One wonders whose language John Kerry was speaking on Monday when he said the following to a college crowd at Pasadena City College in California:

"You know education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Oops. Ouch. Bing, bang, bomb.

I recall John Kerry supporters in the last election cycle describing the Massachusetts senator as being more "nuanced" than his opponent, George W. Bush. And the quote above shows that they were absolutely right. The only real question, though, is how much nuance is good for the Democratic Party. For a prima facie viewing of Kerry's remarks, uttered, as they were, to college kids in the inner city (Pasadena City College enrollment data shows that minorities comprise 70.3 percent of the 25,000 students enrolled there; I found the data here; hispanics and Asian minority groups are ably represented), it is evident that most reasonable listeners would conclude that Mr. Kerry is saying that the dumb student ends up stuck as a soldier in Iraq. His juxtaposition of you (one would assume he means "you who are listening and are in school") with "smart" and "stuck" would indeed led credibility to the wild theory that Mr. Kerry is warning students that those who do not fare well in school end up as cannon fodder.

But we KNOW Mr. Kerry is too nuanced for such a misleading and unfortunate suggestion. What nuanced listeners realize, of course, is that Mr. Kerry is suggesting that if you are a poor student, like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld, then you WILL become stuck in Iraq. Of course, one wonders what Mr. Kerry might mean comparing his scholarly achievements with Mr. Bush's, since I showed last year that Mr. Kerry is a certain victim of his own rather average gossip.

It is all, in Mr. Kerry's own words, the result of a "botched joke." OK. That's fine. But it is also about an administration ripping Mr. Kerry's words out of context -- a city college full of minority kids most "vulnerable" to military recruitment (or so it goes) -- and distorting them for political ends, or so Mr. Kerry asserts. Odd that he should not have taken the high road here, bolstering his broad mythology, arguing that he is that man of the people who speaks their language with nuance and subtlety.

HERE'S SOME SUBTLETY

During Mr. Kerry's appearance on the Imus in the Morning program a few minutes ago, Mr. Kerry said two things that all of us have heard too often. In fact, we have heard them often enough to know that there is nothing in them.

In defending himself from charges that he insulted American troops, he said that the real insult is Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, you see, should apologize for getting America stuck in Iraq, Mr. Kerry said; for it was Rumsfeld who "did not send enough troops [to Iraq]."

Later in the interview, Don Imus remarked that it was not just the White House that was damning Mr. Kerry's remarks. Even Sen. John McCain jumped into the fray with these not-so-subtle words:

“The suggestion that only the least-educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat today.”

In reply to Imus' little bomb, Mr. Kerry said that though he considered Mr. McCain a friend, he found McCain's comments unfortunate. "But the fact is," Mr. Kerry went on (I paraphrase), "John McCain has been a cheerleader for a failed policy, and McCain wants to put more troops in Iraq, as many as 100,000 more, and I do not believe we should do that because we do not even have that many troops, and more troops would attract more jihadists and terrorist attacks, resulting in more American military deaths."†

Now, I know you think I am making this all up, but I am not. Mr. Kerry is so nuanced that he believes Donald Rumsfeld should apologize for NOT sending more troops into Iraq, and Mr. McCain should apologize for wanting to send more. This paradox is a typical Democratic message; it says two contradictory things and pretends that people do not notice the absurdity.

Of course, this is all nuanced language, HIGHLY nuanced, the parlance of parlors in Beacon Hill. It is misunderstood, you see, by all us dolts who did not do well in school.

Peace.

†(UPDATE ADDED at 11:24 EST: If you would like to read what one decent guy thinks about the whole thing involving Kerry, and if you would like to hear Mr. Kerry's Imus comments for yourself, go to this blog for both.)

(PS. Thanks to blogger Amy Kane at Atlantic Avenue for finding the photo at the top of this post.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: John Kerry, Imus In The Morning, Kerry, Botched Joke, Iraq, Pasadena City College, minorities

A New Magnificat

In Swahili his name means "one who is blessed." It seems a fitting name. In fact, in American politics his name surely means "charmed."

Of course, I am talking about the freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. He is being presented to us as the next big thing; he is the rising star in American progressivism. He graces the cover of the most recent Time magazine; he streaked across the talkshow skies this past weekend, and we are left with a glowing after-image seared into our minds.

Some of you might recall that the late Pope John Paul II wrote a book called Crossing The Threshold of Hope, which was wildly popular among the faithful. It still ranks in the top 20,000 of Amazon. Now comes The Audacity of Hope, written by Mr. Obama, which ranks atop both today's Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. It has not yet this morning shown up on the New York Times bestseller list, but we need but wait another thirty seconds and it will be perched on top, I am sure.

I watched Mr. Obama on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert, (transcript is here) and I must say he is, indeed, a winner. I have no doubt that he shall be a very serious candidate for president, particularly in 2012. However, my sense is that he is, perhaps, still too young to make it to the White House two years from now. After all, he has yet to have to fight in even one reelection campaign. And I think he might be bucking history, though I am not sure; for if he does aim for the White House in 2008, he might very well be the first senator to win the presidency before completing one whole term in the Senate.

HOSANNA POLITICS

Remember with me what it was like, at least according to the gospels, when Jesus entered Jerusalem just days before his crucifixion. He was greeted with fanfare, palm branches laid out before him, his supporters shouting "Hosanna!" as he passed (Hosanna! means "save!" or "save us!" It is a cry of worship and praise, but one mixed with a plea for deliverance.) As Jesus entered Jerusalem, people greeted him as deliverer and savior.

I am struck every election cycle (at least since I have been paying attention) how often this sort of imagery and language is employed. Candidates come as deliverers: all will be right if we just elect so-and-so. It is rather alarming, for it would seem Americans (in particular) would be wary of this sort of idolatry. No one can save us, though a man or woman can surely assist us. But we must face the very real fact that we will never be delivered from an imperfect state, nor will we ever reach one that is more just. Justice is an elusive idea, as it is so often shaped by the smallest minority incensed that its particularly unique qualities are not held in higher esteem or respect. Such injustices can be found on nearly every street corner; shouts of "unfair!" do not stop in the wake of better laws or better leaders. This is not to say that there are not injustices that have been made right. It is merely to say that there will never be any rest from the fight for a more just world. In all of this, no man or woman can step in as our deliverer or liberator. They can only help us, but not as clairvoyant or prescient guides. They can help us by being willing to fight for what is hopefully right, and hopefully good.

Unfortunately we cannot remove from our political life images smacking of messianism. Jesus comes as representative of heaven; not only that, he comes as our representative to heaven. He stands in our stead; he dies as our substitute on the cross. In Christianity, it seems, there is no salvation - or damnation - without representation. Christ is the law and our public defender; he is the advocate on our behalf, doing for us what we cannot do or have no time to do. He intercedes for us; he mediates, and he takes our place when the guilty verdict is handed down. He is taken away in shackles, while we are free to go.

Curiously, political representation comprises this same sort of imagery. If there is no expectation in heaven without representation, there is no taxation without representation here in America. Senators and representatives and presidents stand before the ideals of the American state on our behalf. They are our mediators, defenders and advocates. They will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Before the great courts of men in Washington, our elected officials stand as us incarnate. And they do so before that great Trinity, that great Godhead of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

No wonder it is so tempting to speak of candidates in implicitly religious terms, that they shall "save us" from domestic and foreign enemies. No wonder some leaders might present themselves even in messianic terms. So many of us expect so much from our leaders. I even think that we often expect too much of ourselves, living vicariously through the man or woman for whom we voted, certain that we, along with them, know how to save the world.

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

It is a catchy title, full of poetry and boldness. There is even a veiled criticism hidden therein, that here is a man daring to hope in the face of naysayers; here is a man willing to rally the despondent masses to reject the pessismism of our current leaders, and our current paradigm. And there is even a religious simplicity to it, begging us to remember St. Paul: "Now these three remain, faith, hope and love." Hope audacious? Only to the liberty deniers among us.

Of course, I have yet to read Mr. Obama's book. I am sure that when I do read it, he will help me answer the question: Hope in what? Or are we merely to hope in hope? I hope not. And I am not quite ready to go as far as Boston radio talk show host Jay Severin went yesterday on air, whispering on in hushed, reverent tones about the left's new saint, "Saint Obama." But sainthood is in the air.

Really, it is.

ONE LAST NOTE ON "BLESSED"

I visited Daily Kos, the world's largest blog, this morning. I was searching for items on Mr. Obama, and I was surprised to find that Mr. Obama has himself posted something at Daily Kos. But I want you to note an advertising banner over Mr. Obama's essay. It is an adlink for MSNBC's news team. But note two things. Note that you find, right in the middle, a picture of the leftists' new favorite pundit, Keith Olbermann. Then, one image over, note that there is a picture of Mr. Obama, facing right, adjacent to a picture of President Bush, who is looking left. This is no accident at all. MSNBC might as well say that it is pitching Mr. Obama for President right now.

The second thing I want you to note is that MSNBC is advertising on the most liberal blog on the planet. It would be foolish to think that FoxNews would be a featured advertiser there; and it would be foolish not to think that, if Fox is indeed a mouthpiece of the Bush White House, MSNBC is aligning itself as a mouthpiece for all things progressive. After all, that is what Mr. Obama is after, since he aims to create a "workable progressive majority in this country."

This all, really, should be quite interesting.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
[Barack Obama photograph originally found here. Image by Reuters.]

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Hosanna politics

The Seinfeld Administration

I wonder if readers can guess where I might be going with this essay merely by its title. My guess is that a good number of you can.

The incredible TV show, Seinfeld, was a cornucopia brimming with pop-culture gifts for the tongue: Soup Nazi, shrinkage, regifting, hand, marble rye, Hennigan's, preemptive breakup, low talker, close talker, "quone", the Bro (or manssier), bubble boy, pigman. These delights fall off the tongue, they spill over merry lips; at least they do for those of us who have watched the show (and there are many of us). We get these terms; they make sense of certain things that ordinary words fail to describe. They give us the giggles; they are part of our laughing lexicon. Even the name "Seinfeld" has been incorporated into pop-speech, e.g. "This is a real Seinfeld" (or "Seinfeld moment"). The show shaped pop-culture, and we let it, with delight.

As I've mentioned several times at Contratimes, language is not static; a dictionary is not a law book, it is but a guide. It tells us merely how words are used; it does not insist that words MUST be used certain ways, nor does it prevent new meanings, even new words, from taking form.

How is it then that so many critics of George Bush's language skills don't see their own linguistic foolishness? When Bush "invents" the word "decider"†, how is it that his critics suddenly act as if A) they don't know what he means; B) there is a law that prevents new words from existing in a fluid or dynamic state; C) the new word makes no sense in context; and D) Bush is stupid? When he says that terrorist leaders have sent "suiciders" to terrorize normal folk -- no doubt a word that conflates suicide and bombers into one neat word -- why is that snickered at as dopish? Is it not a perfectly good word even if it is a gaffe? Is it not perfectly descriptive; is it not a good alternate?

Ironically, Bush's gaffes are finding longevity in the marketplace of ideas and the public square because his critics are breathing life into them. Sarcastic commentators use the words every day; bloggers love to describe his penchant for malapropisms, while others have given Bush himself a new name in light of his linguistic liberty ("Bumbleshrub" is one such name given by blogger Just Ain't Right). The irony is simply lost on these critics; and what is also lost on them is that when Bush invents a word (many educators actually encourage children to use inventive spelling when young) his readers and listeners STILL understand what he is saying.

Hey, I am something of a word guy, so surely you would think his tongue-stumbles would bother me. Perhaps they do. But he has coined some very useful words, like "misunderestimated" (which makes perfect sense), "decider" (not really coined, see note below), "suicider" and so on. Why is he not therefore perceived as a creative genius; why is he not seen as the architect of new ideas and concepts? Why is he at least not loved as an entertainer, or as a half-idiot savant seated in high office (like Being There's Chauncy Gardiner)?

You see, this stuff is to political language what Seinfeld was to breakroom badinage: it is the stuff that entertains (and it is stuff that makes us pay attention in a weirdly earnest way). By comparison, the Clinton Administration was a veritable word wasteland, a linguistic Death Valley. What pop phrase pops into your mind from those eight years, those tarpits of tongue? Merely the lone and meager mindbender, the "definition of IS is" foolishness. Bush, on the other hand, will no doubt impact every English dictionary: his malapropisms have life. We all get them.

Speaking of Mr. Clinton, I recall listening to him answer a question posed by NPR's Terry Gross in 2004. His answer was so prolix that even Deep Blue could not have deciphered it. And his reply was without a single mispronounced word. I scratch my head wondering how a man who speaks smoothly yet makes no sense is preferred over a man who brandishes an unruly tongue and yet is understood at every turn. Are Americans really too stupid to get the beauty of "misunderestimated"? Do they have no capacity for the truly incisive "suiciders"?

Only the bushleagured dolts who mock him would tire of his malappropriateness or his diseloquence. Unlike them, I am enlivened knowing that language is not stuck in the leaden lexicons of Bush's critics who abhor linguistic dynamism. They are so many malcontentious verbaphobes. To give them heed would be misattention on our part. But I truly delight in the fact that Bush's critics are the ones who will be responsible for ensuring his blunders last in lexicons in perpetuity.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

†Please note that this word is a legitimate English word, by the way; a fact which should have been mentioned when I first penned this. In haste, I failed to make note that this word appears in literary usage as early as 1593 (according the Oxford English Dictionary). [This addendum added January 12, 2007. See comment at the end of this 2007 post.]

For a related essay, go here.

Technorati tags: Seinfeld, Bush, Language, Malapropisms, Decider, Suiciders

Saturday morning coffee, politics over easy (A poem)

They speak loud enough to prove their pedantry
speaking in bold espresso terms of Bush coming before shove
into an unjust war between Iraq and a hard peace
against a man everyone calls a tyrant,
to say the least

she speaks ex cafédra that democracy works only for an educated public
but the public is no longer educated, which she says so shrewdly
the coffee cools in the decanters; and her man seconds the motion.
She no doubt is educated beneath that new age
progressive bandana all democrat and rich, rich with the verse
of the New York Times, its ink on her hands though
she has New Hampshire mud on her boots which were
assembled in live-free-or-die China
she's a swelling progress and she just knows

I lean over and tell her she should run for president.

I ask her: Is there a more tedious group than these ignoramuses
wandering our voting-booth streets,
so blithely content to read the Union Leader
or the Wall Street Journal, utterly led by the nose by kneejerk polity?
and she nods so knowingly, her eyes deep with pity
and concern for the dulluminati, those big Texas idiots swaggering
thoughtlessly through the world of the refined political idea
who trample the lofty smart bombs of prose in the center-of-the-
universe New York Times' op-eds, the command center for all
the right ways to really, really think.

I tell her how I once was ridiculed for writing a quasi-patriotic
poem, allegedly wrapped in red, white, blue, celebrating freedom in the
quiet and the noise. But the flag is only red, I tell her, with blue and
white splashed upon it. No matter how fervent, the very
peace we choose floats on that red sea, always, forever, irreversibly
We can't make the whole flag white or blue or clear or even smart
and she begins to fling her mud

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.