president kerry?
As hard as it is, I have to accept the fact that Americans might actually elect John Kerry and I'll have to face up to the fact that I was wrong that Bush was the best man for the job. Because Americans always choose the right guy -- always -- even when the guy they choose -- say Jimmy Carter -- is clearly in way over his head.
Because Carter, bless his peanut pickin heart, gave us Ronald Reagan.
Without Carter's feckless bungling of nearly every single important job we were paying him to do, we wouldn't have had 20% interest rates and a bunch of officially kidnapped Americans locked up in Tehran and a sense that the country was seriously adrift. Without a good healthy does of malaise we wouldn't have taken a flyer on a Grade-B movie actor who'd decided he'd like to play the leader of the free world, get the economy going again, make Americans feel good about themselves for the first time in a decade, and overthrow communism.
We'd have been skeptical. And with good reason.
So maybe a Kerry victory is needed (needed in a cosmic sense) for reasons we can't yet fathom. Maybe Kerry is the cure for the divisions that have existed in this country on a particularly vicious level since Florida 2000, when Democrats decided it was more important to sow the seeds of discord by challenging the legitimacy of a process where the margin of error was greater than the margin of victory, and where you could have hand-counted the ballots 1000 times and gotten 1000 different results. There was no way the Democrats could win this fight, and they must have known it within 48 hours of the polls closing. Still, they winged and whined and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, without any apparent gain to the nation and at the cost of a corrosive animus building up in their own partisan hearts.
(A personal note: on the morning after the last election, when the results were still very much in doubt, I did something to my back that kept me hobbled and in bed for nearly a month. During that time I watched TV about 12 hours a day... mostly MSNBC... and watched in horror as my party's leaders & spinners embarrassed themselves with their naked greed to obtain the Presidency no matter the cost in integrity. A sickening display that haunts me and the party to this day.)
I know, I know. It was mostly the Democrats who caused the rancorous rift we see in the country today, and they shouldn't be rewarded for it by having their appalling pair of insubstantial lightweights elected. But, if elected, the lightweights will have to govern, or try to. Kerry says he will strengthen alliances. Maybe he can figure out a way to ally himself with the half of America that didn't vote for him. Maybe when the Al-Fufa Brigade blows up all the bridges and tunnels leading into New York, a President Kerry will realize these guys are serious, and he should be too.
Crikey.
Because Carter, bless his peanut pickin heart, gave us Ronald Reagan.
Without Carter's feckless bungling of nearly every single important job we were paying him to do, we wouldn't have had 20% interest rates and a bunch of officially kidnapped Americans locked up in Tehran and a sense that the country was seriously adrift. Without a good healthy does of malaise we wouldn't have taken a flyer on a Grade-B movie actor who'd decided he'd like to play the leader of the free world, get the economy going again, make Americans feel good about themselves for the first time in a decade, and overthrow communism.
We'd have been skeptical. And with good reason.
So maybe a Kerry victory is needed (needed in a cosmic sense) for reasons we can't yet fathom. Maybe Kerry is the cure for the divisions that have existed in this country on a particularly vicious level since Florida 2000, when Democrats decided it was more important to sow the seeds of discord by challenging the legitimacy of a process where the margin of error was greater than the margin of victory, and where you could have hand-counted the ballots 1000 times and gotten 1000 different results. There was no way the Democrats could win this fight, and they must have known it within 48 hours of the polls closing. Still, they winged and whined and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, without any apparent gain to the nation and at the cost of a corrosive animus building up in their own partisan hearts.
(A personal note: on the morning after the last election, when the results were still very much in doubt, I did something to my back that kept me hobbled and in bed for nearly a month. During that time I watched TV about 12 hours a day... mostly MSNBC... and watched in horror as my party's leaders & spinners embarrassed themselves with their naked greed to obtain the Presidency no matter the cost in integrity. A sickening display that haunts me and the party to this day.)
I know, I know. It was mostly the Democrats who caused the rancorous rift we see in the country today, and they shouldn't be rewarded for it by having their appalling pair of insubstantial lightweights elected. But, if elected, the lightweights will have to govern, or try to. Kerry says he will strengthen alliances. Maybe he can figure out a way to ally himself with the half of America that didn't vote for him. Maybe when the Al-Fufa Brigade blows up all the bridges and tunnels leading into New York, a President Kerry will realize these guys are serious, and he should be too.
Crikey.
posted by patrickhenry at 12:10 AM
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