My friend Bernie has been bugging me for months to tell him which Democrat I'm supporting for president. Bernie says it doesn't matter anyway, because now that Bush has snagged Saddam Hussein, the media says the only thing remaining for a Bush win in 2004 is to gas up the balloons and shred the confetti...
"You shoulda heard Dan Rather the day Bush got Saddam," Bernie snorted. "He was quizzing Sandy Berger -- you know, that guy who used to have Condi's job -- about the impact of finding Hussein. Oh, man," Bernie cackled, "you shoulda heard him! Rather kept asking, 'Isn't this a marvelous victory for President Bush?' And," Bernie said, "when Berger tried to point out it was a victory for our troops, ol' Dan interrupted him and kept insisting...'Isn't this game-set-match for Bush in the election?'
"Sheesh--" Bernie said, "even the cables are buckling on their swash! The only contest out there right now is between CNN and FOX for the honor of being Bush's designated campaign headquarters. CNN says getting Saddam is a Bush coup. FOX counters that dragging Saddam out of his hole is a dazzling Bush victory! CNN says the "gaggle" of Democrat presidential hopefuls are irrelevant. FOX jeers that the candidate wannabe's are not 'hopefuls,' but hopeless, and they, and the entire party they rode in on, are toast.
"Hey," Bernie chortled, "CNN even brought in that blonde Zahn babe for a Sunday night campaign special on what a wonderful Dear Leader we have, who single-handedly captured the evillest evildoer in the universe. C'mon, admit it," Bernie grinned, "when you're looking at a full boat, those three aces you're holding ain't nothin' but a losing hand..."
"Yeah, Bernie," I said dryly, "What's the matter with those dummies? Even when playing against a stacked deck, some Democrats just don't know when to fold 'em. Who knows why they want to stay in the game until it's over. Go figure."
"So-o-o-o," Bernie grinned, ignoring my sarcasm, "since it doesn't matter anymore, you can tell me which piece of toast you're pickin'. C'mon -- you know the game's over."
No. The game is not over. Not until that last card is dealt. Bernie's right about one thing, though. The most vicious opponent the Democrats will face in the upcoming presidential campaign is the media -- a corporate beast -- fed, watered and kept on a tight leash by the Bush administration. The media is only too happy to ramp up its talking points -- we're the good guys, triumphantly whisking away a tyrant admidst crowds of liberated, petal-throwing Iraqis -- spreading democracy over the landscape in our wake. Of course, we're unscathed because the instant they spied us, Iraqi soldiers and millions of Iraqi citizens threw down their arms and begged us to save them...
After the blatant lies Bush told during his State of the Union speech, the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, so enamoured of Bush that she walks around on her knees and elbows, likened Bush to "an earnest Clark Kent -- moving, at the moment of maximum danger, to shed his suit, tear open his shirt, and reveal the big "S" on his chest..."
So, how can the Democrats counter a media production that stars its very own candidate, draped not only in the burned flesh of 9-11 victims, but of those of Afghanistan and Iraq, striding across the campaign trail as the world's heroic, but compassionate, "liberator?" How can Democrats counter the red-white-and-blue juggernaut planned to convince the American voter it would be "unpatriotic" NOT to vote for Bush?
How, indeed. For starters, except perhaps for the incomparable Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who has so eloquently and relentlessly waged a lonely and desperate battle for democracy and freedom on the floor of a mostly empty Senate chamber, it's time to unite and to tell the truth, not only about the war but about issues that impact directly upon the American people.
Too many Americans have perished in the more than 200 years it has taken to build this bastion of freedom and democracy, and too many more will perish in the dismantling of it if this gang of greedy warmongers is allowed to remain in control. They must be stopped and, like Senator Byrd says -- "the truth will emerge" and destroy them.
Democrats need to tell Americans that finding weapons of mass destruction, the explicit reason Bush raged into war, is no longer important to him. When asked by ABC's Diane Sawyer about the failure to find WMD after taking the country to war over the threat they posed in the hands of a murderous Saddam Hussein, Bush responded with a shrug --"What's the difference?"
The difference Sawyer failed to remind Bush, is 546 coalition deaths -- 461 of them US soldiers and marines. The difference that, remarkably, does not haunt his every waking hour and torment him as he sleeps, is more than 11,000 wounded and maimed American men and women, many of them facing a future without arms, legs, eyes...
Another difference , although "we don't do body counts," is an estimated 9,781 innocent Iraqi men, women and children who have been needlessly slaughtered. Collateral damage, so easily shrugged aside, so patently ignored, so permanently forgotten...
The media is hiding the truth from the American public about the safety of US forces in Iraq, who are desperately in need of equipment and body armor. According to law professor Jonathan Turley, who opened a hornet's nest in a September LA Times article on the subject, at least 40,000 of the 130,000 troops in Iraq don't have basic Kevlar Interceptor vests or the ceramic plates needed for full protection. Turley also says (http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-12-17-turley_x.htm) he was told by a Pentagon procurement officer that Interceptor vests were "non-priority" items, like tents. The military's shameful, "what's the difference" attitude is forcing soldiers in harm's way to share vests, some even make desperate attempts to survive by taping ceremic plates on the backs of their flak jackets...
The media steadfastly refuses to cover such atrocities as this administration freezing pay and promotions for those brave men and women who are embroiled in a life-and-death struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan, and refusing to give them "combat duty" allowances. How many Americans know Bush is curtailing veteran's benefits for millions who have gone before -- cutting out assistance entirely for millions more? Who knows of the deadly little plan to withdraw monetary assistance for schools on military installations that children of our military personnel must attend? How many Americans know of the cover-up of illness and long-term disease caused by tons of depleted uranium sprayed indiscriminately across an already devastated land during not one, but two, Gulf Wars? If they knew, how many would condone the overall mean-spirited unfairness against those whom we can -- and must -- depend upon to protect us?
The lies and assaults on democracy perpetrated by George W. Bush are scratching at the screen door like a bunch of unruly cats yowling to get out. Democrats need to jerk that door of truth open. Put it out there. Shine a light on it. Tell the American people about the "ferocious three-year attack" Bush has relentlessly waged against our beloved country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. According to Robert F. Kennedy in a Rolling Stone feature earlier this month, Bush has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of environmental laws, which are "already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans."
It's time for Democrats to tell the truth about Bush's assault on the economy and the middle class. It's time they addressed the scores of Americans jobs being offshored at breathtaking speed, leaving millions of Americans in the lurch -- tens of thousands of them on the streets, homeless and hungry.
Only Democrats can beat Democrats in the upcoming election. Democrats need to make it very clear that, when Bush's sock-jock landing photo-op didn't work -- when his 6 a.m. Iraqi plastic turkey shoot fell flat on its face -- when Halliburton was getting rewarded with an additional $222 million for illegally gouging US taxpayers -- and when the chairman of the 9-11 investigative committee announced the tragedy could have, and should have, been prevented -- pulling Saddam out of a hole like a rabbit out of a hat ain't gonna play in Peoria.
It's time to talk about elimination of jobs and benefits, privatization of government jobs, elimination of overtime for federal workers, slashing $270 million and 84,000 students from the Federal Pell Grant Program, using taxpayer money for anti-union campaigns, ending the low-income housing program, cutting children's assistance and education programs...and on and on. Citizens in this country crying out for fairness, for justice -- for mercy -- have exactly the same chance as Texas death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker had of being heard by their president. You'd have to be from Texas, Afghanistan or Iraq to really appreciate the full meaning of Bush's, "I'm gonna whup yore ass" ideology...
It's time for Democrats to talk to Americans -- about Americans.
Because Americans aren't stupid. They aren't logic-impaired. Although CNN and FOX would convince you otherwise, Americans aren't all chuckling neo-cons who gleefully accept the smoke-and-mirrors, bait-and-switch, outright lies of this administration, if for no other reason than to "show them freakin' lefties" who's By God in control here. Not everybody thinks the evil and totally shameless little corporate war pigs running this country are just too utterly adorable.
Americans know it wasn't supposed to be this way. Elections in this great country are not supposed to be seized through the shock and awe of a violent coup d'etat, nor by shameful judicial fiat. They know it must not be allowed to happen again, or we could well be crushed under a ruthless totalitarian heel for generations to come. They know it's likely that we have just one last shot at anything resembling a free election.
So, which Democrat am I supporting for President? Like I told Bernie, in a perfect world and -- based on perfect voting records -- we would soon have a President Kucinich or a President Kerry. But, alas, this world is far from perfect. So, as Bush saddles up Saddam and prepares to "let that pony run" all the way to the White House, it's imperative that the American people go to the polls aware of the truth about this administration.
The Democrat who breaks loose from the pack and begins to talk to the American people about issues that affect the American people is the guy who will pull that fourth ace from the stacked deck. The guy who finally displays the courage to launch a ruthless counter-attack armed with nothing but the absolute truth won't be hard to find. He's the one Karl Rove will be smearing -- the one the media will be tearing at like a pack of vociferous wolves.
He's the one who will matter.
And he's the guy who'll get my vote.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer, a former US Army Public Information Officer and www.axisoflogic.com contributing editor.
Back to Editorials Page