A few here (with mixed success) have been trying to draw us away from Kerry's botox and toward things happening outside the election cycle. No WMDs, Blair's woes, Valerie Plame, chaos and fear in Iraq (and another bus bomb in Jerusalem, I might add). With so many weighty issues, why are we still sniping about Joe Trippi and Kerry's botox (and for the record, I thought he looked kind of tanned too--more make up or traveling tanning salon?) For myself, I can only answer that I'm not a particularly high minded person, but for me anyway, there's something else at work too.
When the war began and the protests began, I was never interested in protesting, even though I
knew everything about the war--the reasons for it, the execution of it--was a mistake. It was clear to me that Bush had his own agenda in Iraq and with the polls showing that the war opposers were a minority, nothing the protesters did would change Bush's mind, and therefore our actions in Iraq. Apparently the protests couldn't even change the minds of our Democratic legislators. As soon as all the Iraq stuff happened, I said to myself "we need regime change, not signs and shouting. All those protesters need to start working to get someone with sense elected."
Hmm...enter Howard Dean. There were a lot of reasons why this is the first primary I've really tuned into or cared about, or where I strongly supported one candidate over another. And frankly, I've always kind of enjoyed the horseracing as a disinterested observer, but I've never really cared before. Supporting Dean became my "protest."
But back to the horror going on out in the world. I don't know--there's always horror going on in the world. If you think this horror is the worst we've seen, all we have to do is dial back to Vietnam or WWII. I feel rather powerless to do things about "horror" actually. The only charity I've given to before is Medicins sans Frontiers (again the Howard Dean, latte drinking Volvo driving thing), but I'm not under any illusion that my little contributions are exactly going to change the world, so I'm walking around in a constant state of background rage/hopelessness at the world. You don't exactly need to convert me to rage--I was there already.
But the person who is president of the U.S. has a lot of power to affect the world. And it's one thing where I can have my minescule piece of influence. So that's partly why my beautiful mind is still with the horserace and just can't process the horror right now. Well, that, and the lack of highmindedness, as I said...
