Posted on 11/04/2004 7:44:03 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith. It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq, forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy - upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
New career opportunity for windbag Friedman: Thanksgiving Day Parade float.
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
I wonder what he meant by it......
LOL
He must be reminded of the fact that it was the country which voted for the issues he now is bitching about.
Thomas Friedman's own mother rues his scatter-brained take on America and Israel!
It is important to hear Thomas Friedman rant in order to realize he is not the unbiased, tolerant journalist he portrays himself to be.
LOL. I am pushing the term "crush depth", which is when the old media reaches the tipping point when no one really cares what they write or think. My guess, early next year. I watch tv now to laugh at cnn, msnbc, and dan rather. They are so very clueless. Hey, what about a FNC - 2 or 3?
***Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate?***
Reading this I feel a sense of vertigo as if I had walked into a room with a person it it who spent his whole life living upside down - hanging from the ceiling.
What we think is good, they think is bad - what they think is good, we think is bad.
Ah yes, this is the sweetest of them all for me. The epitome of the intellectual elite. The king of moral relativism. The man who's mental machinations remind me of watching a game of ping-pong (did that give me away). The man who knows the game has to be changed in the middle east (through democracy) but does not have the courage to do what it takes to make it happen. The man who thinks everything would be OK if we just kowtowed to the world and accepted the world court and Kyoto, realizes everything he stands for has just been repudiated by the American people.
Like apples Tom? How do you like them apples?! I see many more foreign road trips in your future.
Could someone forward THE SAMARITANS HOTLINE number to the NYT real fast??!!!!
Wait, on second thought . . . . . don't bother!
***They will not recover as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in domestic policy and foreign affairs." ****
The faithful will smell your wolfish breath under your sheep's cloak!
I can't believe how brazen these folks are. He basically said, "To manipulate them to your purposes, tell them what they want to hear but change the meaning."
The difference is that Conservative worship Yaweh, the great I AM while liberals worship government.
Reference to the President's stand on embryonic stem cell research, I'm sure. Wonder if Friedman feels the same way about Josef Mengele's 'research' on Jewish children? After all, wasn't that done in the name of science?
I only have to words for you Mr. (liberals)Wanna be Sec. Of State.
FU-Q!!!!!
The only thing you prove with your air headed statments is you have no idea about how the MAJORITY of this country believes. Keep writing your crap in your liberal rag, it keeps us motivated to turn out in droves to reject you, and your kind!
I hate him and I can say that because I was introduces to his writings only in the lead up to the Iraq invasion and really admired what he wrote then. But he has much in common with his failed candidate Mr. Kerry for when the going gets tough the libs get scootin their whiney asses to cover from which they can more safely criticize the DOERS.
Does he complain that Kerry sat his white butt in black churches for weeks before Nov.2nd. I think libs really have no problem with hypochrisy. its a matter of self-recognition and they are comfortable with that. I meam, how else can one live with the selfcenteredness that defines the Left while spewing demagogic egalitarianism.
Plus the "I support the troops in this Failed war" is the ultimate insult to both the military and my intellegence. OReilly is just as disgusting in this respect. These people call for war and expect a movie. My dad used to stupidly rib me when I was a kid, "You're allowed to get in the pool but you can't get wet". Have these "writers ever studied history? Their ignorance to the nature of war and its costs nauseates me. They continually say that we have battleships in the area. There hasn't been a battleship in the fleet for at least 10 years. I remember a reporier in Mogadishu observing just before the marines landed. An F=14 with a recce pod came over at slow speed. wings full forward. dropping Mag IR decoy flares. The reporter seeing this said, "Yes its an American bomber and hes circling to show everyone that he means no harm and look, look, they are dropping fireworks to celebrate their arrival". I kid you not. Awgghhhh... I cant write anymore, they make me sick.
It's a good thing this clueless jerk has nothing to say about our foreign policy.
The Lexus and the Olive Tree, forsooth.
I wonder if, according to Friedman, it would be okay for a person to oppose abortion, or same sex marriage, or stem cell research, if they were atheists and did not base those views on religious convictions.
If you're an atheist or a secular humanist, it seems perfectly acceptable for you to have and espouse all kinds of opinions regarding social issues. But, heaven forbid, if you base your opinions on social issues on your religious beliefs.
This column reveals that people of the ilk of Friedman don't have the first clue as to what motivates people of deep faith who put obedience to God first in their lives. He probably doesn't know or associate with anyone like that. It's an amazing thing.
The post mortem on this election is showing very clearly that the "deep" divide in the nation is between those who believe in God and those who do not.
Like Rush said two years ago...."It's time to salt the soil and plow it under"!!!!!!
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