Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Extremism is no vice – not any longer

by P.M. Carpenter
October 05, 2006 07:59 AM

In the political realm I'd take a bathhouse full of page-prowling Mark Foleys over a heterosexually monogamous George W. Bush any day.

As the nation sits transfixed on Republican inner-circle "inappropriateness," the commander in chief is running around the country debasing his office, his party, and the national conscience like never before. His shamelessness would have given Joe McCarthy pause and the Founding Fathers second thoughts, but stacked up against voyeuristic scandal, it fails to rate the front page.

Earlier this week, the president charged [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100301391.html ] before a group of the few California faithful that "Time and time again, the Democrats ... talk tough on terror, but when the votes are counted, their softer side comes out."

Bush prides himself on being unacquainted with any such side, of course, and as political attacks go, the "soft" charge lies almost within contemporary boundaries of acceptable partisan derision. But, ponders the president, why stop at almost acceptable when there's gleeful contempt for contemporary boundaries to be had?

So he pushed further, now conjuring up the rhetorically pathetic straw-man argument: "If you don't think we should be listening in on the terrorist, then you ought to vote for the Democrats. If you want your government to continue listening in when al-Qaeda planners are making phone calls into the United States, then you vote Republican."

Intellectually insulting enough, right? Pathetic enough, right? Even laughable enough?

Not quite. For the night before, Bush had laid bare just how malodorous his politics have become, declaring at a fundraiser in Nevada that "It sounds like [Democrats] think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we're attacked again."

With those 19 words, Bush reconfigured the boundaries of political discourse, no matter how contemptible they may be, and no matter how contemptuous of common decency.

That any president of the United States could, would proclaim that the nation's loyal opposition is content, even eager, to countenance the potential slaughter of its fellow citizens just to score political points in the interim is so wretchedly loathsome, it leaves one slackjawed.

Well, it left me slackjawed anyway, and here I thought I was finally immune to the numbing effects of Bush's ever-escalating tactical felonies committed against good taste, collective decency and acceptable boundaries. In my book – and I should hope in anyone's book – those 19 words outdid the infamous 16 of three years past with their stunning precision of deliberate ill intent.

His words were no soon-regretted, off-the-cuff remark spoken in the heated atmosphere of national debate, such as Bob Dole's "Democrat wars," or momentary whimsy, such as Ronald Reagan's "We'll begin bombing in...." Rather, his words were calculated, premeditated, pre-engineered to achieve maximum vilification and engender maximum partisan hatred. They were as unworthy of a president as unworthiness gets -- beyond the pale indeed, but perhaps just as egregious, absent above the fold.

By the 20th century, the 19th-century low of "waving the Bloody Shirt" had become the agreed standard for condemnable political rhetoric. To be justly accused of it was more shameful than exercising it. Now, a sitting president has not only crossed that boundary of impropriety and established a new low, his excessiveness is treated by the press – the constitutionally intended watchdogs of civic virtue – as something less than leading noteworthiness.

Both embrace a casual tolerance of extremism and, to put it mildly, bode badly for the 21st century.

This may come across as mawkish and melodramatic, but what the hell: Frankly, my heart aches for my country's seemingly unstoppable unraveling.

Copyright 2006 P.M. Carpenter

http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2006/10/extremism_is_no.html [with comments]