GORE IN 2008 ? ? McCAIN IN 2008 ? ? SORRY, YA JUST LOST ME...
by Kevin Wohlmut
I like to think I'm consistent in allowing people -- voters, and candidates -- a right I also claim for myself: the right to be inconsistent.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Now, granted, I too spend hours per week playing the Internet political "gotcha" game, especially during an election year... where a candidate makes a statement, I dig up something different that he (or rarely, she) said months or years ago, and I ask if they've really changed. I don't believe that this is really infringing the inalienable right to be inconsistent. First of all, my website has no enforcement arm; no matter how grandiose my rhetoric, it doesn't really infringe your rights unless I commit libel. Secondly, what I am asking in virtually all cases, is the following: is this change an evolution, a simple superficial makeover, or an outright lie? Just because I grant you the right to change your mind does not mean I grant you the right to lie, nor to mislead people by facetiously rephrasing an opinion you still hold and don't intend to change. To vindicate an inconsistency, in my book, you need to give me at least some small basis for what changed or how the new situation is different.
But there are some inconsistencies which I must declare unforgivable. Frequently, in politics, I note a situation where the cause, the basis for a change, a "flip-flop" as the pundits put it, or -- an inconsistency ... can logically be one of two, and only two, reasons: either the candidate repudiates something he said before, (which for me is unforgivable if the thing being repudiated was something I favor); or else the candidate just doesn't care how the "flip-flop" will be perceived by supporters of his previous position. (This latter might even be worse than the former, because how then can we trust that the candidate won't "flip-flop" on other issues, the issues which we sent him to Washington to address?) If I perceive a candidate in that dilemma, it usually spells the end for any support or even tolerance I may have had for that candidate.
I have written many times, to friends, to comments on other people's websites, that the best candidate in one year is not necessarily the best candidate in another year. This is not inconsistency. For example, in the year 2000: I was a vociferous Green Party booster. I voted for Ralph Nader and I attacked the stances of Al Gore and the rest of the Democrats tirelessly. (Well, "tirelessly" is the adjective that I would pick.) In 2004, I voted for John Kerry, and I not only explained but also developed the change in several articles on this website. Even though Ralph Nader was running again in 2004, and even though I still thought Ralph was an excellent candidate, and even though I disagreed with a lot of Kerry's positions and excoriated him for his war vote; nevertheless, I decided that a Kerry vote was the best use of my ballot at that time. That doesn't necessarily mean I would vote for Kerry (or Ralph) in 2008. The best candidate in one year is not necessarily the best candidate in another year. Likewise with the band Pearl Jam: in 2000 they were Nader supporters, but in 2004 some of the band members repudiated their Nader votes and declared themselves staunch Democrats. I've often wanted to argue with them about whether their Nader support in 2000 was really a mistake or not. Repudiating Nader's policy stances might be borderline unforgivable for me. But I still have huge respect for Pearl Jam, because they explained their change. In large measure they repudiated the man, Nader, and not the policy stances. Nader the man is expendable, the policies are not. (Calling Democrats and Republicans identical, which is what Stone explicitly rejected in the article, is not a policy stance; nor is it a keystone for future issues. {Even though I happen to agree with it.} With their continued political drive, Pearl Jam have proven to me that they're still on the right side of the issues.)
Recently a couple of people on the "short-list" for President in 2008 have engaged in some strategic political inconsistency. So let me examine them.
My main purpose in this article was to discuss John McCain's recent change of course. But first I'll try to appease that time-honored journalistic saw about "even-handedness" by explaining my opinion on Al Gore, who has "redefined" himself politically several times over the course of his career.
In the year 2000, I firmly believed that Al Gore as President would be bad for America. I knew, and explained, that of course Bush would be worse for America, but I'm not going to vote for a candidate who, despite some positives, overall I thought would be bad for America. Part of the reason for that was because of Gore's political "flip-flops", but not the ones the Right-wing press usually called him on. For example, Senator Al Gore voted against the right to abortion, and against the Endangered Species Act, early in his career. When I brought up those examples, I explicitly acknowledged, (on this very website), that he seems to have undergone an evolution on those issues. I didn't really expect him to personally abolish Roe v. Wade as President, although I did note that he wasn't as firmly pro-choice as a lot of his supporters made him out to be. But these policy changes, these inconsistencies, were reasons to suspect that he might not be committed to other causes I support, such as environmentalism, and peace. Despite penning his name on the Kyoto Treaty, Al Gore did very little else that could be considered "environmental" during the eight years of his White House tenure. He never brought the Kyoto Treaty before the Senate for ratification, never pushed for improved CAFE standards for cars; meanwhile, U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases increased by something like 12% during those eight short years. At that rate, the planet is f#ck'n cooked. So much for Mr. Ozone. Al Gore ran his 2000 campaign with barely a word about the environment; except to assert, without proof, that his record was better than Ralph Nader's -- (and that came only after Ralph had been barred from defending said record at the Presidential Debates, incidentally. Now that, that, was not only hypocritical and untrue, but also pissed me off.)
And then there was the militarism issue: Democrats assumed, contrary to Bush's rhetoric, (and correctly it turns out), that Bush would be an imperialistic warmonger if elected. Yet Al Gore had a long track record as a war hawk, staunchly backing to an apparently indifferent Clinton the operations in Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti; and Al's proposed military budget increase, during the 2000 campaign, was double that of George Bush (either $100B or $200 Billion compared to Bush's $45-100 Billion, depending what items you include). This at a time when Ralph Nader agreed with respectable retired generals that we could cut the military 15% without losing any effectiveness. When I pointed these things out to Gore backers, several told me that I had to "read between the lines" and that Gore had no choice but to say these things, even though he didn't really mean them, to pacify the rabid right-wing. This falls under the "just doesn't care" horn of the dilemma I posed above. (And gee, those annnouncements sure helped him pacify the rabid right wing, didn't they?)
That was then, this is now -- Al Gore has again returned to the line, "The internal combustion engine... is a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we're ever again likely to encounter," -- the line from which he ran away screaming, back in the 2000 campaign.
After years of tough talk, not only about Saddam but positioning himself as "strong-on-defense" in general, (and in the conservative climate which has reigned for twenty years, you can just go ahead and insert "warmonger" there), Al Gore started giving strong speeches beginning in 2002 to oppose Bush's Iraq war and military policy in general. Notably, if you parse these early speeches, he rarely opposes the idea of the Iraq invasion itself; he merely opposed Bush's mismanagement of it. After the WMD failed to show up as scheduled, he got a little deeper into it. But damn, those are strong speeches.
So can I trust Al Gore, a man who has "redefined" himself repeatedly in the past? Al says he has no plans to run for President in 2008 (and after the last several years of media beatings, who could blame him). Yet dozens of websites are pushing the "Draft Gore in '08" meme, so I do need to make a decision on this.
My decision is: having read a lot of what Gore has said in recent years, I suspect Al Gore has had a sincere change, i.e., an evolution, as opposed to a makeover or a lie. That does NOT mean I'm committed to vote for him; I'm willing to acknowledge a sincere change, but before I vote for him he still has work to do. He needs to show concrete proposals for what to do about these things, and I have to judge those proposals as better than all of his opponents -- including Nader, Cobb, McCain, Hillary -- whatever other parties might be running.
So this led me to a statement which several of my friends have scoffed at: I have often said, "The Al Gore of 2000 would have been bad for the country. The Al Gore of 2002, I might vote for." I believe that being out-of-power was a life-changing experience for Al Gore. He isn't the same person he would have been, had he been elected. Had he been the sitting President during September 11th, 2001, I can't help but conclude -- from his warmongering background -- that, coupled with constant sniping by Republicans, he would have done everything George Bush did, and maybe more. To say nothing of the advice his Vice President, Joe Lieberman -- a warmongering Republican, through and through -- would have given him. I don't at all regret my Nader vote in 2000. Just imagine the scenario where President Gore happened to be visiting the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11, he was killed, and Joe Lieberman became President! My guess is that we would have nuked Iraq long ago and have U.S. troops in Palestine by now. I doubt the American casualty roll would be significantly less than it is today, but our international problems would be multiplied.
So maybe Al has changed for the better. But the uphill battle that Al Gore faces to get my next vote, is the problem that he's already had his turn. He had eight years in the White House, as Vice President. I personally know a lot of good people with political inclinations and qualifications, who could have done a whole lot of good with such an opportunity. Al Gore, in my opinion, wasted the eight years he had. He talks a great game in 2006, but (as Tom Tomorrow noted about Clinton's brave words once out of office) "It's too bad he never was in a position to, you know, do something about it." My fundamental problem with Al Gore is not inconsistency, but the fact that a new face deserves a shot at the Oval Office in his place. Obviously he was the candidate for the Dems to run in 2000; but today in 2006, he's had his turn.
Judging from his record of caving in and running to the Right while he was in power, he may well be more useful to my political causes if he stays out of power. It's only then, that he seems to feel free to speak up.
So a new face in the White House? Now I'll take a look at John McCain.
In the year 2000, I bought into John McCain's slogan as a "Straight Talker". Reading him in speeches and interviews, he gave me the impression that -- even though he held positions I disagreed with -- here was a politician who was actually interested in hearing from his constituents and even letting them convince him to change positions. You know -- sort of... oh, what's the word... "representing" them, rather than taking an election victory as a mandate to follow through with a preset program no matter what people think.
On an internet forum in 2001, I defended McCain from some Britishers, who were wondering why any American liberals had good feelings about McCain, when some of his positions were so odious. I responded with the above, and that "I don't believe McCain was the best candidate, so I didn't vote for him. But at least he was a thinking man's candidate, as opposed to the two" [major-party] "clowns who actually made it onto the ballot."
I was amused and approving of the strategy some California Democrats adopted in the 2000 primaries -- to change registration to Republican and vote for McCain, as a way of encouraging Republicans to nominate him, rather than Bush, for the general election:
-- Alas, this strategy seemed to have a "backlash effect" where spiteful
Republicans assumed there must be something wrong with McCain (seein' as he
attracted Democrats) -- instead of thinking that maybe McCain was a good "unifier"
candidate. -- {Credit where credit is due: Ted Rall, the comic artist above,
also spotted McCain as a non-moderate very early in the 2000 primaries. But
Rall's transcripts that far back are pay-only.}
McCain's environmental record is not perfect, but it's light-years ahead of George Bush.
Senator McCain first started arousing the suspicion of the Democrats, (many of whom voted for him in the Republican primary!), as early as 2003 when he renounced his earlier criticisms of George Bush and told Americans to support the President unquestioningly in time of war. Hey, that smelled fishy, but in 2003 half the country said the same thing.
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John McCain and George Bush share a stage -- 2000 |
John McCain and George Bush share a stage -- 2003 |
He started sliding three years ago. But can all my trust, tolerance, and good feeling really be TOTALLY undone in a week in 2006?
Maybe so, if you spend that week courting the Religious Right.
So at this point it gets personal for me. John McCain had a posthumous relationship, politically, with Mark Bingham. As I have written on my site before, I knew Mark Bingham in college. Mark was one of the victims on United Flight 93, on September 11th, who is widely assumed to have fought the hijackers. As Ted Rall points out, there is little hard evidence of this, but from knowing Mark personally, that is what I believe. I have posted on this topic elsewhere, but the short version is, Mark was brave to the point of fearlessness, and he was totally others-oriented. There is just no way for me to believe something like that could go down in Mark's presence, and Mark wouldn't so much participate, as demand to lead the resistance.
Mark, a registered Republican, supported John McCain in the 2000 primary.
Mark was also gay. A 6'5" champion Rugby player, a Republican, who took a gun away from a mugger in San Francisco and then later fought the terrorists on September 11th, well, that shatters a few stereotypes about gays, doesn't it? Boy, thank God that September 11th was The-Day-That-Changed-Everything ™, because that means gay-bashing is a thing of the past. You're either with us or against us, and on September 11th, gays really stood on the side of America.
So when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson explicitly blamed gays, among other "pagans", for the terrorist attacks:
John McCain quite rightly condemned these religious extremists (even while simultaneously sniping at the French):
So last summer, John McCain started courting the Religious Right. He stated that he supports South Dakota's draconian ban on abortion. He's actually been mending fences with Jerry Falwell for a months, but the press has only caught up to it this April.
John McCain: “No, I don’t. I think that Jerry Falwell can explain how his views on this program when you have him on.”
Mark Bingham: [rolls in his grave]
Those three words instantly converted me from somebody who was all right with John McCain, (not a booster, but OK with him), to an opponent. A lifelong debt, eh Senator?
Crooks and Liars has the video of this interview with Russert. I made sure to watch the whole thing, so as to gauge whether this was some kind of offhand, out-of-context statement or not. If you're thinking of supporting McCain in the future, I recommend you do so as well. My opinion is, it wasn't. This was deliberate. Russert asks McCain about several "flip-flops", including a changing position on tax cuts, and in all cases McCain utterly fails to convince me that he's had a sincere change, an evolution. His reasons for changing position on the tax cut are nonsensical, and he simply dodges the question about how he feels about Falwell, except for those three words above. (At the end of the interview, he jokes sarcastically that "I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation," apparently a reference to his torture as a P.O.W. I realize this was a throwaway joke line, but Chroist on a crutch. As if Russert's questions about a prominent politician's change of policy were somehow not legitimate. Grow up, Senator, if you were a Democrat you'd get grilled by the press like this every day.)
{Technically, a third possibility exists: if Rev. Falwell had significantly, sincerely changed since his 2001 remarks, McCain could say "No, I don't" without betraying the legacy of Mark Bingham. Unfortunately no evidence exists to support the idea that Falwell, or Robertson for that matter, has changed. Rev. Falwell hemmed and hawed for more than a week after his Sept. 13 quote, issuing several statements which were referred to as "apologies". Unfortunately despite his explicit retraction of blame, his "apologies" also contained rhetoric and logic which indicated his opinions, expressed Sept. 13, hadn't changed. Basically many of his "apologies" boiled down to: "I'm sorry the gays and pagans were upset when I revealed to them God's Holy Truth that they were responsible for 9/11. I was insensitive." Robertson, meanwhile, at first tried to say that Falwell's statements on his show were "unexpected" and he didn't agree; despite the transcript clearly recording him saying "I totally concur" and similar statements. Since 2001, these Reverends have kept up their verbal persecution of gays; Robinson has also issued similar non-apologies for calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. Therefore McCain does not, in my view, have the option to say that these men have changed since the incident when he called them "agents of intolerance." Dammit, John, you were right the first time.}
This sits Senator McCain squarely on the two horns of my dilemma, above: Falwell is entitled to his views, and so is John McCain, but some views just absolutely disqualify me from supporting him. End-of-story, don't bother trying to convince me anymore. Either John McCain repudiates the value of secular tolerance, which he so eloquently expressed at Falwell's expense in 2001; or else he just doesn't care whether he needs mistolerated people, such as Mark and me, to support him in his next campaign. At this point, it doesn't matter anymore which horn of the dilemma McCain falls upon. In either case, I am now his opponent. Some McCain supporters will argue that maybe, just maybe, he is making a cynical, hollow ploy to court the Falwell Right -- maybe he is only being hypocritical and will abandon any efforts in that direction once he gets elected with their help. But if that's the case, why would I want a hypocrite in office? How could I be sure he wouldn't simply reverse himself on Global Warming as well? No matter how bad McCain's opponents may be, I would rather vote (and advise my friends to vote) for somebody who hadn't put themselves onto this two-horned dilemma. As of this moment, there are better candidates out there.
Senator McCain says he will not make the decision about whether to run for President in 2008, until next year. (Of course, it's hard to imagine another motivation for switching positions and courting the Religious Right, than the idea that he needs them to run for President. He doesn't need them to get re-elected to the Senate.)
If he does run in 2008, you can expect me to dig up dirt on him, just like I did against Al Gore in 2000. Switching positions on tax cuts and George Bush's character is one thing, which would be tough to defend. But betraying a dead man whom I liked, someone you said you owe a lifelong "debt" to... well that's the one that stings.
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