What Were They Thinking?By Bruce Barry
For those of us who don’t particularly identify with Republican party ideology, the GOP presidential race is turning into quite an entertaining spectacle. The contest between Bush and McCain escalates daily into some new zone of rhetorical torment, as the combatants and their stand-ins stage the political equivalent of a campus cafeteria food fight. Once the panderers Bauer and Forbes called it quits, you figured the semi-unhinged fulminations of Alan Keyes might be the only diversion left. As it turns out, even the bombastic Keyes can’t be heard above the din of verbal crossfire between Bush and McCain – a relentless display of all that’s deviant with the modern Republican party.
The showstopper is the party’s basic willingness to rally around a simpleton like George W. It is stunning that savvy party regulars could digest his intellectual vacancy and core inability to talk coherently about even the simple elements of public policy, and then advance him as the best the GOP has to offer. Bush is hardly the first empty suit to seek public office, or even high office. But one promising development on the political landscape this year that he has had to contend with is a trend toward more live and unscripted joint encounters involving competing candidates. You could call these "debates" – the press does – but they’re really just group news conferences. That’s OK. We’ll take them anyway, and as a result we are treated to (tortured with?) an earlier and better sense of what kinds of heads rest on these pinstripe-suited shoulders.
For the one called Bush, it’s not a pretty picture. It’s not my style to resort to name-calling as a narrative device, but let’s face it, this guy is dim. Oh, sure, he’s managed to function on a daily basis as the governor of a large Southern state, but that’s a feat of social, not intellectual, grace. As the campaign wears on, Bush looks less and less like a functioning adult capable of running a household, much less a country. Perhaps his handlers have successfully coaxed him into doing a better job staying on message, and by all accounts he’s a congenial fellow who does a nifty turn shootin’ the breeze with folks he meets when the cameras are turned off.
But holy cow, have you watched this simp (there I go again) when he is confronted with real questions about even mildly complex subjects? He makes a deer caught in the headlights look introspective. One of my favorite Bushisms is his typical response to attacks on his record as governor of Texas. Accused, for example, of leading a state with paltry educational accomplishments or a dismal environmental record, Bush often defaults to a stock response: Hey, the people of Texas reelected me easily for a second term, so what’s the beef? The first time I heard this I dismissed it as an off-the-cuff deflection – a questionable argumentative strategy, maybe, but hardly a window on the soul. But after a few more iterations, I started to get the distinct feeling he really believes it. It’s just possible he cannot see that for most people living in states that prefer educating citizens to killing them, the news that "Texas likes me" is not going to close the sale.
The Bob Jones University fiasco put an exclamation point on it. Visit an institution with openly bigoted views and policies, say nothing of substance in condemnation either during or afterwards, brag about your brother’s choice of a Hispanic marital partner, and fail to comprehend what all the fuss is about? The laughably Orwellian "compassionate conservatism" mantra that launched Bush’s campaign has collapsed into a smoldering heap of old-fashioned right-wing extremism: pro-death penalty, anti-choice, tax cuts for the rich, more defense spending, corporate welfare, and kissy face with Pat Robertson, all wrapped up in a tidy package of race baiting. "I reject bigotry," Bush declared at a campaign stop in Kansas City last week. Now that’s what I call a campaign theme. This is the party standard-bearer?
McCain ain’t much of an alternative, folks. His political instincts are better, and he does seem to know what he is talking about on a few subjects. But his behavior on the issue of the Confederate flag in South Carolina, where he joined Bush in refusing to take a position on the grounds that it’s a "local" issue, is a cogent reminder that war hero or not, his political gutlessness is up there with the best of them. Our national election need not turn on the unspeakable insensitivity of the minority of Southerners incapable of absorbing a little recent history about the flag’s actual role as a symbol of resistance again civil rights and desegregation. But it works as an effective litmus test on the basic decency of candidates for high office. McCain fails with the rest of his GOP brethren.
McCain, who built his campaign on a self-made image as a "reformer," has been a leader in the Congress, if not really a bold one, on the critical issue of campaign finance. He’ll do more than Bush on this issue, and perhaps less harm on one or two others. Bush, who knows no shame, now pitches himself as the real reformer in the race – this from within a campaign that qualifies as the least reform-minded political bid in U.S. political history. Following last week’s primary wins in Michigan and Arizona, McCain boasted that he’s building a new majority. But the closer you look at it, McCain’s momentum heading into Super Tuesday looks less like a populist movement and more like a popular stampede – away from the monumental mistake called George.
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