Election '06; part 2nd

What I'm trying to understand, for purposes of my own continued mental health, is why it is that I so strongly sense that this election is going to be different from others. The difference, shorthand, as I see it, is that for the first time ever 1/2 of this country is nuts, or rather, lead or influenced by those who are nuts. Not people of a different persuasion, not people of different values. Nuts.

What I'm going to use as my illustration is Abu Grahib. That was gratuitous insult, it was an embarrassment, we expect more of our soldiers. But was it torture, did it make us the new jailers after Saddam, did it make us no different than he, did it deserve months and months and months of coverage? Three days would have been plenty, with occasional follow up. But again and again and again it was thrown before the American public, forcing the embarrassment, and all the time with the charge that it was torture. Same with Gitmo, same with all charges of American brutality and arrogance and denial of liberties.

Does any sane person believe any of that?

There is absolutely no end to the charges made by the left and no end to the coverage given by the media. The problem is none of it is true. Does anyone actually believe any of this is actually that bad? Does anyone actually believe Gitmo is torture. The thing is, there is such a thing as reality. Sometimes it's obscure, sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's difficult and only becomes clear with time, but it is there. People can have different values and react differently but it is there, the real, and you can not month after month say Abu Grahib was torture and not be nuts. But this is where live MSM and the Democrats. Month after month. Nuts.

Do you think nobody notices?

This anyway is why I think this election might be different. It's one thing to hammer your opponent when you've got him in a corner, but when there's no corner but merely abuse, ridicule, and allegation, after a while it seems silly, it's watching some misshapen animal snarling over the scent of a dead horse, while horse and rider are off to the field somewhere with battles to be fought. But the barking and snarling doesn't stop.

It's my feeling that after a while the public begins to recognize that the old dog has a problem.

So this election might be different. The dog has gotten on everyone's nerves and has created ill temper. That shows up in the polls. But it is ill temper and short temper, it's not judgment. It seems to me that when it does come time to vote an unusually large number of people will recognize that Fido is barking at ghosts, and ignore him, and that could lead to a result somewhat different than expected... But what if it turns out that 51% of the people are just as goofy as the dog? I don't believe it, but... Wow!

--Of course I'm only arguing national tone, I'm not considering local factors. But I am saying there will be no wave for the Democrats. In fact, I rather expect there will be something of a counter wave, at least against their expectations. And since this is national, it seems it could be more pronounced in the senate than in the house.

Woodward Wackjob

Lot's of noise about Woodward's book. Who cares? "State of Denial". What a perfect title. A nut calling the kettle a nut; or more carefully, a nut criticizing a sane man for not living in his moonbat wonderworld. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durban, Chuck Schummer, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean... the entire MSM... are there any of these who can perceive a real world, a sane man, and courage? We do live in a world half nuts. I'm hoping it's 51 - 49.

Possibly at some point I will have to consider this seriously. That's hard. It does seem to me we live in two different worlds and that the right struggles to face and understand it and that the left doesn't but merely posits anything anti as true. With the left absolutely any assertion is true if it will damage Bush and help bring them back to power. For the left truth is not perception but assertion. "At least I tried" becomes courage. "Valerie Plame was covert", and by golly she still is. "We can't win in Iraq" means Bush is stupid and evil and arrogant, but "Immediate withdrawal", well maybe not yet. "Smarter" means repeating the word, "smarter", and that's as "smart" as it gets. "Water boarding is torture" means we're no better than them, we've lost the moral high ground and from now on forevermore our captured soldiers will be treated badly. Heavens. I don't know if this is just irresponsibility and valueless opportunism or it they're just nuts.

At any rate, for me, this is the mindset I expect of the book and as such it just doesn't compute. But I suppose it will be taken seriously, it will be discussed. After all, it is the kind of thing the left knows is true. Dan Rather would know it's true and Bill Clinton was our greatest president. (Can't you just leave the poor guy alone?)

Election '06

Long time no post. I've decided I'm going to start again, for a few weeks anyway, and see if I can use my posts as a way to straighten things somewhat in my own mind as to this upcoming election.

While I haven't made posts, I have worked in my journal. Late this morning after I had my first look at the headlines I made this note:

Iraq is hot. Everything I saw in that quick look was Iraq. Of course, what do the Democrats have? Everything is going just fine.

Absent homeland terrorism or natural disaster, the only thing that immediately impinges on the voter is the economy and gas prices --"pocketbook"-- and gas prices are plummeting and the economy is good. Everything else is just an "issue", and an "issue", since it doesn't affect the comfortable American, doesn't exist unless it's talked about. So what's talked about? Iraq.

I want to note that talk does mean judgment. If an issue doesn't exist for you unless it's talked about that means that the pressure to make a judgment is not immediate or purely emotional. There are facts, there are opinions. However much individuals may vary, these things are weighed, and they're weighed fairly deeply in reference to values and the individual's greater life experience. This year there is nothing immediately pressing, that means positions are going to be based on reflection. I think that means that in this election you're going to get as smart a voter as you're ever going to get. Will they go Republican? Will they go Democrat?

Now, "smart", in my view, is any view I hold. I'm Republican. And I didn't say the American voter was smart --maybe yes, maybe no-- what I said was they're going to me as smart this year as they'll ever be. There are serious, worrisome things out there, but there's no pressure. These serious and worrisome things are going to be weighed. The act of voting is gong to be a judgement.

The economy isn't an issue, it's good. Gas prices not an issue, hurricanes not an issue; health care, education, social security, these aren't an issue because nobody's talking about them.

Judges are an issues, because judges keep sticking their nose in it. The border isn't an issue because we're going to get a fence and the only ones excited about this issue were the ones who wanted the fence. With the fence, immigrants, at least for the time being, aren't an issue.

Corruption isn't an issue because it cuts both ways. Besides, corruption, always, is individual. On this Americans are agreed. However much one party might try to smear the other in fact every American knows that the man he elects is either a noble servant or a crook, you just never know which but it's every one of them.

Katrina isn't an issue because that was a long time ago and there haven't been any hurricanes this year and besides everybody is getting sick of the whining of the "victims". So what's left? Only Iraq, only the War On Terror.

That's it.

I am speaking of course only in reference to national attitude, ignoring all local issues. But I am asserting that national attitude can tip things one way or the other and the tip is going to be based on Iraq. And I'm not saying that this "tip" is going to be objective or correct, only that it will be based on as much reflection as you're ever going to get from the American voter.

The issue is the Islamos. Republican? Democrat?

Things Become Clearer...

It has been explained to me: Bush invaded Iraq, that created terrorism (because it was so unfair); therefore Bush is a terrorist. If we get rid of Bush this November, 2006, the world will again be as good as it was when Clinton was President.

I think this is a clear and full and fair description of the Democrat's understanding of current history, and this explains why the current leadership --Harry Reid, et al.-- didn't like the film, because it confuses things by suggesting that there was history before Iraq, and that is just plain a Republican dirty trick.

Again, I do think I state this with absolute precision.

Note: According to Rush only one minute was cut from the entire film. That conforms to my sense that not much seemed cut, though that was based only on my reading, compared then to the broadcast version. I wonder why ABC hung tough? It would almost seem to suggest they were admirable?

.........................
Wow, just watched the second half. This was vivification.
(9:26 PM)

The Path To 9/11

Will watch the docudrama tomorrow night, if it's on, as it appears it will be.

I'm only interested in it as a drama. After five years of my own reading on this matter there will be no new facts that will necessitate a substantial rethinking of my understanding, but if it is in accord with that understanding, the vivification, which is the intent of drama, might be personally of use to me. I don't know how it is that literature can place meaning in my mind that I can't find with my brain, but I know it happens. This is the whole glory of arts, of poetry, music, the novel. So I hope it is a good and a true drama.

If it's not true, but skillful, and thus powerful? Still then, it will have value. It will vivify for me a particular point of view. Again, this is presuming it's done as something that can be called art.

Of course, the whole brouhaha over it so far is politics. The Democrats, who've learned nothing from 9/11, don't want to see the Clinton administration expressing the same attitudes towards this war as they continue to express now. It will make them look "soft". They are soft. So in that respect it appears the portrayal will be true. But I will have to watch it.

As to the "inaccuracies" that make it a "lie". As a criticism of a docudrama I see that as nonsense. It's true that for reasons of compression an individual will sometimes be portrayed in an act not committed. That's because in the drama their function is not individual but thematic; they express not individual will but a social force. Admittedly, that may unfairly make one individual the bogeyman when he's actually only one bogeyman of many; but when one stands for all it is not an untruth in terms of the history. --I'm referring primarily to Sandy. I actually don't much care if he hung up on the phone or not. That whole administration hung-up on the whole concept of duty. They understood no goal at all other than to last for eight years.

But I will have to watch it.
(1:41 AM)

....................
Just watched the first part. Worst camera work since man was no longer monkey. With a 40 million dollar budget you'd think somebody could have sprung twenty bucks for a tripod. Jiggle jiggle. Exhausting. And way too many facial close ups. The face up close, unless a context has been established, is both boring and oppressive. The artistic set apparently decided that jiggle and nostril-to-brow was intense. Really dull. This will not stay in my mind as a vivification.

The writing? Not enough dialogue. I doubt it could have been followed if the story were not already known, as such I don't know how effective it was for many. (ABC now doing a Clinton Cover-Your-Butt Nightline news cast, saying that the Northern Alliance scheme to get Bin Laden was harebrained and wouldn't have worked anyway...)

As to what was cut? Sandy Burger didn't hang up the phone but he wouldn't give the go ahead either. Madeline Albright didn't warn the Pakistanis of the cruise missile over-flight but did say they had to be warned. Sandy does come across as weak and unable to make decisions, Madeline as having no interest at all in getting Binny but much concern with "regional issues". In general, the higher echelons (except Louie Free) are all cover-your-butt bureaucrats.

As drama it's failure because of the bad camera work and because of the lack of enough expository dialogue. I'll see how it sits in my mind over the next hours but I don't think it's made an impression. (The bad guys are bad guys, that does come across.)

As to why the Democrats and Clinton were so upset? I don't know. The only criticism that's communicated is that there was ineptitude among the higher ups. So who's surprised? 9/11 happened, of course there was ineptitude. How can stating a universal presumption be an additional, current damage? Bubba may not have liked the Monica reference, may not have liked the "gutless" reference --that if Osama were killed he didn't know about it-- and may just have disliked being left out of the story: he's never shown taking any interest in pursing terrorism, and it's clear he'd not delegated that vigorous pursuit to anyone under him either.

I can see how he and Sandy and Madeline might not like it for reasons of personal vanity ("legacy", as they say) but why should the present Democrat leadership care? Right now they're the ones saying it's George Bush who's dropped the ball in pursuing Bin Laden, and this movie makes no reference at all to Iraq. I don't see how this movie implicates the present Democrats? Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe what offended them has been cut and I just don't know about it, but I just don't see why Harry Ried should be upset. The Clinton Administration was incompetent. So...? Or maybe they just don't like seeing the bad guys portrayed as really bad guys...?

In a few hours I'll read what the blogs have to say. There'll be a thousand posts up by then.
(11:20 PM)