Party Watchwords: Fairness and Fear
A watchword is the familiar code used by a sentinel to tell the approach of a friend. After three debates and a protracted exposure to campaigns that show consistency on both sides, we can say what the watchwords of the parties have become. The Democrats are speaking of fairness, the Republicans are speaking of fear.
Once or twice in last night's debate, Barack Obama referred to the value of fairness in the civic life of democracy. Joe Biden, with greater sharpness and force, made the revival of fairness almost the central theme of his debate against Sarah Palin.
It doesn't seem fair that every month in Baghdad the federal government spends money it no longer has to spend in Galveston or New Orleans. It doesn't seem fair that the Republican candidate for president has come into this campaign without a semblance of a plan for medical insurance, and that, as a substitute, he palms off on voters a $5,000 check from the government, without telling us that adequate coverage now costs about $12,000 for a family of four. It doesn't seem fair that the CEOs and stockbrokers and stockjobbers who made out like bandits while they destroyed the economy are now assisted by Treasury to execute their getaway with a parachute of gold.
John McCain, a man celebrated for his courage, could not be the one to carry the message of fear which is the most infectious vote-getter of his campaign. That work has therefore been entrusted to Sarah Palin; and she does it with a credulous devotion that suits her personal style. "I am just so fearful," she said in a speech on October 6 in Clearwater, Florida, "that [Barack Obama] is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America--as the greatest source of good in this world." And again: "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."
The repetition of the idea of fear, in the words fearful and afraid, was a carefully coached piece of rhetorical insinuation. Yet Palin's phrasing also brought an oddly disturbing echo for anyone who had seen the e-mails channeled in susceptible right-wing circles half a year ago--mailings which spoke of powerful evidence that Obama was a secret Muslim with dubious intentions toward this country. At the bottom of one such letter were the unsigned words: "I'm afraid of this one. I'm just so fearful." An unwary reader might naturally assume that the disarming confession had come--with the signature somehow erased by accident--from an anxious woman of uncertain education in her late seventies or eighties. It now seems likelier that those words came out of the workshop of Karl Rove. Anyway they have become Sarah Palin's words. She speaks for, she has become, that elderly, shaken white woman who is "so afraid" of Obama. It was noticeable too, in last night's debate, that McCain threw out a studied echo of the same letter's use of "this one" when, quite oddly, he called his opponent "that one."
Sarah Palin, as immodest as she is unqualified, has thus been put to the job of trawling for undecided voters who are racially anxious enough to be tipped into voting for McCain by one additional rumor or tremor or fear. It must be added that in this rotten cause, she received some unexpected assistance from the lead story on William Ayers which the New York Times published on October 4. The story by Scott Shane disclosed, in elaborate detail, that there was nothing much to the connection between Obama and Ayers. Other newspapers had reached the same conclusion with less fuss. The effect of the Times's 135 column-inches and the longhair Sixties photos and the fingerprints and picture of Ayers's arrest--the effect of this peculiar treatment was, by the very fact of bringing the matter into discussion, to support the idea of some connection between Obama and the word "terrorist." It was left to Palin merely to insert the word "domestic."
Why did the Times do it? There are several possible answers, all of them unpleasant. One has heard it said that the story, accurate in its details after all, was long in the works and only its timing was unfortunate. Still, the decision to run at all a very big story on the very small subject of Obama's friendship with Ayers, is not a decision that an institution like the Times, with its layers of editors and managers and ownership, could possibly have taken lightly. The same paper that says we ought to negotiate with Iran, and yet says that Iran is an "existential threat," now wants us to know that Obama is a serious candidate, yet it wants to show what a long story can be made of the threat his former associations might be felt to present.
Possibly these swings of emphasis are sincere--if we can allow an institution the virtue of sincerity. Yet "there are kinds of sincerity," wrote Camus, "so confused that they are worse than lies." By now Americans know Barack Obama about as well as they have ever known a candidate for high office. The reasons to vote for or against him turn out to be ordinary reasons. If there is a silent scandal in the campaign, as it now goes forward, it comes from nothing in his past, and nothing, even, in the legend-laden and reconstituted past of John McCain. The scandal is the presence on the Republican side of a candidate who by policy is kept away from questioning by the press. That is a story. Nor would it show imbalance or partiality for the better newspapers of this country now to declare the simple fact. To run someone for vice-president who cannot answer political questions is an abuse of civic responsibility which is rapidly becoming a national outrage.
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This country has reached a crucial turning point which reminds me of the climactic scene in The Dark Knight, where two ferry-boats are armed with explosives. One boat filled with regular citizens, the other filled with criminals. Each boat holds a detonator to the other. They have a set time by which they must either press the detonator and kill all the passengers on the other boat or the Joker says he will destroy both. The choice they must make is to act out of self-preservation, give into fear and follow the demands of an unscrupulous madman or stand firm and say not this time, we will not give into fear and actively destroy, for it would mean the loss of more than our own lives, it would be selfishly abdicating our decency as human beings. This election will decide whether we impulsively squeeze that trigger and seal our fates or stand firm that our principles are not up for bargaining and we never give in to bullies, no matter what costume they may wear.
Because the press is a significant part of the problem and is, therefore, quite happy to fan the flames of intolerance. That is as clear as a pikestaff on someone's nose.
Professor Dr. Stanley Collymore
London, England.
That picture, the smile and the laugh....t
what if the press simply stopped covering the mccain campaign? why don't they consider it?
obama should be a bit more press friendly too.
chris matthews of msnbc has provided excellent analysis on the strategy of the mccain campaign. one must wonder what type of freedom the press and the rest of us will have if THEY come to power.
an American Dictatorship might be cloaked a bit more in democracy, but still a Dictatorship.
This was a comment on a Kristof article in today's NYT:
America - Please vote out these sorry excuses for human beings and bring in the change of regime. The rest of the world can't vote so your vote counts so much because America has so much influence in the world.
Don't subject the rest of us - women and men both - to another 4 years of this madness.
Please bring back the America that we used to look up to and respect - the America that has compassion and the guts to stand up for those who need it the most.
" Interested Observer, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Desperatation leads to desperate acts.
Obama has set the agenda for this election and the Republicans are having trouble motivating their own voters to show up. Only appeals to primary emotions can succeed because they have no ideas, and no solutions, they live in the best of all possible worlds because it is a world conforming to their belief. Some of us who disagree and have other sensibilities and beliefs, will have to be consoled with getting our reward in heaven, according to Palin, while the hedge managers make off with billions in this life, education dumbs down, the media spins banality into stupor, and consumerism exhausts the relentless search for gratification in a frustrated obesity of anomie.
You are slightly off base, this is not about the racists who were never going to vote for Sen. Obama.
This is about solidifying the republican base getting them fired up and out to vote.
This latest tactic is about and shaking the foundation of the folks who believe in Sen. Obama.
This tactic is to surpress the enthusiasm of the newly registered, the lasped voters and to stem the tide of the Reagan Democrats from going over to McCain.
This is about scaring the elderly who were beginning to, set aside their old notions and racial sterotypes and were turning towards Sen. Obama.
This is not about those folks who were never going to vote for Sen. Obama this tactic is about diminishing turnout by the registered Democrats and Independents.
Palin has drawn latrine duty!
I am not a Democrat. I often find myself on their side. Fairness or fear, now which should I choose?
Governance is glaringly translucent in its naked ineptness, corruption, and dysfunction. We pour good money after bad into Iraq for reasons only known to the profiteers who are not to be confused with the “Funkateers”. Why we are building Iraq’s infrastructure when our own is crumbling is of great mystery and concern. It is troubling when you consider it.
The unintended impression of fear that the McCain candidacy is projecting, is fear of a McCain presidency while Barack Obama continues to reflect the credibleness, decency and fairness of an Obama administration. America’s strength is her diversity. McCain is not trying to tap strength but sap strength, through Delilah tactics of cutting off our mane of courage to do what is right. Which blinds us and we cannot see beyond the hate. Just as Sampson prayed and pleaded for strength we head down this final straight when the opponent wheezin’, huffin’ and puffin’, tongue waggin’ and draggin’, will shed the sheep’s clothing and reveal a wolf like nature -- an abstraction or distortion of a presidential candidate. McCain will howl at the moon that casts a glow to reveal, that which has no substance. He will chase his tail in a final exasperated display of discombobulating frenzy to be validated by an electorate that has turned away in horror and shock at a hollow wolf revealed.
Entirely plausible, but likely to incite other wolves to manifest their most vicious snarling bite.
The fact that Sarah Palin has been placed at the virtual top of the Republican ticket by the dark cabal that has stolen the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan, is proof of the fact that the neocons have successfully transformed that party from an organization dedicated to liberty, a fair capitalist playing field, and right-sized government into an alliance of greedy oligarchic vultures, anti-Const
REPUBLICANS should be frightened. True conservatives would move to seize control of their party from the hands that have so defiled it.
Would Ronald Reagan offer a bank bailout plan? Would Abraham Lincoln advocate torture? Would Teddy Roosevelt seek the elimination of all pro-competitive regulation?
My best friend in college was a conservative, steeped in the Social Darwinism of William Graham Sumner and dedicated to a fair playing field that encouraged entrepreneurial innovation. I used to tell him that I respected the firm philosophical foundation upon which he built his policy ideals.
He was a conservative.
Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are not.
I don't mention John McCain's name, for I fear that he is a now reduced to an aging puppet, dancing on strings pulled by a new generation of crypto-fascists.
Hence, this Democrat prays that his CONSERVATIVE Republican friends take a long look at the new generation of "conservat
Does Sarah Palin really represent you?
What is crypto about the 5 trillion dollar heist these people have pulled off in the last eight years and the destruction of society by their Friedmanite disdain for public services in the common good? This was war on the public, and the more they succeeded, the more contempt they displayed for the masses.
Well said......
Not too many people know what a conservative really is and the neo-cons with their Pravda equivalents of Fox and Rush are too eager to drown out and marginalize those that are/were, like Buckley, Will and Safire.
I agree that Bush, Cheney, and Rove are NOT Reagen conservitives (the jury is still out on Palin), however, compared to Obama, Kerry, Kennedy, Frank, & Hillary they sure are conservitive.
Democrats talk about fairness. But what is fair? I have a 10 year old car. Is it fair that I buy hurricane and flood insurance but then have to pay as a taxpayer for people in Galveston who decided to spend their insurance money on a new car? Is it fair that I pay for my health care and then have to pay to support someone who decided to spend medical insurance money elsewhere. (Don't give me that Democrat BS. My son made that decision. He has spent 2 years paying off medical bills.). It is not fair that I have to pay for someone else's bad decision.
As for unqualified.
Obama talks about a tax refund. Governor Palin gave everyone in Alaska a tax refund.
Obama talks about taking on big oil excess profits. Palin took on big oil and taxed excess profits.
Obama talks about global warming. Palin started a commission to study global warming.
Obama talks about fighting special interests. Palin fought special interests and won.
Obama talks about funding education. Palin funded education.
One talks and the other has acted and succeeded. Based on accomplishments Governor Palin is more qualified than Senator Obama.
With all due respect, sir, are you aware of the fact that we ALREADY pay the medical bills of the poor and unemployed an homeless in our midst.
ONLY NOW, they go to EMERGENCY ROOMS.
EMERGENCY ROOMS, as you know, cost THREE TIMES MORE than treatment by a general practitioner.
Ask ANYONE in medical management and they'll tell you that your plan of DOING NOTHING is BAD BUSINESS. And McCain's plan of ELIMINATING EMPLOYER INSURANCE - cutting $20 million American families adrift and offering them $5000 dollar to pay for $12,000 dollars worth of coverage is sheer idiocy.
And I'm a guy that once would've voted for Senator McCain - a war hero that, before he flip-flopped to support George W. Bush's neocon policies, seemed to me a man of principle.
BE PRAGMATIC, MAN. We're talking about PRIVATE INSURANCE here - NOT GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTHCARE. Obama's plan is CENTRIST. Clinton offered a mandatory plan that was too far left for Middle America. McCain proposes smashing employer-funded healthcare by TAXING IT - a $1.3 TRILLION DOLLAR MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASE - the LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
God bless you, man. But I don't think you've thought this through.
I know very well I am paying for other people's medical treatment.
While medical managers feel doing nothing is bad business, turning it over to the government is worse. EVERY government entitlement program is over priced, inefficient, slow, and filled with red tape. We can not afford that in our health care. Of every dollar spent on welfare 37 cents gets to the needy. 63% is lost in the black hole of government. While an emergency room visit costs 3 times what a GP visit costs, a government run program has about the same inefficiency, however, the government inefficiency is on EVERY treatment not just GP visits.
The other problem with government run health care is that all incentives for innovation and advancements are lost. New treatments not on the approved list will be denied (worse than the insurance companies now). Research..
Our health care cost are going up faster than inflation because people are living longer and are being treated for problems that were untreatable 20 years ago. My father is 82 and spends over $1200 a year on cholesterol medicine. Because of the medicine he has outlived his father & Grandfather by 10 years. $1200 a year is expensive when added to normal medicine costs. It is cheap when it adds ove 10 years to your life.
Palin says she did these great and wondrous things, but the hype and the truth are not the same.
Palin mocked community organizers, Obama helped place people in jobs, registered more voters, than voted for Palin for Governor, organized school reform...
If you want to parse words, Palin says she said no to the Bridge earmarks, sure she did, after she lobbied for it. She kept the money by the way. So is it fair that my tax dollars paid for this bridge, and she refunded it to her state?
Your arguments are specious and empty!
I listed a few of Governor Palin's accomplishments.
What bills has Obama sponsored that passed into law?
He named one post office. Only one post office. Wow!!! Impressive!!!
Obama's record on that is the one that is specious and empty!!!
your vague assertions about Palin's accomplishments are unsourcable becasue you either made them up, or more likely are repeating someone who made it up
If you think Alaska is such a great state move there aftter the election and watch Palin's impeachment
Obama's accomplishments?
?
See
http://en.
http://gov
http://onl
http://www
"To run someone for vice-president who cannot answer political questions is an abuse of civic responsibility which is rapidly becoming a national outrage."
McCAIN/Palin. The world will think we have gone utterly mad.
The world thought that in March 2003, and confirmed it in November 2004
One suspects that the NYT ran this story to diffuse further Republican attack. It will probably work. The tidal wave of economic fear will sweep away the racial fear, and there is nothing McCain/Palin can do about that. Only trouble is that when Obama gets in, there will be no money left in the bank. That is, my friends, the most insidious paranoid interpretation of the Bush/Paulson move--to leave a state of affairs like that of Louis XIV. Apres moi le deluge. The 700,000,000,000 will produce little result. There will have to be more. The resultant inflation will make us look like Germany between the world wars.
Smear and fear continue to be the basis of the republican campaign.
The only thing that Obama is dangerous to is the hope of a Republican hold on the White House.
Everytime the Palin/McCain team smear Obama, send $5.00 to the Obama campaign. Can't stop the smear but can at least get something positive from it.
The more Obama pulls away from McCain in battleground states, the worse the smear will get.
I live in Arizona and have seen first hand how the McCain's "operate" - John and Cindy.
Before falling for the campaign rhetoric ( on both sides) , go to the candidates' websites and look at their positions and plans for the key issues.
Anyone can slam those they don't like or agree with - as evidenced by Palin - doesn't take a mental giant to do that. Educate yourself and then speak from the issues.
Name calling is sooooooooooooo 1st grade.
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