deficeit speechifying
I watched the presidents speech the other night. Now; he's not my man, I didn't vote for him I'm still waiting for my man. All the same I watch these big set piece speeches prepared to give whoever it is talking the benefit of the doubt. A strategy and attitude which undoubtedly plays against my own best interest. I was going to write a post at one point making the case that large parts of the Bush foreign policy were actually incumbant on any administration that found itself in the situation we find ourselves in now. I believe that was before we actually went ahead with the Iraq war. At any rate I didn't write that post. The considerable latitude the president has in the field of external policy is what struck me most. The ability even to declare what is and isn't a situation - to assert what apparent aspects of a situation truly describe it and get to its heart. While watching his speech I was reminded that the same crowd that declared Saddam Hussain public enemy number one are the same people who five or six years ago were trying to shove Bill Clinton back down whatever sulphur emitting crack in the earth they were so desperately sure he had crawled out of. Its not hard for this crowd to find the face of total evil, they can do that. The hard part is getting them not to. I don't need George Bush to conceive his job to be World Witchfinder General. I would rather have a administration that views Arab discontent, hostility, and violence - on whatever scale - as a political problem to solved, than as a zorastoran absolute to be annihilated.
President Bush made a point of mentioning that some aspects of the patriot act are coming up for review next year - the democrats clapped - then he added that the terrorist are not following the same schedule - the republicans clapped. Consider that along side a speech given by the Vice President in California a few days before
Cheney's grim vision: decades of war where he asserted that the war on terrorism would last for generations. Get ahold of a good review of what is in Patriot i and Patriot ii (I know Slate did such a review last fall I will try to get that link if it still exists) ask yourself if living with these laws for generations will not change this nation.
At certain times during the domestic portions of the speech, particularly when he was talking about the tax breaks which he was at pains to thank the Congress he was speaking to for passing, he seemed to be on the brink of breaking into a fit of giggles. He did this as he said that the people can always spend money better than the government. Even economists will caveat a statement like that. And it is a surprising thing for a man who has so many friends who run companies surviving almost totally off government contracts, especially these days.
I do believe that Karl Rove has decided that: if, in fact, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and most of the people some of the time - thats all you really need. Remember as Dick Cheney told Paul O'Neal: deficeits don't matter Reagan proved that.
Addendum: The Slate piece which has links to to ACLU, EFF and ALA resources on the Patriot Acts as well as DOJ resources is
A Guide to the Patriot Act, Part 1 - Should you be scared of the Patriot Act? By Dahlia Lithwick and Julia Turner. The full article is in four parts.
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