Before I head off to see the US Premiere of the new David Hare play,
Stuff Happens, I wanted to clear a few thoughts from my head that I've developed over the last few days of spending too much time at dKOS.
I got into it with a few Wes Clark haters here, and it disturbed me. How people can criticize a man for lack of experience in politics (as if the Army had none), while they would vote for John Edwards, a good man who was only a Senator for one term, or for Hillary, same deal, although I suppose being first lady is a plus, is beyond me. Experience comes in many forms, and being an executive in charge of NATO, a big chunk of the Pentagon, and thousands of troops is a big plus when you're running for Commander in Chief and taking over a $490 BILLION DOLLAR </dr evil> per year military.
But perhaps the biggest gripe against Clark is that he used to be a Republican. Please read on...
A wise man changes his mind; a fool never will. -- Spanish Proverb
Wes Clark was never a Republican. He was a registered Independent who voted for Reagan and Bush I. He tells the truth (imagine that) about why he used to vote for them, and what changed his mind. I think that's a big plus.
These thing weigh especially heavy on my mind as I'm about to go see this play (see my earlier diaries about it, as I was working on it during production) about the Bush Administration's run up to the Iraq war, which features an unhealthy dose of Donald Rumsfeld. I keep thinking what it would be like if Gore (now there's a presidential prospect, out big time on World Environment Day) had actually moved into the White House, and someone like Wes Clark had become Secretary of Defense.
We probably wouldn't be in this mess right now, but I'm sure that if we had, we would't have heard the words "Stuff happens," which an Iraqi character at the end of the play says he thinks is the most racist statement he's ever heard.
So, before I dive off into the politics of depression today, I want to point out one thing that I love about dKOS that bother's me when it doesn't happen.
SOURCES.
In this little exchange, someone said Clark was for attacking Falluja. I asked for a source and provided a counter-source, an article actually written by Clark about Falluja.
This is key to our whole debate with the right. TRUTH. We need to be the ones who tell it. We need to be the ones who back up everything we say.
This is a very complicated world. Things are not always as they seem (damn, there are some serious Alladin quotes sneaking in here). We need to be careful to produce truth in our wake.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but never so well expressed. -- Alexander Pope
We need to be the true wits. Nothing will win people to our cause more that being witty about the truth. After all these years (seems like eons) of Bush, most Americans know what's true. We've been making our case and slowly convincing people, as the polls are showing, that Iraq was a bad idea, Bush's Social Security plan is garbage, and massive deficits (owed mostly to China) are a bad thing.
That's why the best of dKOS is where we spell those things out, link to the sources, and try not to trash each other. I know, I get angry and snarky just like anyone, but I've been trying really hard to cut out the personal attacks, even on the most idiotic wing-nuts, and to become Socratic about figuring out what the best course of action is. No matter what the cause or issue. This, to answer recent diaries about KOS becoming stupid, is how we keep it smart.
We're going to have our intra-party spats, but we can do them in a civil tone, which will make us even more attractive to the moderates and undecideds who are undoubtedly tired of trashing the integrity and doubting the patriotism of half, or probably more correctly, more than half of Americans.
At least I hope so.
When I talk to Keith Carradine (who plays Bush in the play), at the after-show party today, I'm going to tell him how much we loved him in A Winner Never Quits, a true story in which he played one-armed baseball player Pete Gray. He did a great job of acting in that movie not only because he played a one-armed person so well, but because he showed that being negative gets you no where. You need solutions to win, and you have to stick with them (stay on message) day in and day out until it's second nature. Carradine shows that same determined side of Bush well in this play, and that's an important component to the Bush success. Doggedness, stick-to-it-iveness, whatever you want to call it, it is one great American attribute that our side needs to stay on message about.
And that, my fellow KOSmopolitans, is what I think dKOS is all about.