What Scalzi said, but with some caveats. One is that while I don't think Kerry has descended to anywhere near the Shrub level in this campaign, there's still been enough nastiness and fact-twisting on his and Edwards' parts to make me feel unable to vote for them as whole-heartedly as I can vote against Bush. Another is the excellent point M'ris made; I don't want someone who will do whatever it takes, either. I want someone who will fight evil without using evil's tactics wherever possible, someone who will try hard not to kill children, not even foreign children, and who will not restrict civil liberties one iota more than what is absolutely required by the exigencies of war. (I keep thinking of a letter Robert A. Heinlein wrote to John W. Campbell, pointing out that in wartime it was (is?) illegal to speak against the war to a member of the Armed Services, for reasons of morale. I'm still ambivalent on that one.)
I think Kerry's chest-pounding in this instance is from a perceived need to appear as macho as his opponent, but I think it's the wrong tack. It's the same sort of thing Democrats have done since Republicans (was it Bush, Sr.?) began accusing their opponents of being "the L-word", and it's ridiculous. I'd rather see them do as other out-groups have done and take back the labels used against them. I'd like to see Kerry stand up and say, "Yes, I do have a nuanced position, dammit. We need to hunt down those SOBs who have killed innocent people and bring them to justice* - but we can't assume that everyone who doesn't like us or who gets in our way is a terrorist, either. And we can't do it by grinding down our own civil rights, either, or we become the thing we're trying to abolish." He won't say that, I don't suppose. He'll just keep trying to look as tough as Geordie in case a few more undecideds might be making their decision based solely on the aroma of testosterone riding from each man.
*Actually, he keeps saying he wants to "hunt down and kill" terrorists. And every time I hear it I keep thinking "Nuremberg Trials". Some of the worst human-born monsters known to history were given fair trial there, and I stand with those who call it one of the high points of civilization to date.
Putting together all the polls and predictions I've been hearing, the political pundits and prognosticators seem to posit that this election will have a record turnout, that there will be so many close calls and so much confusion that we won't know who will be President for some time afterward, and that Bush will squeak in to office eventually, after which he will once again not apply so much as a bit of spackle to rejoin this house divided. I'm going to go way out on a limb and predict that some part of that is wrong. Unfortunately the usefulness of my prediction is a bit limited in that I have no idea which part. I hope it's not the large turnout; I'm sadly sure is not the divisiveness of a putative Bush presidency. With luck, the wrong part will be the close call and the delay.
I've promised myself that if Bush wins, I'm making (another) donation to the ACLU.
Posted by dichroic at November 1, 2004 12:17 PM