Letters to the Editor
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We have to counter 2X as Hard
I want to see an ad mixing McCain's praise for Rev. Hagee in between Hagee's numerous hateful comments. I want to see that ad aired in every market that an Obama/Wright ad is aired, using the same media outlet. And if the media outlets refuse, SUE them in a very public way.
We have 2x the $$ than the repubs, let's put it to good use. Pre-produce these ads regarding likely attack issues, and then air them immediately to counter any right-wing ad run on that topic.
We have to get proactive this time around.
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Tina Trent's Comments
First, credit where credit is due. Tina Trent is an exquisite writer. She is clear, clever, imaginative and she presents her arguments smoothly. (Referring to a knife, someone might say "you never felt it go in"). I admire her abilities and if she were a lawyer she would make a great brief writer.
But, she and I understand "Remember Willie Horton" in very different ways. When I hear the phrase I am reminded that the aspirations of a public figure can be brought down by skewing and disfiguring the public record through the clever use of pictures and good one liners; nothing more. Of this phenomenon we must be very careful.
I quite agree on substance with Tina. The liberals (and you may count me as one) went way too far in coddling the criminals and hurt irreparably many innocent people as a result of their misplaced sympathies.
But do we sum up a human being because he went along with a single misguided policy which, at the time it was implemented, was endorsed by millions of misguided Americans and which the Governor may have been forced to sign as a political pragmatist. That's what the Willie Horton ad did. It was no different than the Barry Goldwater nuclear war ad. Was it fair to characterize Goldwater as Conan the Barbarian and Osama bin Laden all at once? Or possibly did he have a larger character and bigger social and political agenda (all of which I disagreed with)? Yet, when Reagan delivered the Goldwater agenda to the American people they ate it like ice cream or french fries; and now again they bought Bush twice and might buy McCain. And, sadly, it all depends on lapel pins and what a preacher said while he was carried away giving a passionate sermon.
I think references to Willie Horton are references to the successful manipulation of the public by the use of propaganda. It is a frightening pointer to some of the recent statistics we have seen about the effectiveness of American public education. The many idiots we graduate from high school today are the very people to whom Hortonesque propaganda is appealing. It is why the Founders gave us representatives rather than a plebiscite.
She said this: . . .and this fantasy and the narcissism underlying it has never ended. Every single time some lefty columnist cries "Remember Willie Horton," what he is really saying is "Don't remember his victims. Forget the whole truth. Forget the tortured."
I understand Ms.Trent's strong reaction to the results of Horton's early release. But I don't think "Remember Willie Horton" suggests to most of us that we should forget the tortured. What we shoud take it to mean is that we must remember how easy it is to destroy a public figure by turning his entire public record on its head as we are now doing with the Rev. Wright and Senator Obama's prospects to be President. Literally Tina Trent is right. But is that what the slogan means to most people? I doubt it. (Aside from the rather clear evidence that most people couldn't tell you who Willie Horton was) I think those who remember the ad would take away a single image from that ad: Democrats are weak in the knees and soft on crime.
I am very close to saying that Bush can be judged solely by Abu Ghraib. Or Hitler by the six million. But thankfully, in Bush's case, the case for war crimes is easier to make, and there is much more evidence than that so I don't have to face the possibility that I too would be willing to judge a political figure by his one indecent act. Bush supplied us with an excess of acts which accurately summed up his character and philosophy. He is a narcisstic, childish, stubborn, conservative who lacks the capacity for either empathy or sympathy for those who, as Ann Richards once said, were not born with silver spoons... etc. Hitler too presented us with a plethora of possible criminal charges which together accurately summed up the man.
But Michael Dukakis?
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It's very simple
It really comes down to whether you yourself are bothered by Rev Wright. If you sort-of agree with what he says, if you truly see yourself as an outsider, as oppressed forever and always at opposition to most of what everyone else considers the American experience, then fine, you're in the same corner with him and you don't see much wrong. If not, then no amount of post graduate turtle neck sociology pipe smoking & blogging is going to convince you. I'm as far from Obama's "American Experience" as articulated by Wright as I am from John Kerry's or George Bush's Silver Spoon. None of them have anything to say to me about MY experience. I'm not going to guess or extrapolate or hope those bad feelings I have are wrong. They are what they are. Wright thinks I'm the problem I'm the enemy. Ok, I have nothing to say to people like that. I have little if anything to say to any of you. The American experience? My ancestors came here about 100 years ago not speaking any English with a few bucks in their pocket and they made the best of it. If you're going to sit there from the pulpit of your multimillion dollar Church organization and scream at me about how life in unfair, the deck is stacked against you no-bod-y knows the trouble I se-en, well you can take that and shove it up your repressed ass. You what that is? That's narcissism straight and pure.