Daily Archives: July 31, 2004

While Bush Conspires, Kerry Inspires.

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How does one ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake.
That, or something very much like that, was part of the young John Kerry’s remarks when he testified before the Senate Committee after he returned from the Vietnam War.
It seems to me that, before he went to Vietnam, he was a military innocent — believed that serving the miltary goals of his country was the right thing to do. While there, he became aware of (as he also testified) the raping, the torturing, the senseless killing of innocent Vietnamese villagers by American soldiers. So, he changed his mind about the wisdom of serving that particular goal of his country. And he hung in there as long a he could, did his best, and opted out.
And then he opted into the peace movement. He changed his mind based on his own war experiences.
As someone on tonight’s CNN Born to Run program on Kerry said, anyone who has fought in a war and killed people and doesn’t come back advocating peace — well, there’s something wrong with them.
Kerry’s also accused of changing his mind about supporting the war and on other issues as well. Only simpletons see the Iraq issue as a simple one. And it has only gotten more and more complex since those early Senate votes to support the troops in Iraq.
And only simpleton and untruthful politicians hide from voters how much horse trading they do to get any bill passed that has anything in it that they support. Having worked for a Republican Senate Majority Leader in my home state, let me tell you — it’s a wonder anything good ever gets voted into legislation. Kerry admits that he had to play that political game to get any of his priorities even considered. Only a simpleton would believe that anyone can survive in politics and not spend an awful lot of time struggling to stay afloat the constantly churning political waters. And only a devious politician will deny that it happens. Kerry doesn’t deny it. He understands complexity and, unlike Bush, is not afraid of it.
While Bush gets an idea and holds onto it come hell or high water, Kerry stops, thinks, and is not afraid to change his mind based on experience and evidence. It takes courage to change your mind and leave yourself open to the simplistic criticism of your opponents.
While Bush conspires, Kerry inspires.

Cleaning up Someone Else’s Mess

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I’m getting a kick out of all of the criticism of Kerry for not having a plan for Iraq. It seems to me that, before you can figure out what to do to clean up the mess someone else made, you have to be in a position to get and analyze all of the accurate information about the situation; you have to be in a position to call together the best advisors and sit down with them to get their best thoughts; and then you have to be in a position to have the time to think it through. (Of course, you also have to have the intelligence to think it through.)
Kerry’s got the innate and honed intelligence. He’s not yet in that position, however. But, if he is after elections, lots of us have no doubt that he will find some humane way to clean up the mess left by Bush’s innately unintelligent decisions regarding Iraq that he began making right from the get go.
And speaking of cleaning up messes (not someone else’s — mine), it’s interesting to see what books I’m deciding to give up. With an M.A. in English, I look at books like favorite collectibles. I like to have them around to look, occasionally leaf through them again after I’ve read them — sometimes find things in them to blog about.
But, I’ve decided to give my town library the books that I’ve already read and am sure I won’t re-read, the books that I never read and am pretty sure I won’t, and the books I use as information sources but the information in them is now easily found through a Google search.
In The Aritst’s Way, a book I’m letting go, I found a poem I’d written close to a decade ago, when I was part of the book discussion group:
I yearn to know
the gentleness of solitude,
the ease of watching
dew emerge
on Lady’s Mantle folds.
I want to dream
again of harbingers —
crows, toads, dragonflies,
shadows that dance,
lilies that bleed,
clouds afloat in coffee cups.
Simplicity and solitude still elude me.