I wrote the following letter to a "political science professor" at Central Washington University whose pro-Bush commentary on local AM radio has been making the rounds on the Internet.
Dear Professor Manweller:
Your radio commentary on the upcoming election was recently forwarded to me by a friend who asked for my opinion.
Since you teach at a university in my state, I was especially interested in the kind of thinking you are sharing with the young people of Washington. Your views were sufficiently provocative to cause me to reply at some length. It is not hard to play on people's patriotism; it's much more difficult to live up to one's own words.
In fairness, I thought I should include you in my response, and thereby enable you to respond.
The text of your message is set forth below, along with my replies.
MATHEW MANWELLER'S COMMENTARY ON THIS ELECTION
In that this will be my last column before the presidential election, there will be no sarcasm, no attempts at witty repartee. The topic is too serious, and the stakes are too high. This November we will vote in the only election during our lifetime that will truly matter. Because America is at a once-in-a-generation crossroads, more than an election hangs in the balance. Down one path lies retreat, abdication and a reign of ambivalence. Down the other lies a nation that is aware of its past and accepts the daunting obligation its future demands. If we choose poorly, the consequences will echo through the next 50 years of history. If we, in a spasm of frustration, turn out the current occupant of the White House, the message to the world and ourselves will be two-fold.
This is an extremely important election. But if you really think it is the "only election during our lifetime that will matter," the University of Oregon should think again about that PhD they gave you. I'd like to see you get that claim by your dissertation panel. To cite just one example (which should not tax your memory too much), the 2000 election mattered quite a bit. The popular will was thwarted, minority voters were systematically disenfranchised, partisan election officials manipulated results, rented mobs blocked lawful recounts, and the president was appointed by a conservative bloc on the Supreme Court using its most vacuous and tortured logic in a hundred years.
All that before Inauguration Day! Since then, the appointed president has abused this narrowest of mandates by pursuing a radical right-wing agenda: massive tax cuts for the rich, an unsustainable wave of deficits, a corporate lobbyist takeover of regulatory agencies, massive giveaways to campaign contributors and favored industries (invariably one and the same), the gutting of environmental regulations, the curtailment of civil liberties, and the complete disregard of reason, evidence and science in favor of ideology, political calculation, sectarian faith and a vague sense of "instinct". President Bush promised that his economic program would revive the economy and create jobs; it has done neither. He has succeeded only in saddling future generations with trillions in debt, endangered the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare, and presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs. These consequences will be with us for more than your 50-year time horizon. So I guess the 2000 election was pretty important.
That's Bush's record, but I don't hear you talk about it in your message. No, you'd rather talk about the "big things" that George Bush has been up to in the Middle East.
OK. Bring it on.
First, we will reject the notion that America can do big things. Once a nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis and stood upon the moon, we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big a task for us. But more significantly, we will signal to future presidents that as voters, we are unwilling to tackle difficult challenges, preferring caution to boldness, embracing the mediocrity that has characterized other civilizations. The defeat of President Bush will send a chilling message to future presidents who may need to make difficult, yet unpopular decisions. America has always been a nation that rises to the demands of history regardless of the decisions. America has always been a nation that rises to the demands of history regardless of the costs or appeal. If we turn away from that legacy, we turn away from who we are.
Well, that's a pretty scary thought... has America become a 'girlie' country? Have we lost that frontier-conquering, Nazi-kicking, moon-landing gusto? Are we failing in Iraq because we're not tough enough?
Tell it to the families of the 1102 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq. Tell it to the many thousands of wounded. No, we're plenty tough. We're losing ground because our president isn't smart enough. He wasn't smart enough to devise a strategy that combines military force with diplomacy and alliances. He wasn't patient enough to let U.N. inspectors confirm or refute our phony intelligence on WMD. He wasn't realistic enough to admit the serious backlash against the U.S. in world and regional opinion from a unilateral invasion. He wasn't curious enough to find out why military planners thought we needed a larger force to stabilize Iraq. He wasn't determined enough to prepare for a long struggle, preferring to declare the "mission accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier. He wasn't conscientious enough to recognize when things were going wrong. He wasn't tough enough to hold his underlings accountable for failure, from the lack of post-war planning to the horrific Abu Ghraib torture scandal. And he still isn't honest enough to level with the American people and admit his mistakes on Iraq. The scary thing is he might not even be thoughtful enough to know what they are.
This is the record you think we should endorse. Otherwise, you're worried about the message we will send to future presidents. So what would future presidents take away from George W. Bush's defeat in 2004? Here are a few: Don't be stupid. Don't be lazy. Don't be arrogant. Don't be dishonest. Don't take America to war for bogus reasons. Not a bad set of lessons for future presidents to learn, I'd say.
Yes, America is a great country that can do great things. It's important that we believe in ourselves as a nation, just like we need to believe in ourselves as individuals. But just because you keep telling myself, "I think I can, I think I can..." doesn't mean that you can accomplish your goals if you do not prepare a realistic plan and then actually implement it.
Is "bringing democracy to the Middle East" too big a task for us? I'd feel more confident about the answer if we could first bring democracy to Florida. But we have to ask ourselves another question: how did "bringing democracy to the Middle East" become our great national goal, to which we will devote so much of our blood and treasure over the next several decades? "Bringing democracy to the Middle East" certainly can't be found anywhere in President Bush's 2000 campaign platform. It wasn't cited by Congress as a reason for threatening Iraq with force (that was supposedly about WMD). It wasn't even mentioned by George Bush until every other reason he had advanced for the invasion had collapsed under the weight of contrary evidence. Who decided that this vast project was the only, or even the best, way to protect our nation from terrorism? And if success in this scheme is the only way for America to "rise to the demands of history," just what are those demands? How many of the dozens of nations in the Middle East will we need to invade, occupy, rebuild, pacify, and support until their governments resemble our own? What kind of military force and financial sacrifices will this goal require? Will we need a draft? A massive tax increase? More trillions in debt? You (and President Bush) should answer these questions before asking us to ratify the strange new national purpose you have selected for us. Only then can we judge whether it should be placed ahead of other strategies to combat terrorism, ahead of our pressing domestic needs, and worthy of the young men and women whose lives must be sacrificed to achieve it.
Mr. Bush can't answer these questions, I suspect, because he hasn't really thought about them. A professor of political science does not have that excuse.
Second, we inform every terrorist organization on the globe that the lesson of Somalia was well learned. In Somalia we showed terrorists that you don't need to defeat America on the battlefield when you can defeat them in the newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can become a defeated America. Twenty-four hour news stations and daily tracing polls will do the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow. Except that Iraq is Somalia times. The election of John Kerry will serve notice to every terrorist in every cave that the soft underbelly of American power is the timidity of American voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of grizzly photos for CNN is all you need to break the will of the American people. Our own self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will recognize that he can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland.
You show such great insight into the terrorist mind, it's a pity you don't put it to greater use. If the election of John Kerry would encourage terrorists, why not claim the converse: that electing George Bush would cause them to simply give up? Because both claims are equally absurd. Let's look at what al-Qaeda say they want to achieve: a revolution overthrowing the existing regimes in the Middle East and installing an Islamic fundamentalist caliphate. By invading and occupying Iraq, George Bush has fueled resentment of the U.S. throughout the entire region and seriously undermined the long-term stability of governments friendly to us. It's too simple to say that Bush is creating terrorists. Hatred of the U.S. existed in some segments of the population for many years preceding his presidency. But throughout the world, Bush's policies have turned our friends into neutrals, neutrals into hostiles, and hostiles into violent terrorists. It doesn't sound like a winning strategy, does it? Unlike you, I don't profess to look into the mind of Bin Laden, but there are plenty of objective reasons to believe his interests would be served by a continuation of Bush's blundering. Should we vote based on what Bin Laden thinks? No. But we should vote for the best strategy to beat him. Bush has said (repeatedly) that "he's not that concerned" about Bin Laden and doesn't think about him very much. John Kerry would think about him every hour of every day until he's dead or captured. Who's more determined to win?
It is said that America's WWII generation is its "greatest generation." But my greatest fear is that it will become known as America's "last generation." Born in the bleakness of the Great Depression and hardened in the fire of WWII, they may be the last American generation that understands the meaning of duty, honor, and sacrifice. It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are spoken with only hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my generation. Too many citizens today mistake "living in America" as "being an American." But America has always been more of an idea than a place. When you sign on, you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set of values and responsibilities. This November, my generation, which has been absent too long, must grasp that 100 years from now historians will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as the decisive election of our century. Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on the Hill."
OK, Professor, let's talk about "values and responsibilities." Let's talk about "duty, honor and sacrifice". With all this talk about the greatest generation, I thought maybe you might be one of the brave men who stormed the beach at D-Day. Surprise! You're actually a
rather young guy.
I'll take your word for it that you've been "hardened" by enough "bleakness" to truly understand what your generation owes America and the world. But could it be that you still have something more to give?
Judging from your photo, you look truly fit for service in this great cause you and President Bush have assigned to America. I've heard we're having trouble staffing this project. Since the President tells us a draft is unthinkable, perhaps it's time for you step forward. No, I don't mean another e-mail (as heroic as they may seem). I'm talking about signing up. With your insights into the minds of terrorists and the task of democratizing the Middle East, there's no doubt you'd be an excellent platoon leader in Iraq. So please, without delay, get thee to a recruiting station.
Or could it be that you're just talking about these values with "hollow detachment"?