[Vision2020] Politics and scurrilous stories

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Visionaries:

Let's see if I can type this email more carefully than my previous post, 
which featured a disgraceful number of typos -- sorry about that.  No doubt 
my old high school typing teacher, Miss Lilly, is berating me psychically 
from her Raleigh, N. C. rocking chair.  "Do not look at the keys, Miss Opyr. 
  Do I need to cover your hands with a piece of paper?"

I've been thinking about the John Kerry stories now surfacing, about the 
state of national politics in general, and about what are and what aren't 
legitimate lines of inquiry regarding public figures.  Yesterday afternoon, 
I watched CNN clips of Colin Powell getting testy about the suggestion that 
George W. Bush might have been AWOL when he was supposed to be serving in 
Alabama.  I  watched conservative pundit after conservative pundit issue 
stern warnings that it's not only dangerous but inappropriate to ask 
questions like this about the "commander and chief."  And I listened to GOP 
spokesmen decrying the "politics of personal destruction."

Good grief.  First of all, this is a democracy, I think.  George W. Bush 
might be first among equals, but just like the rest of us, he is not above 
reproach.  Whether or not he completed his obligation to the Texas Air 
National Guard is of interest.  How he got into the National Guard is of 
interest.  Why the administration can't come up with anything more to prove 
his service than one visit to an Alabama dentist and pay stubs for six days 
of duty over the course of an eighteen month period is of tremendous 
interest.

Why?  Because he dressed up in a flight suit -- the first president since 
George Washington to don a military uniform while in office -- and he used 
that suit and the crew of the USS Lincoln for a propaganda photo-op.  As the 
daughter of an Air Force enlisted man, and the daughter-in-law of a Marine 
Corps officer, I've got a pretty good idea of when you do and when you don't 
wear a uniform.  Even if GWB served in the National Guard with distinction, 
that flight suit was a big fat don't.  If he didn't . . . well, let's hope 
the rest of his suits are flame-retardant, because Mr. Bush is going to be 
raked over the coals like a Texas smoked brisket.

Second -- and you're all free to dismiss this as bitter, irrelevant, or 
water under the bridge -- but I seem to recall Tucker Carlson, George Will, 
Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Bob Novak and the entire rest of the GOP 
punditocracy examining not just Bill Clinton's Vietnam-era deferments, but 
also the recreational activities of the presidential tallywhacker.  Yes, 
Bill Clinton lied about an affair.  Yes, that was wrong.  No, I'm not 
defending his relationship with an intern.  But the special prosecutor, 
Kenneth Starr, was supposed to be looking into a little land deal called 
Whitewater.  How did Starr get from a swamp in Arkansas to Monica Lewinsky's 
blue dress.  He got there by playing a 50 million dollar version of Where's 
Waldo?

Maybe the contents of Bill Clinton's boxer shorts were fair game.  I don't 
know.  Mud-flinging, smear tactics, and cheap accusations are a staple of 
American politics, but I think it would do well to remember that the gate 
swings both ways.  Just for the hell of it, I ran a google search on the 
terms "George W. Bush" and "abortion" and came up with several web-sites, 
all of which repeat the Larry Flynt story that Bush got a girlfriend 
pregnant in 1970, and that girlfriend had an abortion -- three years before 
Roe vs. Wade made it legal.  To give you a general idea of their scope and 
quality (or the lack thereof), here are two of them:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a003c0d1227.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20010107213300/http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/Sorensen110600/sorensen110600.html

Do I endorse these stories?  No.  Do I care about them?  Not really.  I 
bring them up because, like the John Kerry-might-have-romanced-an-intern 
story, they're designed to sow doubt a person, not about his policies.  Gee, 
maybe George W. Bush is a hypocrite.  Hey, maybe John Kerry is a 
Clintonesque Casanova.  Does it matter?  We're facing serious problems in 
this country.  Two and a half million people are out of work.  Their 
unemployment benefits are running out.  Good jobs are disappearing.  The 
federal deficit is at an unprecedented high.  There are broad cultural 
disagreements among our citizens about abortion rights, gay rights, the role 
of religion in public life, and the role of government in securing our 
social welfare.  Are Americans really too stupid or too shallow to talk 
about this stuff?  Are the editors at Fox, and CNN, and MSNBC so lazy and/or 
so disdainful of the populace that they'd rather Drudge up Flynty crap than 
give us substantive coverage of what Bush and Kerry have done/would do in 
office?

I'm not suggesting that I know myself where to draw the line between what's 
scurrilous and what's relevant in political coverage.  I'm saying that this 
is another piece of the greater political story that we as Americans need to 
be concerned about.  We need to look at the media consolidation that has 
created a media echo chamber and wonder what we can do to encourage a more 
free, a more serious, and a more relevant press.

Okay.  I'm off now to read The Economist, a very serious news magazine which 
I hear features a very serious picture of Janet Jackon's right breast.  
Ah-oooh-gah!

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

_________________________________________________________________
Optimize your Internet experience to the max with the new MSN Premium 
Internet Software. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/