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

[vale409]

Amen

[davidly]

This seems like a very very narrow point of view. Ninety percent of the party has yet to vote, and we would so whittle-down our choices? This is not democracy in action, it's a single elimination tournament based on who's got the biggest sponsor.

[BobLargomarsino]

It seems to me that the upcoming election is shaping up as one to be decided by the independents. A lot of people seem tired of the partisanship that has consumed the past 15 years. One candidate repels independents and embodies partisan politics, the other appeals to independents and promises to bring people together.

People who vote for Hillary because they want to see a woman in the White House or vote for Obama because they want to see a black man in the White House are missing the boat here. You should vote for who you think is the best candidate.

There are so many talented women in politics these days that I am sure there will be a woman in the Oval Office soon and that it will happen often.

I don't think Hillary will be that woman, however. She is far too polarizing and has not demonstrated sound judgement in her short time in office. She voted for a war that she was opposed to because she thought it would help her political career. And she is tacitly supporting voter suppression in Nevada to win a few delegates.

Experience is good and all, but I will take sound judgment and moral character any day of the week. Hillary is not the right person to be breaking the glass ceiling.

[Brianimator]

No, she DOESN'T admit her mistakes. She still hasn't admitted her vote on Iraq was a mistake...in the Nevada debate she actually claimed to have voted FOR a bad bankruptcy bill that she additionally said she was "glad" didn't pass! I was shocked Russert and Williams let that little gem go unmined.

By the way, Obama opposed that same bill from the start. Not unlike a certain war. Now what were we saying about "on the job training?"

[TheInsomniac]

"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)."

Exactly how well read are you? Answer one question: who has more legislative experience? Who has more experience HOLDING OFFICE. I would no more elect Hillary because her husband was President than I would elect Laura, or Barbara, or Nancy, or any other first lady.

Being the wife of a president, and willing to turn your head at your husband's indiscretions, does not qualify you to hold higher office. And I'm shocked that you reference JFK while simultaneously ignoring the most patient, eloquent, and dedicated candidate for president that we've had in my lifetime.

[NYDamien]

Nice try Erica....
"the more things change, the more they stay the same."
We're not the same country we were 20-30 years ago. We're populated by zombies raised on American Idol, Oprah, and cable pee vee.
"But the press hated Gore and loved Dubya"
THAT stays the same.
We're doomed.

[6PercentIsUpperClass]

From my father....a great American.

Having played the "gender card" to the full in celebrating her victory in New Hampshire, isn't it a little late for Senator Clinton to comment, "I don't think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it's not about race" ? Her remarks comparing Dr. King and Lyndon Johnson need to be apologized for and not excused. All we need do is imagine a candidate saying that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were great orators, but it took a president (implying, of course, "a man") to bring about results in women's fight for the vote. Feminists (in which category I would include myself) would be incensed indeed at such a slight. Those of us who honor the memory of Dr. King and all that he accomplished for this nation are equally apalled by Mrs. Clinton's words, especially in the light of her long-time sensitivity to African-American issues. What happened? It is time for her to say, "I'm sorry" - something she unfortunately could not bring herself to say about her support of the Iraq War, but which I pray that she will do at this time to help bring our nation together.

[cheshyre]

George Bush is a lying bastard. He's always been a lying bastard. So how does a lying bastard get elected? By people who don't care.

There is a solid base of fellow lying bastards out there to always support GWB. They support him for exactly that reason. But others WANT to be lied to. Tell me you're doing good, daddy, I'll believe you. What it all comes down to is this: how many of us are interested in the truth?

We're all the same on the inside. Know thyself to know thy candidate. That's how simple it was to know that GWB was a liar. And that's how simple it is to know HRC is too weak to oppose the war and heal the wrongs that have been done. She's a Bush of a different gender. You may want to believe she's the one to make things right. That's OK. Still lots of people out there that believe GWB is compassionate. Wonder where that got us...

[xufapemu]

It has been an unfortunate reality that women who have attained high office must "out-macho" everyone else in order to attain and retain the office. My friends tell me that just having a woman in the office will aid the pursuit of peace. I ask them to tell me, where is it in world history that having a woman at the top meant a pacific world? Thatcher? Indira Ghandi? Golda Meir? Cleopatra? The idea that one gender is more capable or has superior skills is sexist. It doesn't matter if your male or female. And supporting someone primarily on the basis of gender is sexist as well. For the life of me, I can't see any other way someone sould look at Hillary Clinton's record and believe that she is what America needs right now.
As I've said it's unfortunate that women feel that must be more macho to win high office. ANd Hillary has shown a willingness to choose aggression over restraint in every instance she's been presented with a choice. If she were elected, she would begin running for re-election on day one. If and when our nation were attacked, how do you expect her to respond? With restraint or would she be looking to 2012 and how her decision would be portrayed by the Republicans? How has she reacted in the past? Make no mistake, if Hillary wins the White House the race for 2012 starts in January 2009. And every decision she makes will be with a calculated eye. Too harsh? All one needs to do is look at every single decision she has ever made in her career. Hillary Clinton is the not just the wrong person to be President, she is the wrong woman to have as our first woman President. Reaching office on the shoulders of her spouse, putting up with the indignations feminists have railed against for decades, and in the end unable or unwilling to push even the slightest progreesive agenda for fear of losing her office. Feminist support for Hillary mostly because of gender does women a disservice.

[seawolf77]

Like someone once mused, I don't know where that little corporal will take us (referring to Hitler)I don't think anyone could have known where the little frat boy with the clown faced zombie wife would take us. But here we are.

[sjeanf]

Erica - Brilliant, as usual!!!!!!!!!

[isi]

Using Jong's logic a person in 1860 would have voted for Stephen A. Douglas over Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a young lawyer and Douglas an experienced legislater. I'm glad the citizens didn't use this kind of elementary logic in that historic election. Historians continue to rank President Lincoln as one of the top 3 best Presidents of the United States.

[JPorrata]

correction 3d most populous stare.

[kittybitty]

So, now you're equating Obama to Bush??? Put down the Feminazi Kool-Aid Erica.

"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."

Riiiiiight. Just like she admitted she was wrong about agreeing to Bush's war.

[JPorrata]

I'm glad somebody else picked up on similarities between Bush Jr and HRC


As far as Hillary's experience on paper, let's look at Bush in 2000.

54 years old. He'd been working hard for the Republican part for 30 years.

Military service.

Two term governor of the nation's largest state - record as an education reformer and worked on women and family issues by providing funding for faith-based intiatives that helped with education, alcohol and drug abuse prevention, and reduction of domestic violence.

Turned around a multi-million dollar business in the Texas Rangers.

Had worked closely with his father on campaigns for President.

Educated at the finest prep schools, Ivy League instuttions with a post graduate degree.

And to top it all off, he is organized and disciplined if not a little impatient at times.


Bush's problem was not a lack of experience - it was a lack of judgement and intelligence. Somebody tell me that Mrs. Bankruptcy Bill v. 1, Flag Burning Amendment, Iraq war resolution, Kyl-Lieberman, No Child Left Behind is somehow a paragon of wisdom and foresight