It Was Eight Years Ago Today (But It Seems Like Eighty)

In the year 2000, that great and glorious year that was supposed to "change everything," I wrote an article for ELLE magazine called "Bushwhacked." I can't remember what they retitled it. It was published in the late summer of 2000, two or three months before the presidential election.

I think I said -- (can't find the damned thing) -- that I was absolutely disgusted by the campaign then in progress. I had met Al Gore at a fundraiser and thought he was brilliant. And a good speaker. And a decent guy. I couldn't understand the press about him, which seemed to me to assault him for possessing functioning brain cells. I was astounded that journalists seemed to love this dumb frat boy named George W., who glad-handed the press while they made fun of this brilliant man (Al Gore) who had a good grip on foreign policy, the environment, the economy (we had a surplus then, remember?) social issues, civil rights for minorities and majorities (women's rights).

Plus -- his wife Tipper Gore wanted us to address the problem of depression in America as a mental health issue. She understood that we were losing an opportunity if we failed to understand the epidemic of depression in adults and adolescents. Here was a smart woman with a smart husband, a woman who cared about the health of the electorate vs. a smirky dumb-ass who lied about his drinking and sobriety, lied about his National Guard Record and had a wife who nodded behind him as if she had no ideas she wanted to express -- which turned out not to be true -- but that came years later.

Al Gore was so obviously the superior candidate that it seemed absurd that anyone would ever consider voting for George W. Bush.

But the press hated Gore and loved Dubya -- as he was then called. Monica Lewinsky was still occasionally in the news -- though she was long gone from Bill Clinton's life. And Al Gore hadn't cheated on Tipper, but what the hey! Guilt by association. No one questioned it. They were both Democrats, weren't they? And Gore was too nerdy for America. Or so they said. We never questioned journalists about why they hated him so. We never questioned getting raving opinion on our news pages instead of hard news. We never questioned that the presidency was a popularity contest.

Then came the election of 2000 -- that comic masterpiece. Remember Florida? Remember the "hanging chads"? Remember the votes that disappeared or weren't counted? Remember the black people in Florida who were turned away from the polls? Remember the long gap between the election and its outcome? Remember the Supreme Court anointing King George II?

It was really disgusting. I was numb. How could my country be so stupid, so corrupt, and so shortsighted? Had we become a banana republic? Not yet. Things were pretty good under Clinton: a bouncy economy, jobs for most, a long overdue acknowledgment that health care needed fixing -- if not the correct fix itself -- Ruth Bader Ginsberg appointed to the Supreme Court, more progressive women appointed to political office than at any time in history, no bullshit about that rarest of procedures -- "partial birth abortion" -- an understanding that a woman's body and mind were one and that if a woman and her family could not raise a child, it was her sad, unwelcome choice not to have it. Kinder in the end to terminate the pregnancy than to drop the child off a bridge -- like that poor benighted father of a few weeks ago -- or beat it to death because you were a drug addict or starve it to death because you were mentally ill and undiagnosed. Also there was no war, declared or undeclared, nor screaming and yelling about patriotism and how you were a traitor if you questioned war as a solution to everything under the sun.

The Geneva Conventions still stood. The Constitution had not been shredded. We still had oil we could mostly afford. We still had a dollar we could exchange for other currency without screaming uncle. We still had The Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus and other quaint and ancient standards. We still were known as the country of freedom. We still abjured torture and other cruel and unusual punishments -- even if some people in the military went nuts and did it -- but at least we did not sanction them.

We still had the ability for women to declare when they were ready to responsibly raise a child. We still had the understanding that bringing up an adult takes 20 years and a village of elders, not nine months. We still had Bill Clinton who still took advice from Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman who had made mothers and children, family leave, civil rights and children's rights her priority during her entire career, who traveled around the world to meet foreign leaders, who supported the rights of minorities and women wherever she went and who was respected internationally for her intelligence and heart.

So the election of 2000 came and came and came and went on and on and on. When George II was finally put in office, I thought -- I'm not really sympathetic to him, but how much harm can he do? After all this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, we'll never allow a dictator like Richard Nixon again. We'll never have Watergate again. How bad can a president be in this great country? Just wait.

So now we had a passel of arrogant neo-cons in the White House and they were trigger-happy. George W. Bush was mad at Saddam Hussein for "trying to kill my Daddy" but some people -- like General Colin Powell and George Bush -- pappy -- the First thought that, bad as he was, we might get still worse problems if we tried to depose him.

Iraq might deconstruct. Oil might go up not down. Sunnis and Shias might try to kill each other. Kurds might want their own country. Iraq, after all, had many different peoples who didn't trust or like each other. People who read books knew that. People in our Diplomatic Corps knew that. Generals of the first Bush war in Iraq knew that. The Jews had fled Iraq after prospering there for thousands of years. The Christians were such a tiny minority they always felt they should leave for fear of fundamentalist Islam. Other religions and tribes were nervous. Iraq was not so much a nation as a collection of uneasy tribes.

And Saddam was a tyrant, but he was our tyrant. After all, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush I had helped install him in the hope he would keep the Soviets away -- we still had the Soviet Union in those days, after all.

The Saudis and the Syrians were, after all, worse than the Iraqis. They were manipulating oil prices. And arming terrorists. Saddam at least wasn't doing that. We could watch him and see what weapons he really had or did not have. In fact we were doing that.

Okay, Bush was in bed with the neo-cons and right-to-lifers but how awful could it get? We could barely imagine it. Maybe the neo-cons wanted to bomb children abroad and the Christian Right wanted to outlaw birth control and abortion at home -- but hey they were Repugnicans -- what did we expect? We would get through it, we thought.

Then came 9/11 -- which supposedly also "changed everything." On a gorgeous day of blue skies in New York and D.C., towers came tumbling down on their own footprints -- unlike any bombing ever seen. The Pentagon was deeply wounded, and it all seemed to be the work of educated Saudis, who were trained in Afghanistan by something called "The Base" or al Qaeda that we'd never really focused on before. Only intelligence professionals knew about it. It seemed to be led by someone called Osama Bin Laden who was born in Saudi Arabia, but came to hate the place -- though his family had become rich there -- but he hated the West more.

Apparently he longed for an ancient Islamic Caliphate where women wore veils and men married many wives and women and children knew their place, didn't talk back or vote or drive or date or fly in planes. He hated the kind of country -- like Iraq under Saddam or Iran before the Islamic revolution where women were integrated into teaching, government, diplomacy and trade. He wanted to turn back the clock about a thousand years.

Where had Mr. (or Sheik) Bin Laden suddenly come from? Well, apparently our government knew all about him and had been told by President Clinton to keep an eye on him. But George Dubya didn't want to be briefed by a Democrat -- whoever he was. And Dubya hated Saddam Hussein for "trying to kill my daddy." So, during the summer of 2001 he ignored a memo that said BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN US. He was busy clearing brush on his Texas ranch. He was busy vacationing. He told Condi Rice it didn't mean a thing and she backed off. When various security experts and diplomats told him to listen up about the threats in presidential briefings, he shut them up -- or fired them. He didn't want to know from such things. When his national security expert came to him and Condi and Dick C. "with hair on fire," warning of possible attacks from Islamic fundamentalists, he just balked. What, me worry? was his mantra -- like Alfred E. Neuman of Mad magazine.

So 9/11 came and went -- and whether it was an attack from abroad or a conspiracy of some sort -- is not the point of this essay. Perhaps it was a sort of Reichstag fire, perhaps not--the Bushevicks treated it as such and took the opportunity (long wished for and planned for) to pass all sorts of nasty laws restricting everyone's freedoms.

So now we take our shoes off checking in and our carry-on luggage is screened and there is a no-fly list for writers and intellectuals who dare criticize the Bushies, or who have funny names or who happen to be Muslim or who happen to have an uncle named Abdullah.

Our rulers (the oligarchs like in Russia) don't care about any of this cause they fly in Air Force I or II or private corporate jets or jets they own, or jets their pals and contributors own. We get the problems flying while we basically bankroll their air travel. Air travel has become so disgusting that ordinary Americans envy the oligarchs their personal aircraft which nobody but the rich rich -- or politicians -- can afford.

Next, the Busheviks cut taxes on the rich and raised taxes on the middle class and working class, saying it would stimulate the economy, while actually it just made working people poorer and middle class people more unable to make ends meet. But Bush and Cheney liked the have-mores better than the have-nots. The have-nots were not their base. They didn't give campaign contributions or shop at Neiman Marcus. The have-nots couldn't really protest, being too busy making ends meet, driving kids to school, working two or three or four jobs. You gotta have leisure to get involved in politics and leisure takes, you guessed it, moolah, dough, bread, bucks.

Then the Bushies began their favorite game -- whipping up war. There were orange, pink, green, blue, rainbow-and-stars alerts. There were announcements about them on the so-called "news" all the time till the comedians laughed the absurd warnings off the air. There were dire predictions about mushroom clouds and smoking guns and loose nukes and stuff.

Never mind that Bush had broken all the treaties designed to keep nukes under lock and key. So now we had a nuclear U.S., a nuclear Pakistan (nuke-u-lar, he said), a nuclear Israel, a nuclear China, a nuclear UK, France. But we reserved the right to get mad at sovereign nations who wanted to arm. (We liked to arm our buddies -- like the Saudis -- we're still doing it-- but we got mad at Iraq, which we had previously armed because we didn't like them anymore).

So what if it made no sense? So what if Bush the First had said, don't get rid of Saddam. He may be a horrible tyrant but he's holding the country together. So what if Colin Powell had said -- if you break it, you gotta fix it -- which ain't easy. They wanted war. They believed everything the Iraqi expats (like Chalabi) told them: it would be a cakewalk, roses strewn before us, Iraqis kissing our troops, and the like. So we bombed the hell out of them -- "shock and awe" -- and mothers and children died and fathers died, but it was all worth it because Saddam caused 9/11 even though he didn't!

This brings us to about 2003 -- Mission Accomplished! The war drags on and little kids in Iraq are being burned and losing arms and legs, but it's worth it because Saddam caused 9/11. Karl Rove steals from Joseph Goebbels brilliant playbook. The Big Lie is repeated so bloody often that a lot of busy people working three jobs, believe it. (If you keep the people working hard enough, they have no time to read. You just lie to them and do photo ops and you hope they don't dig deeper). Then you release your poisonous propaganda through Fox News and GE TV and who knows the diff? The profiteers are happy. They love war. The oil companies are happy. Iraq is the biggest financial boondoggle of all time. So what if the deficit goes up? We're a strong country. We can take it. War costs billions. And billions. And billiions. Money disappears in Iraq. Piles of dollar bills in countless numbers and war material and ordnance and anything else you can name -- antiquities that map our entire civilization, oil, equipment for war, equipment for peace, water pipes, medical supplies, you name it. While this grubfest is going on, mothers back home are sending body armor to their soldier boys so they won't die. Apparently our government can't afford it. We can afford billions for the profiteers, but no bulletproof vests for our kids. We can afford an immense embassy being built in Baghdad, but not enough money to renovate our V.A. hospitals, nor treat the wounded, nor give counseling to G.I.s suffering from post-traumatic stress. Clearly this is hypocrisy to end all hypocrisies but you dare not criticize the war effort for fear of being attacked with not being patriotic and not supporting the troops.

So it goes, as the great Kurt Vonnegut would say. I could detail all the hypocrisies of Cheneybush or Bushcheney, but you know them as well as I. Thus we lost eight years of our lives. Some mornings I woke up so depressed about the state of our nation that I could barely read the papers. I wanted to lose myself in 19th century novels -- Bleak House, David Copperfield -- or sink into Sappho and ancient Greece, the subject of my 2003 novel, my eighth. I wanted to read Herodotus, not the depressing spate of books about how our beloved country was self-destructing out of stupidity, greed, hypocrisy, lack of leadership and lies. I wanted to read the ancient Greeks. I wanted to move to Europe, Italy, France -- anywhere. Even boring, politically correct Canada seemed an option. (At least they hadn't put the warmongers in charge). Or Ireland or Greece.

We "chose" Bush in a popularity contest settled by a Supreme Court packed with GOP trusties and look what we got.

You'd think that after eight years of Bushwa, we'd look deeper at the candidates and what they read, what they think, what they've done all their lives. You'd think we'd notice that Hillary was always for kids and mothers and flex time and family leave. You'd think we'd notice that the people of New York State hated her at first as a carpetbagger but then fell in love with her because she did so much for them -- even in the formerly Republican areas upstate. You'd think we'd notice that Obama is extremely promising as a leader but a bit unseasoned. You'd think we'd notice that the press is anointing him without much inquiry while enthusiastically smearing HRC. You'd think we'd notice that electing a new face is not as important as looking at thirty-five years of passion for civil rights, women's rights, the Constitution. You'd think we'd mistrust the press a little more because the press just loved smearing Al Gore before he was a Nobel-ist. He was always very smart. Do we need the dynamite factory to validate our perceptions? Apparently.

Even today, Alessandra Stanley, covering the rather dull amity and politesse of the Democratic debate of January 14, 2008 (politeness is always dull to our hyperbolic press) for the New York Times, said that Hillary was "using niceness as an ice pick." The other candidates, Obama and Edwards, were just polite. They were merely nice.

This sexism is still invisible to us -- especially when it comes from women writers. It's just Ms. Stanley's opinion that Hillary uses niceness as an ice pick, but her opinions are not on the opinion page.

Once upon a time -- way way back in the Pleistocene -- there used to be a difference between hard news and opinion, but that distinction is now gone. So we must be aware of it--or we'll be screwed again like in 2000.

I'm thrilled that this seems to be a Democratic year and we have a choice between a woman and an African American, but we can take nothing for granted. I will work my tail off for whichever Democrat gets the nomination. I've already sent money and I expect to send more. I've already written articles, books, poems, parodies and will write more. I've spoken for the cause and will speak more. However the one thing I can't do is reform our irresponsible press. I can blog till the cows come home, but if the voters refuse to look at Hillary's record, and refuse to read and research, I can't shove my passions down their throats.

The truth is all candidates make promises -- that's the nature of campaigning. George W. Bush pretended to be a compassionate conservative, a uniter not a divider. He said he was against nation building. His actions were always the opposite. I think Obama's heart is in the right place. I like him. I will work hard for him if he's nominated, but I really don't know him. His record is sketchy.

I know Hillary's record. She has made some whopping big mistakes -- but she admits them and she has shown an incredible capacity for change and growth. I trust change. I trust growth. The presidency, JFK said, is not a very good place to make new friends. Nor is it a place for on the job training. It is not one job but many. It takes passion, ideas, vision, eloquence, but it also takes experience, administration and seasoned judgment. Hillary has these things. Obama is as untested and untried as George W. Bush was (and Gore was not).

Do we need another president learning on the job? I think not -- even if his heart, unlike Dubya's, is in the right place. Give Hillary a break. She has always come through for her constituents. Isn't that what we need to know more than eloquence, promises and hope?

Comments

[patrice37]

I know Hillary's record, too, and I really hate it. Capacity for growth and change? Bush and Cheney told her to authorize war in Iraq, and she complied. Three years later --- three years! --- they told her to give them a crack at Iran, and she complied. If you still insist that Obama is untested, even though he has served more years in elective office than Hillary has, then, well, maybe he can grow and change. In that department, he can't do worse than she has.

[fitCTmom]

Poor benighted father? Are you for real? Someone on one of these blogs replied to one of my posts by calling me "gasp" a Libertarian, not a Democrat (as which I have been registered for all 20 of my legal voting years).Poo­r benighted father, you mean the father that threw all 4 of his children off of a bridge? THAT father.... If this is what a democrat sounds like today...I will gladly and proudly leave the Democratic party and label my self a HUMAN Libertarian.

[shangti]

Nice post, but from reading almost all the comments, The democrats will lose the presidential election no matter who wins the nomination. And I would like to point out to the Obama supporters, I am a Hillary Clinton supporters and I have been call almost every nasty name in these comments and I haven't seen alot of hillary clinton supporters calling Obama supporters name (most likely there are, but I can't see as much). You don't even know me and you called me a Kool aid drinker??? that we a hilbots? Real nice in being a uniter and HILBIL (as in a derogatory terms for white southerner)?? Obama might be a uniter but the comments here is proving to me that his supporters are not uniting the country. As Erica Jong keeps mentioning that whoever won the democratic election, she will support EVEN OBAMA!!!!! But Obama supporters is all Obama or nothing. Seems strange to lose the supreme courts for generations to come. It is almost the Nadar voters all over again except this time with millions and millions of supporters.

[LongTom]

As long as we're comparing 2000 to 2008, why should America vote yet again for a nepotistic relative of an ex-president whose campaign slogans and themes are dictated by the surprising success of her number one opponent?

Hillary the nepotist is clearly the "Bush" of 2008, Erica's endless, nonsensical screed notwithstanding. Hillary has rarely gotten anything right the first time, and she is not good at all at admitting her many mistakes. She still defends her vote for Bush's Iraq invasion! Hillary would certainly be better than any Republican, but there's little reason to think her superior to ANY of the Democratic candidates. Certainly, she's no match for Obama!

[Jaybot]

Give Hillary a break? No.

[texanna]

Erica, your summation of the last 8 years reminded me just how mad as hell I really am and how badly this country needs to rid itself of the Bushies and all NeoNuts. I do take issue with your assertion that the campaign is between Obama and Clinton, since the rumors of the death of Edwards' campaign are highly premature. If Edwards doesn't get the nomination, I would prefer Clinton for the reasons you've cited. But, I do have some serious concerns about the corporatists and Wall Street companies that she's taken money from. I thought Edwards' question last night was right on point -- what does she think they want for those contributions? I think that Edwards' is the only candidate that really "gets it" this election cycle. Our country has been usurped by big business/m­ulti-natio­nal corporations and the military-i­ndustrial-­media complex. If we don't get them out of our government, we will definitely improve over what we've got now, but we won't REALLY get the middle class/working class back where they need to be.

[DatelessNerd]

Strom Thurmond had more "experience" than any of the 2008 Presidential candidates. Jesse Helms, too. Does anyone think they would've made good Presidents?

If a candidate lacks principles and/or judgment, experience doesn't mean squat.

With all of her "experience," Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War and Kyl-Lieberman. Her solutions for health care and telecommunications infrastructure amount to more corporate welfare for insurers, drug companies, and media conglomerates.

Hillary Clinton's "constituency" is Hillary Clinton. That's what triangulation is all about--doing what's best for one's career, instead of what's best for the nation.

"Any woman will do" - WON'T DO!

[freeusofbushclinton]

People who think Hillary has more experience than Obama lose any credibility. She was the first lady. She was not the vice president nor a cabinet member when Bill was the president. We've had 28 years of either Bush or Clinton in the White House. I really think we need new people and new ideas in there.

[tkunz]

There's an old saying:
'good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad
judgment'. We keep hearing about Hillary's experience and we keep
witnessing her bad judgment.

Given that, HIllary must have a load of experience.

So just when do you think we might see evidence of some good judgment?

[ebbtide]

Comparingthe accomplished Barack Obama to Bush is despicable. Comparing The accomplished John Edwards to Bush, is despicable.

The tactic of conjoining Bush to both these elegant contenders is despeicable. It borders on playing the fear game. That is a little bit off putting.,

We do not need old feminists telling the younger that we need to go back to the nineties or the seventies,.

What we need is a rejuvenation of the mood of this country and we do not need another term for Bill Clinton, who obviously wants a third term and employes his wife, who it seems willing submits to her man, in order to win.

It's old, Erica. You as well as the Clintons have had your day. We look toward the new feminists who are very active and smart and rising in their research and their writings.

Stop it. You cannot compare Barack Obama or John Edwards to George Bush., It don't fit.

[brooklyncitizen]

"She has always come through for her constituen­ts."
Are we talking about the same Hillary?

"Give Hillary a break"

How about we give the Iraquis a break? Hillary voted for this war and has repeatedly voted to fund it. Nice try though.

We have a moral obligation to the Iraquis for illegally invading their country, blowing up their homes, killing them, torturing them, displacing them so now one million are refugees ...and Hillary plays footsies with Oobama and Edwards (MSNBC debate) claiming that the troops will be brought home...but of course the American embassy has to be guarded (code for oil wells), and help train Iraquis (code for ongoing occupation) and must withdraw responsibly (code for stay and do Israel's bidding).

THis war is SHAMEFUL. No I will not give Hillary "a break".

She is my Senator and has delivered nothing for New York. Experience hasn't added up to much.

[Ides]

Obama's untested and untried so that makes him like Bush? Bush is a liar and a habitual failure from a state that suffered under his leadership who got into office because of his last name who used fear as a political tool.

Surprise, now Erica Jong is trying to force a liar and a habitual failure to a country that has suffered under her legislation into office because of her last name despite her using fear as a political tool.

NOT AGAIN!

[jwws007]

Hillary does have alot of experience, especially when it comes to raising money from lobbyists and special interest groups. She's the same as Bush

[researcher]

"I know Hillary's record. She has made some whopping big mistakes -- but she admits them"

what drug are you on. she admits them. it was john edwards that admitted his mistake with the iraq war.

this a a goldwater girl running as a liberal.

anyone that gives george jr a opening to go to war is a goldwater girl or guy. she was playing politics with that vote to look tough on terror to win war mongering middle america.

she supported joe lie er mann mr lets go to war joe.

ask her to tell you what she did with the 874,000 she got from drug companies . they know if she is elected they will get that back ten fold with her universal health plan.

you women would put in eva braun as pres to get a woman in the white house. god knows we need a woman in the white house as we white males have screwed up this country royal.

when I see the repubs white suits on stage it makes one want to upchuck. I would not buy a used car from these guys.

the only words they know are tax cuts. give tax cuts then borrow to run the gov. dumb and dumber.

[pajewood]

what a load of crap that hillary has more experience than obama. and if she thought her vote for war in iraq was a mistake, why vote for the president's iran resolution? she's so hell bent on getting elected that she'll say anything. the country needs integrity and obama and edwards have that all over her. how come her and bill aren't being forthright about the fact that they're not living together. the press isn't covering it now, but do you think the repugs will let that go in the general?