Michael Vlahos, no leftist, tells us how much America has lost in the post 9/11 debacle:
- The world assumed that American power was totipotent- when we projected our shock and awe into Iraq with such disastrous consequences, others saw how limited our power was - we could kill but we couldn’t build or control. The failure of the Bush-Olmert Lebanon shock and awe invasion reinforced this. Likely future Israeli attacks into Gaza will increase the disconnect.
- Foreigners trusted America in 1950 - we were the free world. We rebuilt the countries defeated in World War II, lifted them up. We promised to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. What a cruel joke, as we rain death and destruction from the skies onto the people and countryside of Iraq and Afghanistan today. When our bombs kill children, we blame the insurgents - they surround themselves with women and children. Why don’t they fight fair? Foreigners see it differently- the American government and the American military are like Samson pulling down the temple on top of himself.
- Dignity and the mythical power of the President. Americans want a President that they can respect.
JFK refused to be photographed wearing American Indian headdress and other stage props. Consider McKinley’s 1896 front porch Presidential campaign. His industrialist pal Mark Hanna was as clever as Karl Rove and more lovable. William Jennings Bryan and his oratory thrilled farmers and workers but Hanna turned the vocal female free silver supporters into a cross around the neck of the divided Democrats. Republicans raised buckets of money from the big trusts (of course they didn’t want income taxes) and spent it lavishly. They played the fear card, lumping together silver Democrats and their famous “anarchy plank”, “hysterical women”, populists, socialists and the 1894 Pullman strike. It was easy to demonize women; women could vote in only three Western states at the end of 1896. Bryan toured the country by train. McKinley received visitors at home. Republicans arranged for Democrats uneasy with free silver and the unions (i.e. Reagan democrats) to visit McKinley in Canton, Ohio where they were served lemonade. Bryan was energetic and a better orator, but McKinley had dignity. He controlled the media.
Much was made of the Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV debates. The media stressed Nixon’s five o’clock shadow and Kennedy’s youthful “viga”. Kennedy campaigned on the idea of bigger defense spending and a bogus bomber gap. The Republicans and Democrats had in fact united into a backroom militarist program, ignored by the media. That program brought us The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq and a progressively shrinking share of national wealth for working people.
The mainstream media preach that our leaders must not be isolationists, defeatists or pessimists. They can’t ask people to sacrifice for the common good. Would Karl Rove let George W. appear in a line up like the current 8 Democratic and 10 Republican candidates? Of course not. The TV networks will continue arranging bogus debates, beauty contests like the Miss America contest. Wolf Blitzer will ask for more shows of hands. The media will beat their trivia drums- as when they proclaim that Algore must lose weight if he really wants to run. Every time that a candidate appears in these farces, he/she loses respect and gravitas.
How could a front porch campaign emerge? The Iraq fiasco continues, the Lebanon-Pakistan-Palestine status worsens, more Congressmen are indicted, and calls for the impeachment, not of Bush-Cheney, but of Pelosi, intensify (Google “impeach Pelosi”). Then the Internet/front porch campaign springs into life. The candidate answers questions from panels of disaffected Democratic and Republican figures (there are many) not on TV, but on the Internet, with streaming video for several 90 minute sessions. Wolf Blitzer and Joe Klein are not admitted. Then we have chat sessions, answering questions from the general public, with delays to keep out the worst trolls, but not all critics- one of the things that most discredits candidates today is limiting audiences for speeches to party faithful, as Rove did in 2004. The candidate then agrees to debate the Democratic and Republican leaders, three on the stage, as Ross Perot did skillfully in 1992.
Would it work? Who knows? If the candidate were Gore or Bloomberg, humans with gravitas, more balanced than Perot, it very well might. Could Wes Clark pull it off? Those who back a candidate should keep that person out of future line ups. It won’t be easy if they have already participated in these freak shows. Could we have a third party President? Traditional authorities say that’s preposterous. Strange things happen if enough people lose faith in their government. We could reach a tipping point.