The Sound of the Crowd

Couple of things on TV this weekend caught my eye…

Herein lies one of the most illuminating lessons of The Jesus Factor: If you have the conservative Christian vote in an American election, you can dispense with almost everyone else. Doug Wead, a Bush family friend and political consultant on matters concerning the religious right, estimates that evangelical Christians make up 25 percent of the nation, and that of those who vote, a solid two-thirds are Republican. But wooing this demographic is a delicate business, as evidenced by the 1992 Republican convention in Houston, where hate-mongering speeches by right-wing commentator Pat Buchanan and televangelist Pat Robertson turned many moderate Republicans off the party. And the impression that George Bush the elder was pandering to the religious right helped pave the way to a Clinton victory. But in contrast to his father’s colder, more elitist public persona, George W. Bush melded a folksy populism with genuine religious fervor and found a way to parlay these attributes into a second term as governor. Southern Baptist leader Richard Land recalls the afternoon of Bush’s second gubernatorial inauguration, when Bush gathered a few trusted colleagues in his office to announce, “God wants me to be president.”

And, quoting directly from Eric Alterman’s Altercation…

Eric will be debating media bias with the well known conservatives, Christopher Hitchens and Patrick Buchanan on Scarborough Country on MSNBC at Ten on Sunday Night, (following more trouble, no doubt, for Tony B).

This should be good. Granted, it probably won’t be the excruciating train wreck that Alterman’s appearance on the Dennis Miller show was, but nevertheless, this should be good.

I agree with about 98% of this CBS News opinion piece. The author asks:

“What is the word that has more gall than gall? Nerve? Cheek, chutzpah conceit, arrogance, condescension? You name it — the squadron of chickenhawks that steers both the campaign and government of President Bush’s have pots of it. Where do these people come off impugning John Kerry’s Vietnam era guts and patriotism? John McCain, Colin Powell, Tom Ridge or Chuck Hagel might have some moral standing, but not these chickenhawks.”

Then, later:

“Allow me to add a stray point: these chickenhawks had a great influence in the decision to wage war on Iraq. After the civil war, William Tecumseh Sherman noted, “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry for blood, more vengeance. More desolation.”

The most forceful advocates for war in the administration had seen the least of it. The rationales for war were cerebral, and I bought some of them, probably to my discredit. ”

Good stuff.

…than a few good things in today’s Altercation, including exceprts from and a link to a Wall Street Journal article on the Woodward book:

“There is a tendency among Mr. Bush’s critics to think that if word just gets out — if Americans find out what he is really like — they will toss him from office. An example of that kind of thinking slipped onto the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post, in a story arguing that the president’s “skillful use of language and images” had enabled him to retain high poll numbers despite misadventures in Iraq. The story seemed to suggest that Americans were tricked by clever public relations into supporting Bush and his war.

Hogwash. That’s “Blue America” elitism at its worst. By now, all Americans have taken fair measure of their president. And their sharp disagreements have less to do with who he is and what he has done than with who they are and what values they hold. Mr. Bush has become the ultimate Blue America-Red America litmus test. Your response to him determines which side of the great divide you populate.”

To which Alterman responds, in part:

“Of course, the fact that the book places all of the WMD blame on CIA Director George Tenet certainly didn’t hurt. Indeed, Woodward quotes Bush as initially not buying into the WMD argument: “One of the book’s best moments is when the president reacts skeptically to intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Tenet shuts the discussion down by rising up, throwing his hands in the air, and saying: “It’s a slam-dunk case!”

Whether that actually happened or not is irrelevant to the White House. Bush has boxed in Tenet via Woodward, who has given the President a “fall guy” for the catastrophic failures in intelligence. Any Democrats who question the President’s intelligence or political acumen would do well to pay attention to this brilliant bit of manuevering.”

Check it out.

The New York Times has an opinion piece by Wesley Clark on the “medals” flap with which Republicans are trying to attack John Kerry.

Peplab.

You need to read this. Salon.com’s Life section has a story about how “the Bush administration has quietly removed 25 reports from its Women’s Bureau Web site, deleting or distorting crucial information on issues from pay equity to reproductive healthcare.”

Hard to believe it’s the same Bush administration who, Karen Hughes assured us, “has employed more women in senior-level staff positions than any other presidential administration,” isn’t it?

And hey, Hughes herself is a woman, she’d know, wouldn’t she? And what about Condi? Certainly the administration can’t be misogynists, then.

Man, I wish “Bushwomen” had been a better book…

This isn’t scary at all. I mean, unless you’re a nut about civil liberties or anything…

Ok, as most of you reading this know, when I’m not ranting about politics, taking cheap shots at Buffy, or reviewing books and CDs for Ink 19, I’m what I like to call an “upstart playwright.”

So I’m in the process of looking for different theaters to which to send my wares, and I come across this thing called the Purple Rose Theatre Company. As you’ll see if you click on that link, that’s the company that actor Jeff Daniels started. If you go to their site, you’re greeted by a nice letter from Jeff saying, among other things,

“Years later, after moving back home to Michigan, I bought an old bus garage in the small town of Chelsea with the dream of creating a midwestern answer to Circle Rep. I wanted a professional theatre company, featuring midwestern actors, directors, designers, and playwrights situated in the middle of America producing plays about the middle of America. People, of course, thought I was an idiot. From the local critics who wanted the latest shows from New York starring my “movie star friends” to the townspeople who thought Art was someone who lived out by the highway, no one could understand what I was trying to do. It made no sense. Except to all those local actors, directors, designers, and especially playwrights who called the midwest their home.”

Sounds great, right? Local boy makes good, comes home and gives up some large to promote the careers of those less fortunate. Except, well, check out what the current production is in this theater for middle-American playwrights, and specifically, pointedly not Daniel’s movie-star friends.

And here’s an interview with one, Lizz Winstead, who is the co-creator of The Daily Show and a bigwig behind the scenes at Air America Radio. She also hosts a morning show there with Chuck D., which I haven’t heard, as it’s on way too early for me here in the Pacific time zone.

She raises several good points in the interview, and the one I thought was the most interesting is: If you’re interviewing Henry Kissinger, say, do you play the war criminal card or not? She says if you don’t it’s like the elephant in the room that no one talks about.

I’m not sure she’s right. What are the odds that someone like Kissinger is actually going to break down and give a substantive answer to a question like that on Air America or The Daily Show? But I’m not sure she’s wrong, either.

Could I like John McCain this much? He’s standing up to the attack dogs in his party in this E.J. Dionne, Jr. column, which says:

“McCain recalled that he had worked with Kerry on “POW/MIA issues and the normalization of relations with Vietnam” and wanted to stand up for his war comrade because “you have to do what’s right.” Speaking of Kerry, McCain said: “He’s my friend. He’ll continue to be my friend. I know his service was honorable. If that hurts me politically or with my party, that’s a very small price to pay.”

You know, sometimes I think everything that’s wrong with the Republican party as it stands today is symbolized by the fact that they had a chance to run John McCain in 2000…and chose George W. Bush instead.