Just got done with two massive, and completely unrelated, email trails with Bush supporters about this election. After we got past the initial shouting stage, took a deep breath, and started talking in our “inside voices” about issues, it was a pretty fascinating process. There’s a lot I don’t know, but I was able to hold my own pretty well in the discussions. They ranged all over the place — Iraq, preemptive military action, how to get at truth in a polarized environment, abortion, environmental issues, which party is better at supporting human beings, etc. etc.

I came away from both discussions with the clear understanding that there is relatively little middle ground right now. Both sides are deeply entrenched in their points of view — more than just opinionated. This is at the level of religious belief. The mood right now is that one side or the other MUST rise to dominance — capitalism over socialism, private charity over govt. support, US dominance over multilateral politicking. I think the debate that is manifesting itself in politics this year, as well as in the candidates, is much deeper and broader than just political or social issues. The split goes everywhere that I can see — churches internally divided over issues like homosexuality, educators wrangling about private vs. home school vs. public education, soda drinkers divided over Pepsi or Coke! (just kidding)

It’s a debate that I first read in a book called “The Truth About The Truth“, a book of essays edited by Walter Truett Anderson on Postmodernism — kind of a PoMo primer for us regular Joes. What emerges from the essays in the book is a discussion about knowing — about how we in the modern world go about knowing and create our lives from that action of knowing. In a nutshell: Group A, the modernists, believe in objective truth that informs reality, that the world *IS* a certain way and conforms to a certain set of definable criteria. All you have to do is find and follow the “right” criteria. Group B, the postmodernists, believe that there is no single frame to look at reality from — that the “right” criteria is usually one handed to you from your religion or culture or family and may have little value in another context — like an Eskimo trying to build an igloo in the Serengeti because it’s what they know. The postmodernists believe that finding truth is an excercise that takes multiple points of perspective to try and find a common center. The rapid shrinking of the world due to faster and easier communication and flow of commerce has brought these two points of view into direct conflict, as cultures crash into each other and policies and beliefs that operated well in a limited arena are suddenly jostled up against other points of view all elbowing for dominance.

This election is a prime example. In this corner, you have Bush — the modernist — who knows what he knows, and that’s that. His decisions are made from an extremely well-defined and strongly adhered-to point of view, and he has little to no second-thoughts about them. He is supremely confident that his views are correct, and if followed will reorder the world in a suitable way. In the other corner you have Kerry — the postmodernist — who’s wife embodies multiple cultural perspectives. He is a complete triangulator, seeking advice and counsel and opinions from across the board politically and personally. He treats every subject as infinitely complex and nuanced, and takes his time to stand in the different perspectives before making a decision. He can move decisively, but only if he’s first satisfied that he’s exhausted the range of possibilities. Given the candidates and how they represent the electorate at large, it’s not surprising the election this year has been one of the most evenly split and divisive in recent political history.

Which perspective is better, and who is better suited for the job of President as it stands today? I know where I’ve put my money this election, but I don’t have the viewpoint of history to say. All I know is that’s why this election has fascinated me so much. Like the Civil War in it’s own way, this election marks another massive turn in America’s journey and how we conduct ourselves in the world — as a modern nation, or as a postmodern nation. The pressure is building, as it is in many other arenas, to choose one path or the other.

Statistics essay question: Discuss the probability phenomenon that no matter how large the yard, or how little dog crap is scattered around the yard, if one walks across this yard without looking done one will inevitably step on said dog crap. Extra credit if you can prove the link between the frequency of poop-stepping and the nastiness of the poops being stepped on.

More confirmation that Bush has taken advantage of his supporters almost religious loyalty to him, and keep them from questioning the Iraq war, by continuing to say that the war was somehow “central” to the war on terror and that Iraq was directly linked with al-Qaeda – both of which are categorically untrue. From the report:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

…Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments, “One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree.”…Kull continues, “To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq.”

The study also goes on to reveal that a huge majority of Bush’s supporters think he supports things that they are for, but that he’s adamantly against — things like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the treaty banning land mines, the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Worth reading… Explains a lot to me about the intense partisan divide going on right now. Frankly, I find it startling, but in line with previous suspicions I’ve had, that this many Americans are functionally progressive and multilateral, at least in foreign policy, but are kept voting extreme right-wing policies because they are fed a steady diet of fear and uncertainty. Makes me wonder what would happen if all those Republicans all woke up at once and realized that Bush didn’t in any way represent what they think is important to America. Are they a massive moderate/conservative Democratic base that’s still “in the closet”, and if so what would it take to switch ‘em to a Dem ticket?

I’m writing a worship album, and I’m determined to sing on it. I’ve got a good solid voice, but I need to get it up to snuff to do all the leads and make them passionate, surprising, nuanced — all the things good singers can do.

I need a good rock vocal voice coach here in the Seattle area. I’d like to think I’d come out of the process sounding like Thom Yorke from Radiohead, but at the very least I’d like there to be some improvement… If you’re reading this, any suggestions?

So, somewhere in the middle of composing my 6th long thoughtful response to a friend of mine about how he was deeply mistaken about Kerry being a untrustworthy self-serving SOB and how he would be the best man for the presidency and how the Bush label machine has addled his brain and how I’m just spinning rehashed Democratic B.S., I… just…

crashed. I guess.

I suddenly realized that this election is so divided, so vitriolic, so partisan and so covered in media spinning goo that the massive tomes I’ve been writing to friends aren’t going to change a damn thing at this stage. I sure as hell am not going to convince any Reps I know to ditch Bush. And I don’t really know any undecideds. I mean, I know people that think they’re undecided, but they’re really not. They’re just maintaining the illusion of being independants. And I’m kind of worn out on crusading.

So, I’m done. The election is out of my hands. My state is a Kerry state, so there’s not much to do locally. And unless there’s some catalclysm between now and Election Day, this is my last political post for a while. I’m still pretty eagerly checking the polls and the pulse of the conservative/liberal/moderate blogs I read to see how the wind is shifting, but it’s mostly for my own curiosity. I’ve developed some armchair political instincts and learned a lot about the process of running for president — polls, electoral college percentages, the bets from the futures markets, get out the vote drives, etc. etc. — and I’m eager to see how my predictions will match up to what actually happens on/after Nov 2.

Currently, like many other people, I don’t have a solid prediction. Just a gut feel. Heck, even Newt Gingrich said no one knows anything about this election. But here’s what I agree with my friend Sky on: This election will probably be a surprise — a clear victory for one side or the other. I don’t think they’ll need all those lawyers that are currently setting up camp in the battleground states. It won’t be a landslide, but it will be clear. And I think the vote will go to Kerry. Why?

(Read the rest of this entry…)

Seems like Dick Cheney doesn’t have a problem talking about his openly gay daughter in a political setting or letting her run his campaign, supporting his boss in a marriage amendment that will decimate her and her partner’s rights, and not speaking out when a GOP candidate in Illinois calls his daughter a “selfish hedonist”. But suddenly it’s a huge issue that Kerry pointed out on national TV that she’s… gasp..a LESBIAN!

And, don’t you know it, it’s suddenly front page news about how Kerry made this huge gaffe and is a gay-baiting, cynical asshole who uses his opponents family members for political gain. And while the Cheney’s and the GOP are busy screeching “wolf!”, Bush’s disgusting lie about never having said that he wasn’t concerned about Osama goes completely under the radar.

Only in this media-saturated vacuous TV world could you have a neutral comment about a lesbian blown up to epic purportions while the leader of the free world sneaks by with a bald-face about his own statements dismissing his utter failure to track down the terrorist leader responsible for the worst attack on American soil EVER. Want to get away with just about anything? Just step right up and push that big red button labeled “Public Titillation”.

Meanwhile, for a reality check by someone who should rightfully be outraged by Kerry’s “gaffe” — namely, a gay conservative — check out Andrew Sullivan’s angry defense of Kerry and condemnation of the hypocritical GOP.

Kerry kicked ass in the debates again. He’s so solid and focused and intelligent and unruffled. I feel comforted just thinking about someone of his caliber being in the White House grappling with the billions of important decisions Presidents have to make. He’s one of those guys that seems stodgy and boring at first, but turns out to be one of your strongest friends — the kind that gets more interesting over time and that you find you can’t live without. He’s a grown-up.

In contrast, Frat-boy Bush continues to not reassure me… The verbal gaffes and inappropriate hiccup-y chuckles, the hunchy posture and shuffle that makes him look like a used car dealer, and the slumps in concentration where it’s obvious that his mind would rather be doing a billion other less taxing things than thinking about policy and coherently defending his choices — baseline, I’ve just never understood the Bush “charm”. I got harassed unmercifully by guys like him in junior high — guys with a smarmy and slick kind of “howdy, pal!” demeanor when they wanted you to like them, but who could rip you a new one in a heartbeat if it was expedient for their self-aggrandizement. I’ve also never understood America’s attraction to that kind of guy either — all style and no heft.

My only consolation has been that guys like that tend to have a short run before the American public realizes that the fling has suddenly burned out, he looks like hell in the harsh light of morning, his friends are all vaguely unsettling and creepy, they’ve completely trashed the apartment, and he’s left us holding a massive credit card bill that he has no intention of paying. And not only that, but he can’t admit that anything’s even slightly wrong because this is how “all of his relationships go”.

Now, if only I could convince the other half of the country…

I know, I know. So far this blog is a two-note excursion — Amira and politics, and not always in that order. But this election has me on the edge of my seat, just like a great cliffhanger movie. There’s so many interesting factors to it — the deep ideological differences between the candidates, their deeply different personalities, what their election will mean for the country and for Iraq and the world — and the contest is going to only end one way with someone taking the oath. Personally, I’m going to call it for Kerry. He’s found his voice and he’s striking a chord with voters, especially key demographics like women and undecideds. He’s polling way ahead of Bush with those groups. Plus, apparently historically incumbents at this stage have all the votes they’re going to have, while challengers pick up 4-6% in the actual election from last-minute voters. And the Dems have been rocking the house in voter registration in swing states.

All of which would put Kerry up there in January taking that oath. I’m not smart enough to post a spread of how much he’ll win by, but I’m confident that he can pull it in, provided he does well in Friday’s debate and closes out the month strong. Go, man, go! It’s time for a grown-up in the White House!

All this nail-biting reminds me of how much of a fevered fanboy I was before the Lord Of The Rings movies came out — defending how awesome it was going to be to everyone I knew and obsessively tracking every comment by every available movie site analyzing whether or not Jackson could pull it off. I was right about the movie — maybe I’ll have the same luck in politics.

Speaking of LOTR, I haven’t preordered the extended edition of Return Of The King. Last I checked, no one was selling the awesome box version with the Minas Tirith sculpture in it. I’ll probably check again for it in the next couple of days. I can hardly wait – December 15th seems like a long ways away. *50 minutes* of new footage — the mind boggles…

I continue to be impressed with Andrew Sullivan. Despite weeks of spiteful flack from “me-too” right-wingers, he’s continued to take the Bush administration to task for their many failings, including the Defense of Marriage Act, their prolifigate spending, the badly bungled war in Iraq, and Bush’s own stubborn refusal to face facts and admit errors. He’s been toying with a Kerry vote, so I wrote to help persuade him:

Hi Andrew. Been reading your blog now for several months. I’ve developed a lot of respect for your voice, even though I don’t always agree, and I find in your writing commonalities and connections that I feel with member of my own family that are conservative and thoughtful. For myself, I’m an anti-Bush moderate liberal who was a Deaniac through most of the Dem primaries and have been a “wait and see” person about Kerry. However, I’ve become a big fan of his since the debates because in my opinion he is exhibiting the best of the strength, vision and resolve that conservatives admire, but tempered with nuance, wisdom and an eye toward inclusive and humble leadership. I also have to thank you and The Corner crew and other conservatives for bringing the big ideas to the table — liberty, freedom, justice — and demanding that our foreign policy keep them as touchstones. I’ve been more and more turned off by the blind isolationism and selfishness of the wingnuts on the left that can’t seem to grasp the real dangers and challenges of a world that’s compacting ideologies closer and closer together.

That said, there are two things that I hope will help you take the plunge into voting for and promoting Kerry.

First, I would direct you to this article in the Philadephia Inquirer: “Iraqi war boosted terrorism, study says” . Basically, an Israeli security think tank (which probably knows a bit about fighting terrorists) have concluded that Iraq not only was not “central to the war on terror” like the Bush camp myopically claims, but that it has actually become the new breeding ground for terror that those of us opposed to the war feared. Whether the neo-con vision of a free Iraq breeding democracy in the Middle East is a viable strategy will be decided by history, but what is now abundantly clear is that the vaunted “experienced” Bush crew took their eyes off the ball big time in diverting our anti-terror campaign away from terror into nation-building before we’d secured our anti-terrorism objectives. After reading that NY Times piece on Kerry you posted and seeing his assured conviction in the debates, I have a hard time thinking that he would have so badly blown the opportunity to decisively decimate al Qaeda as the Bushies have done. You’ve said yourself that he’s shown there’s something to his “strong closer” mythos — It seems logical that he bring that aptitude for strong closes to this campaign against terrorism and could be just what we need to stop our national fumbling with the issue and bring a steady hand to Iraq.

Second, I want to remind you that the presidency has a way of working on and changing the person that holds the job. Bush was a complete non-entity before 9/11 and the subsequent challenges, but it’s obvious that no matter what his mindset was going into the job that he was given focus and resolve that he didn’t have before he took office. I recently watched a documentary on the presidency and was struck with the fact that our history is filled with men who took the job on purpose or by accident, and were deeply changed by it — even men who were true scoundrels or inept. I predict that Kerry as president will be focused and resolved in a way that he has not shown as visibly until now.

So, I invite you to join the ranks of the converted, and vote Kerry on Nov. 2.

Thanks for your authenticity and insight, and willingness to engage with all the issues you cover in a public way.

And if you’re on the fence, I urge you to do the same — put a grown-up in the White House who can actually handle the challenges we face in the next four years.

Andrew Sullivan, a moderate conservative whose opinion I’m beginning to respect more and more, has an interesting post titled The Underlying Fact which grapples with the fact that the stated rationale for the war — namely, WMDs — was “wrong. Period.” and asks how an administration can be re-elected after not only deeply misjudging the rationale for the war, but also bungling it’s prosecution.

The nice people at The Corner on The National Review Online disagree and state that it doesn’t matter why we went in. They argue that Saddam may not have had weapons or capability, but that he was a threat, he had serious intent and given time would have fulfilled on that threat, and says the administration did the right thing in a post-9/11 world to remove potential threats. They rap the Dems for attacking Bush for that action, and ignoring the “strategic and moral relevance of removing Saddam”.

Seems to me that’s beside the point. The neo-cons in the administration knew what they were doing in using 9/11 and the threat of WMDs to fire up the American people, desperately looking for an enemy to destroy, to make a strategic move they’d wanted to make for years — namely, reconfigure the Middle East in America’s image and ensure the security of our oil, starting with Iraq. So the rationale floated from “Iraq is connected to 9/11″ to “Iraq has WMDs and is an immenent threat” to “Saddam was a bad man and the Iraqis are better off without him” to Cheney saying Tuesday that Iraq is “central to the war on terror”, whatever that means. The point is that they sold us this war in as many ways as they could to make an invasion and the loss of American lives palatable to the American public. And none of those reasons were the actual reason for the invasion.

So, regardless of the moral rightness of removing Saddam (which Kerry and many Dems agree was something that needed to be done at some point), I think this election is a referendum on the floating rationale — selling something to the public under false pretenses. Americans don’t like to be misled, especially into war. If the Bush administration loses, it will be because they are finally and unwillingly forced to take responsibility for misleading the American public, no matter what reason they did it for. They should have told the truth, and now they may have to reap the whirlwind.

Just helped Janece install WordPress at her new URL — janecemoment.com . She’s going to start migrating her blog over there in the next couple of days. We’ll probably re-direct the Workings URL over to the new one when we’re finished.

For now, check out some cool pics of Amira and her over at her ol’ homestead. And of course, Amira’s new journal is online now, too (and looking a helluva lot better than ours, I must say). The big question is, how can I get paid to just post to these blogs all day long…?

Not too much to say about the VP debate. The general progression of it was kind of strange. There was bloody bare-knuckled jabs at the beginning, starting with Edwards saying “Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people” and Cheney blasting Edwards and Kerry both as absentee Senators with either wrong or no experience. But midway through, Edwards threw a compliment to Cheney about his gay daughter and that he knew Cheney loved her, and Cheney thanked him for saying it and didn’t have much else to say (probably to avoid angering the anti-gay Republican base). The exchange deflated the raucous tension that characterized the first 45 min or so, and then both candidates seemed to sink into a kind of sound-bite lethargy with Edwards trying to stay energetic and rouse Cheney out of his grumbling aggravation, but the fight was gone from both of them. Edwards did manage to close strong, tho — he’s good at storytelling in that kind of Reaganesque populist way. Cheney managed to drag up a few more scary terrorism statements that I thought only served to highlight how dismally the Bush administration has failed to adequately protect America and squandered energy in the Iraq crusade. Overall, I was left with a muted, flat kind of feeling — like the debate had sputtered out more than ended.

I definitely don’t think the debate changed anyone’s mind, but I do think it further served to define the stakes and the playing field for this election for anyone who hasn’t quite gotten the distinctions between the candidates. Both Reps and Dems seemed pretty low-key about their man’s performance in the polling afterwards, but it was heartening to see that independants universally didn’t like Cheney’s approach or philosophy, and gave the debate to Edwards by a stiff margin.

Final assessment, the debate was a tie with a lean towards Cheney, who somehow managed to leave the impression of an old lion tiredly batting away the young cub trying to take over the pack. Cheney did a pretty good job of coming off more kindly than his usual “red meat” Republican appearances, usually before the hard-core conservative faithful. I felt kind of dirty, but I actually found myself liking the guy more than once as a person, while finding Edwards to be trying too hard with the exception of his closing remarks. I’m no fan of Cheney’s bald-face lying and the destructive train wreck of governance he’s engineered for the American people behind the scenes in the Bush administration, but there’s no denying the guy has a brain on his shoulders, decades of experience in politics, and loads of slick political judo skills. I wonder if his appearance will cast even more harsh light on Bush’s lightweight, meager capabilities as a leader and statesman. What I’m left with is that Cheney would make a much better presidental figure than Bush, and I wonder if the rest of the populace will have that in the back of their minds going into the next presidential debate, and if that would harm Bush as a consequence…

More about the debates at these fine blogging establishments:

The Corner on National Review Online (conservative)
Andrew Sullivan (moderate conservative)
The Daily Kos (flaming liberal)
Taegan Goddards Political Wire (moderate liberal)

Finally busted a move and got my daughter’s blog online. I swear that girl keeps me up later than any other hobby I have — even surfing the Net.

Janece and I will be posting there on a frequent basis, especially in these pretty amazing and transitory first weeks and months. We want family and friends to be able to stay up with what’s happening with her, as well as keep a record for her as she grows of our journey together as a family.

So, take Amira’s journal out for a spin!

MoveOn.org, an organization I heartily and merrily endorse and support (my dirty little liberal secret is out now!), asked for members to send our analysis of the debate in a letter to the editor. So I sent this around to all of the major papers on their list — local and national:

Watching the debates last night, it was with great relief that I watched Kerry not only provide the clearest, boldest and most mature public opposition to the Bush sound bite machine, but also suddenly make the election a two-way race with a real contrast between the two philosophies/national characteristics that will determine America in this new uncertain time — the cowboy and the statesman.

On the one hand, we had Bush: all bull-headed one-note American supremacy, contemptuous of the morality and capability of our allies and the rest of the world, agressive and simplistic and self-righteous, and irritated at domestic and foreign opposition that won’t just lie down and fall into line. On the other, we had Kerry: grown up, thoughtful and preaching inclusive strength and coalition-building that has made America so respected in the past, his message delivered in a statesman-like and assured way that landed as more wise than bullying.

I was an on-the-fence Democrat more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry, but JFK sold me 100% last night. The guy IS our next president, and it’s about time — America needs a grown-up in the White House. Our security, stature and effectiveness as a nation demands it.

What do you guys think of the first round of presidential debates? Any predictions about the Edwards/Cheney bout coming up this week?

By the way, Joe at Artlung has a great little snippet about little ol’ Poland, one of our “coalition of the willing” that Bush kept hauling out at the debate… Seems like their relationship with Georgey isn’t as cosy as he made out.