Help! Where's The Pony?

July 17th, 2004

Surprise! I actually have Republican friends. This column is really addressed to them.

As the old story goes, a boy comes home from school and finds his room knee deep in horse manure. He runs outside and shouts to his friends, “There must be a pony!”

This country, led by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and company, is now hip deep in doo doo. I would appreciate an answer to the question: Where is the pony? Why do you not see that this group has led this country to absolute disaster by a deadly mixture of ignorance, stupidity, indolence, self-interest, and deceit? The question posed is quite genuine. The defense of these people absolutely baffles me.

I do not wish to engage in a debate over the merits of Kerry-Edwards ticket. For purposes of the question only, I will concede the Republican criticisms of them: Kerry is wishy-washy on issues, he voted for the war and now won’t support it, etc. etc. Edwards is young and inexperienced, although the criticism of him as having no experience in foreign affairs strikes me as extremely strange in view of the fact that Bush had no such experience when he came to office and his record in foreign affairs is hardly admirable.

Here is a list of actions by the President and his administration that seem to me to be beyond dispute (although I am willing to be corrected if I have misstated):

The specifics of my puzzlement are so numerous that they are hard to list, but here are a few:

1. Iraq. Based on highly doubtful intelligence and over the opposition of our country’s principal allies except for the UK, Bush invaded Iraq. His stated justification was that he feared that Iraq had weapons of mass destructions which they would shortly unloose on the world, or at least threaten such use. He also asserted that Iraq was in league with the Al Qaida terrorists. As is now generally conceded, neither of these justifications was true.

Let us give Bush the benefit of the doubt. If he was entitled to rely on the information that he had from the CIA and wherever, then at the very least he had to prepare for the victory which he, and almost everybody else, assumed would follow. In other words, he had to have a plan for what would happen when American----okay, if you insist–or coalition troops occupied Iraq. It was evident from the start and it is evident today from everything we have learned that Bush had no such plan. The merest dunce might have known that would be a problem. Indeed, George Bush senior, and I do not mean to imply that senior was a dunce, had warned against the occupation of Iraq in his book.

Also, giving GWB the benefit of the doubt and again assuming he acted wisely and in good faith, why does it become necessary for him to defend the invasion on the grounds that it was to bring democracy to Iraq and rid the Iraqis of an evil dictator. On that theory we might have invaded any number of countries, some of them posing a much great military threat to our country than Iraq, even if the CIA was right, ever posed. Consider North Korea whose dictator is no Mr. Nice Guy and threatens use of nuclear weapons. Consider, for that matter, China. Consider Iran. And, yes, consider Russia which is armed to the teeth and led by President Putin who is no more a democrat than I am a Republican.

The lack of a plan has had awful consequences in terms of casualties to our troops, almost 900 of whom have been killed since Bush declared victory. Other awful consequences are the obscene costs of the occupation and the so-called rebuilding of Iraq. Had this money been spent in the United States we could have had a veritable golden age: health care for all, infrastructure (roads, rails, airlines, bridges, etc) repaired, schools supported and taxes lowered, to name only a few. And then there is the absolute spread of terrorism. The invasion of a Moslem state by an essentially Christian power has encouraged extremism in the Moslem world beyond our wildest belief and give terrorism a relatively safe haven in Iraq. The removal of Saddam, however pleasant to contemplate, has not made us safer in the least nor are we likely to be in the relatively distant future no matter who is elected.

2. Moral Values. Bush has espoused every right wing extremist cause he can find, from the so-called Marriage Amendment to opposition to stem cell research, the kind that might have cured President Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease. Even Nancy Reagan is opposed to him on this. He has sought to deal with the AIDs epidemic by insisting on abstinence, an insistence which is akin to suggesting that people give up eating because some food may be poisoned. The president’s promise to be a compassionate conservative and a unifier have proved anything but. One would like to believe he acts out of some political philosophy which he believes will bring peace, prosperity and harmony to the US, but this belief belies the facts. And when he says, as he did to Bob Woodward (quoted in Woodward’s book), that since he is the president he doesn’t owe it to anybody to explain anything, he sets exactly the moral tone that defines his presidency: imperious and foolish. Among those decisions is the refusal to strongly condemn genocide in the Sudan nor participate in any meaningful way to prevent starvation of literally millions of black Africans.

3. The economy. I doubt that Bush deserves all of the blame for the economic decline that we have suffered, although he has certainly not had the courage to own up to his share. What is apparent is that the administration is at an absolute loss to know what to do about it. The tax cut for the wealthiest Americans has certainly not solved the problems. Little if anything has been done to stop the drain on American jobs by outsourcing. Indeed, some in the administration seem to think this is a good idea. Nor has much been done to stem the flood of illegal immigrants who both take jobs formerly available to citizens and who constitute a danger to public safety in themselves. At the same time our immigration laws are administered so cavalierly that we have alienated practically every country in the world who’s citizens would like to visit this country, never mind emigrate.

Forgive me if the forgoing is not as compelling as it might be. It is just so disheartening to go through Bush’s sins one by one that I cannot generate the energy to do it.

I am not depressed because I think Bush will win again. I rather doubt that but that doesn’t mean that I am not afeared. Unless one of you, my Republican friends, can point out the pony, a Bush victory will mean to me the end of our democracy as we know it, the end of our nation’s credibility and moral standing in the world, and the continuance of an era in which our very safety cannot be assured.

Please help!