November 4, 2004 by s.z.

Who Said It?  Realist correctly identified both of yesterday's mystery guests: the always charming Kathleen Parker, and that moral stalwart Jerome Corsi (who also wrote such gems as "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?").  Kudos to Realist! Now, speaking of morality, who said the following? It's absurd that the election was as close as it was. The nation is at war, Bush is a magnificent wartime leader, and the night before the election we didn't know if a liberal tax-and-spend, Vietnam War-protesting senator from Massachusetts would beat him. If Rove is "the architect" -- as Bush called him in his acceptance speech -- then he is the architect of high TV ratings, not a Republican victory. By keeping the race so tight, Rove ensured that a race that should have been a runaway Bush victory would not be over until the wee hours of the morning. As we now know, the most important issue to voters was not terrorism, but moral values. 6:01:35 AM

Bush 51%, Immorality 49%  I can understand if some of you still aren't in the mood for snark.  So, today I will try to just be informative.  But it probably won't work. Anyway, while reading some of the Townhall columns, I was struck once again with how well Karl Rove (and his ilk) framed this election.  For many Americans, it wasn't about Iraq, or taxes, or who did what during the Vietnam war, or even differing political philosophies.  No, it was about good vs. evil.  (George Bush was "good," btw.) Sure, some people were scared into voting for Bush because he managed to convince them that he and Fightin' Dick Cheney were the only ones who could keep keep them safe from the Arab horde than planned to nuke their children's elementary school.  Others just like those tax cuts.  But others truly believe that John Kerry was a liberal (i.e., elistist, atheistic Communist who hates America and eats babies), while Bush was "one of them" (a man of God who hates other countries, book learnin', and gay marriage).  Where I live, the local Democratic Party had to put ads in the paper saying that one could be Christian and also Democrat.  While the Democratic presidential candidate will never carry this state, Kerry should have won other states that he probably lost because people there believed in the "good vs. evil" crap.  And that's why we have to start now to counter the meme that the Bush victory was a resounding endorsement of goodness, God, and regular people.  No, it was a victory for incompetence, intolerance, and deceit.  And those aren't godly values. Anyway, let's look at some Townhall wingnuts (because the wingnuts seem to be trying to convince the country that they are NOT wingnuts, but are instead the "moral majority" who pushed Bush to victory), and maybe I can better explain what I mean. 1.  Young Ben Shapiro uses his column to advise the President that he shouldn't  do anything to reach out to the people who voted against him.  After all, one doesn't compromise with pure evil, does one? What got President Bush and the Republican Party to this point was not "moderation." President Bush didn't campaign toward the middle. Forging compromise on education and health care did little to alleviate the aggravation of the left. Barring some unforeseen drinking incident, Teddy Kennedy will still be leading the Democrats in the Senate during President Bush's next term. Hillary will still be lurking in the background as well, unless Rudy Giuliani decides to knock her off her broomstick. The tone in Washington isn't likely to turn friendly anytime soon. Wow, they just won the election (and supposedly speak for the vast majority of Americans), and yet the Republicans are still the underdogs.  Yes, they have to defend themselves from those aggravated Dems (and from those marauding meanies Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton), so anything they do offensively is okay.  I think this is the sign of a true wingnut -- the belief that one is always beleaguered  because other people with differing opinions exist.  But maybe Harvard Law will teach Ben some other ones. President Bush campaigned on solid conservative values, and he won on those values. His stances on terrorism and morality won him this election by over 3 million votes. Eleven states had marriage-protection initiatives on their ballots; it's no accident that Bush won 10 of those states. This is code for "Bush won the election because people don't approve of homosexuality."  (Which would be why the Cheneys made a big deal about Kerry mentioning Mary's sexual preference -- to remind voters that Kerry is FOR homosexuality, while they, the moral Republicans are against it.)  I hope people like Ben keep pushing this message ("We can't compromise with those filthy Democrats, because we, the pure party, don't like gays") so that the non-wingnuts who voted for Bush will realize whom they associated themselves with.  2.  Marvin Olasky echoes Ben's theme. President Bush won because "moral issues" were more important than any others for one-fifth of the voters, and the president won that fifth by at least a 4-to-1 majority. To put it another way, Sen. Kerry probably received about 56 percent of the vote from people most concerned with foreign policy or economic issues, the traditional subjects for presidential campaigns. To put it another way, one-fifth of the voters were voting against the culture, and not for George Bush.  Which is their right, of course, but kind of silly, because even St. George Bush doesn't have the power to turn gays straight, make rap music go away, and force girls to wear clothes that don't expose their navels. (You know, I personally don't care for crude and/or misogynistic music, slutty clothing, or Republican-style adultery, but I figure it's my job to keep this kind of stuff out of my house, not the President's.  I also believe that my fellow citizens should have the right to live whatever kinds of lives they want, as long as they don't hurt me or other people.  I thought that was both the American and the Christian way.) Democrats have become the autocratic party, arguing that moral issues should be decided by judges, officials or panels of bioethicists. Now it's up to George W. Bush to push hard for decentralizing measures -- school vouchers, poverty-fighting tax credits -- that will give more authority to "we the people."  So, if "we the people" of, say Georgabania vote for school vouchers, then the majority of us can use the tax money would have been used to support the public schools to send our kids to evangelical Christian schools that teach that dinosaurs lived at the same time as men, that Islam is the religion of Satan, and that America should be governed by Biblical values.  Okay, fine.  But then what do "we the people" of America do when the public schools in Georgabania can't operate due to a lack of funding, and there isn't a school for the kids whose parents don't want them being taught evangelical precepts and/or nonsense?  Or don't we care about equal rights anymore, under Bush? To help in this process, Christian conservatives need to push hard on educational, judicial and poverty-fighting issues. In 2001, for example, the first eight months of the faith-based initiative were largely wasted because the White House tried to placate the left rather than move forward vigorously. School vouchers also lost out as Ted Kennedy had his way. Those mistakes should not be repeated.  See, Marv agrees with Ben: the White House (and both branches of Congress) should make no efforts to work with Democrats, but should instead use their power to promote policies that are only favored by that 1/5 of the voters, such as faith-based school vouchers for anti-abortion judges.  Because that's the Christian-American way.  (Okay, I'm being snarky -- I blame Ben and Marv.) 3.  Janice Crouse, Ph.D, "spokesperson for Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee," is a guest columnist at Townhall today.  Her piece is about how the President is, and should be, the moral leader of the nation.   The visceral appeal of George W. Bush to his constituency is his ability to embody the “moralizing demands” of today. And George Bush is the visceral candidate, I guess. The 2004 election was a decisive victory for morals, with states favoring by large majorities issues such as the sanctity of marriage. Many of those states endorsed President Bush as well. President Bush has gained the trust of a majority of the nation on crucial issues. See, I've always considered fairness and equity to be moral, which is why I voted against one of those "sanctity of marriage" bills.  And I've always considered lying to be immoral, which is one of the reasons I voted against George Bush.  [Personal story: as my friends can tell you, I was more than willing to give George Bush a chance.  "Sure, he's inexperienced and seems kind of stupid, but I'm sure he'll listen to the smart people who actually know stuff, and do an okay job," I naively said.   But he lost my willingness to cut him slack on 9/11.  Not because it happened -- I didn't blame him for an unforeseen attack by terrorists (but now, knowing what I know, I DO fault him for not paying more attention to those who warned him about al Qaeda).  No, I lost faith in him when the White House spokesperson told the American people that the reason George Bush spent the day flying around the country when we needed a leader was because "credible intelligence" indicated Air Force One was the target of the terrorists that day.  And that was a big lie.  Thousands were dead, and the White House was busy trying to protect the image of the President at the expense of the truth.  I just hate that kind of thing.] Okay, back to the Concerned Woman. Likewise, the visceral hatred of those who despise those morals is the impetus for the “anybody but Bush” movement in this presidential campaign.  In other words, "the people who are against George are all immoral." I don't hate George.  However, I don't think he's been a good President, so I didn't vote for him.  And I would posit that I'm more moral than most people who voted for him (and by the standards of what they would consider moral).  If Ms. Crouse wants to compare morals with me, I welcome the challenge. George W. Bush has taken a “moral” stand against terrorism by calling it “evil” and he has been unwavering in that stand against terrorism.  I don't think any rational person has said that terrorism is "good."  However, rational people also recognize that labeling something as "evil" doesn't help us to understand it or deal with it.  I want a rational person as President.     He has been solidly pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family.  He has taken a reasoned approach to stem cell research –– offering the proven miracles of adult stem cell technology rather than the empty promises and false hope of embryonic stem cell research.  His character and integrity were portrayed in his respectful but realistic—some would say critical—assessment of his opponent, seen in both the presidential debates and on the campaign trail.   In other words, George Bush is anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-science, and used surrogates to trash John Kerry instead of doing it himself.  And that's all we need in a President (and a moral role model). Adhering to the “moralizing demands” of leadership is especially important when the eyes of the world look on through 24-hour cable television coverage.  People around the world develop an image of America and democracy from the words and actions that they observe in our political leaders.  Given the politics of personal destruction that has come to characterize our political debates, why would the rest of the world respect what they see and hear? Sadly, the rest of the world looks at our country's actions rather than our political debates to arrive at their opinions about us.  They all despise us today, for reelecting the jerk who invaded Iraq under a false cause belli, made a mess of it, and told them that America is so powerful we don't care what they think about it. It is an encouraging omen that we as a society through the electoral process have spoken to the priority of moral values and for those who will return them to the forefront. This is the meme that we need to fight: that Republicans are pro-morality and Democrats are immoral.  We need to remind people that tolerance, justice, fairness, compassion, and caring are moral values too.   Personally, it bothers me a lot more to think of children going hungry than it does to think of two men being married (in fact, I think that two people committing themselves to each other is something to be celebrated).  My values are a priority to me and my morality is just fine, so I'm tired of being told that Bush's election is a triumph of moral values over wickedness. 4.  Now, more of the same from World Net Daily:  Evangelical organizations today are pointing to election results and touting the power of their constituencies. "Moral issues fueled yesterday's astonishing electoral triumph for George Bush and the Republican Party in the House and Senate," said Dr. D. James Kennedy, president of Coral Ridge Ministries, in a statement. "Despite the conventional political wisdom that moral concerns are a drag on a political ticket, it was values that energized voters, lifted turnout among evangelicals and Catholics, and led to substantial GOP pickups in the House and Senate. The voters have delivered a moral mandate." And I am sick of the idea that only evangelicals (and some Catholics) have morals.  I am religious, and, as previously mentioned, have perfectly good morals (IMHO).  And I didn't mandate that George do anything about the nation's morality.  Sure, maybe he could work on his own morality a little (perhaps do something about the  "pride," "anger," "bearing false witness," etc.), but I just want him to do his job, and let us worry about our own morals. In the wake of the GOP victories, Kennedy urged party leaders not to marginalize those voters that helped make electoral success possible. "Now that values voters have delivered for George Bush, he must deliver for their values," said Kennedy. "The defense of innocent unborn human life, the protection of marriage, and the nomination and confirmation of federal judges who will interpret the Constitution, not make law from the bench, must be first priorities, come January." Again, these people were maybe one-fifth of those who voted.  And 48% of American voters voted for Kerry.  They are Americans too, and Bush is getting paid to be their President as well as the President of the Evangelicals.  He must NOT deliver for their values at the expense of everyone else's values.  His first priorities must be to get that Iraq mess resolved and get our troops out of there, to work on making America safer from terrorist attack, to make sure all children have medical insurance, to do something about the deficit, to replace Condi Rice with somebody more competent, and to start paying attention in meetings.  Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, made similar comments, saying evangelicals were mobilized by the same-sex marriage issue. "We are pleased that both the executive branch and the legislative branch will be controlled by pro-family conservatives and that every one of the 11 state constitutional amendments to ban homosexual 'marriages' passed overwhelmingly," Combs said. "There is no doubt that because four radical left-wing Massachusetts judges ruled that homosexual 'marriages' are constitutional last year, there was a conservative backlash which played a major role in the election outcome yesterday. Christian evangelicals made the major difference once again this year."   Thank you, Christian evangelicals, so very much.  And while the Massachusetts judges probably didn't do Kerry any favor, if they did what they thought was just, then they did their jobs. Combs says the Christian Coalition will work to pass legislation loosening speech restrictions on churches. Heck, why not just let the GOP be accredited as a church, and be done with it. The Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, also credited evangelicals, saying his organization's first priority would be to "focus on the nomination of a pro-life Supreme Court Justice." Well, their first priority will have to be killing one of the current judges, and then they can work on nominating one they like better. Commented Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel: "Marriage, morals and the sanctity of human life were the real winners in this election.  Actually, keeping some people out of marriage, the sanctity of life that hasn't already been born, and the ability of political leaders to use the word "morals" to manipulate certain demographics were the real winners in this election. The people have spoken. The politicians must now listen or find other employment." Again, we have to remind our elected officials that the people saying this kind of thing are NOT the majority of Americans, and that the rest of us have rights too.  We have to start fighting now, before they've convinced everyone that they speak for everyone. 5.  Here, let's take a tip from USA Today: Bush is still the most polarizing president since Richard Nixon. One in four voters said in surveys taken as they left polling places Tuesday that they felt not just dissatisfied but "angry" about his administration. Still, Bush has never seemed to worry much what critics think about him. Democrats, disappointed and in disarray, will have to regroup if they are to effectively challenge him. So, guys, we need to regroup and effectively challenge him.  We need to fight the idea that that Bush's win was a victory for morality over immorality.  We need to remind people that only 51% of the voters voted for Bush, and yet his job is to be the President of them too, not just the ones who say they helped him to achieve victory.  We need to make sure our views are heard. And speaking of evil . . . Grover Norquist, leader of Americans for Tax Reform and a key White House ally, noted the defeat of Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota as particularly sweet. Daschle's political demise will prompt a half-dozen other Democratic senators from Republican-leaning states to think twice before defying the president, Norquist says: "When Achilles died, the Greeks were in trouble." We need to keep reminding people (including our elected officials) that dissent isn't treason, and that the two-party system is the American way. Now, a few happy thoughts: But second terms can be treacherous. One of the few certainties of political life is that second-term presidents, constitutionally barred from running again, see their political capital quickly dwindle. Of the seven presidents elected to second terms in the 20th century, none registered historic successes. One had to resign under fire. Another was impeached. The congressional elections that come midway through a second term are usually disastrous for the party in power. And jockeying for the presidential nomination the next time around will have begun in earnest before the president and Laura Bush finish the last dance at the inaugural balls in January. "Any look back on second terms of presidents, historically, has to produce a sort of cautionary tale," says Tom Mann, a political and governmental analyst at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. And if Bush really isn't our moral leader, then maybe he can be our cautionary tale. Anyway, I know this was kind of long and rambling, but we are all still Americans, damn it, and pretty damned moral, and I think we need to work to keep from being marginalized any further. Pete from The Dark Window has some more thoughts sorta on this topic, but his are better expressed and better organized, so you would have been better off reading his blog, I guess.  But it's not too late -- so, go read Pete, and then you'll know what I was trying to say. 1:46:00 AM