ok, i know that i sometimes go on and on(and on and on…)about politics and the bush administration and the upcoming election.
so i promise that this will be my last political entry(‘blog’, again, i hate that word…)for a while(i’ll write about other things, like punk rock and the weather and private planes and etc).
i had dinner this evening with 3 men who are all conservative republicans.
they are 3 very smart, very funny, very successful men who all plan on voting for george bush.
it goes without saying that our conversation centered mainly around politics and the upcoming election. and you might be surprised to hear that i didn’t end up playing the part of the rabid liberal, but rather talked about bush’s record from what i hoped was a calm and objective perspective.
what i found to be fascinating was that not one of these 3 men had any great enthusiasm for george bush, and they almost seemed to be of the opinion that supporting him was like taking some bitter medicine.
and they all disagreed on what bush’s strengths were.
one man thought that bush’s foreign policy was his strong point whereas another man thought that bush’s foreign policy was disastrous. one man thought that bush’s economic policy was pretty good whereas the other 2 agreed that bush’s economic policy wasn’t so fantastic.
they were all unanimous in their dislike of john kerry, which i found to be unfortunate, seeing as i know senator kerry and i know him to be a smart, decent, experienced man who will make a great president.
but it really was interesting that not one of these 3 men could really muster any great enthusiasm for george bush even though they plan on voting for him.
i did mention some of the facts that i saw as being salient, such as the loss of 1.5 million jobs during the bush presidency and the fact that bush has created the largest federal deficit in the history of the united states. and the fact that the war in iraq was waged under false pretenses and that the follow up to the war has been an example of post-war planning at its most inept and disastrous.
ironically they all agreed(to some degree…) with these points, but they still plan on voting for george bush.
all in all it was a very civil discussion, and it made me think that it might be nice for politic discourse in the united states to calm down just a bit.
maybe john kerry and the democrats should just stand up and say, “”mr. president, we don’t think that you’re a bad man, but we do think that you’ve done a bad job in running the country, and we think that we can do better. we think that you’ve made the country less well-off and less safe. we think that you’ve made the country less civil and less respected. we don’t want to villify you, but we do think that you’ve done a bad job running the country and we believe that it’s time for a change.””
thanks,
moby
