I question the validity of polls. No one has called me or anyone I know. Many of us who are opposed to the war feel totally disenfranchised-- the Democrats aren't doing anything, Bush has isolated and insulated himself. . . although it is very difficult to be optimistic, I believe in miracles. . .
[submitted on 10 Feb 03]
The political science department at Swarthmore College held a panel discussion before the 1996 presidential elections. A student asked a question I’d long had on my mind: “do you think Bill Clinton, deep down inside, is much further left-wing than his official positions suggest?”
The faculty’s answer was probably not, and even if so it would be irrelevant since his actions were what mattered. But somehow, throughout the Clinton years, I found myself wanting to believe he was a secret radical.
Since Bush has come into power, Colin Powell has become a similar object of wishful thinking on my part, and I don’t think I’m alone. I don’t see him as a radical, of course, but as (at worst) a moderate or perhaps even a Bloomberg Republican. When I’ve been concerned about the directions the Bush administration is taking, I’ve calmed myself by thinking that Powell was too wise and powerful to let Bush ride roughshod over the world, sniffing out oil or abortion clinics. As Thomas Friedman put it sometime in mid-2002, I watched “Colin Powell’s eyebrows,” believing they showed his skepticism about the administration’s actions.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been asking “what’s happened to Powell”?
I wonder, though, if I wasn’t taken in by an intelligent tactical move on the part of the Bush administration. Perhaps Powell was a hawk from the start, but realized (along with the administration) that he had to serve as the link to the rest of the world. So he feigned dovish-ness for a few months, until the left wing had put him on a pedestal. Then, at veritably the last minute, he dispensed with peaceful pretences and become the administration’s spokesperson. He thus took away the left’s leader and replaced him with a war advocate, hoping to deflate the peace movement.
[submitted on 19 Feb 03]
The political science department at Swarthmore College held a panel discussion before the 1996 presidential elections. A student asked a question I’d long had on my mind: “do you think Bill Clinton, deep down inside, is much further left-wing than his official positions suggest?”
The faculty’s answer was probably not, and even if so it would be irrelevant since his actions were what mattered. But somehow, throughout the Clinton years, I found myself wanting to believe he was a secret radical.
Since Bush has come into power, Colin Powell has become a similar object of wishful thinking on my part, and I don’t think I’m alone. I don’t see him as a radical, of course, but as (at worst) a moderate or perhaps even a Bloomberg Republican. When I’ve been concerned about the directions the Bush administration is taking, I’ve calmed myself by thinking that Powell was too wise and powerful to let Bush ride roughshod over the world, sniffing out oil or abortion clinics. As Thomas Friedman put it sometime in mid-2002, I watched “Colin Powell’s eyebrows,” believing they showed his skepticism about the administration’s actions.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been asking “what’s happened to Powell”?
I wonder, though, if I wasn’t taken in by an intelligent tactical move on the part of the Bush administration. Perhaps Powell was a hawk from the start, but realized (along with the administration) that he had to serve as the link to the rest of the world. So he feigned dovish-ness for a few months, until the left wing had put him on a pedestal. Then, at veritably the last minute, he dispensed with peaceful pretences and become the administration’s spokesperson. He thus took away the left’s leader and replaced him with a war advocate, hoping to deflate the peace movement. [submitted on 19 Feb 03]