Thursday, Sept. 02, 2004
Sullivan, posted at 11:21 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I've been enjoying Andrew Sullivan's political blog a great deal lately. I recognized his name from some Time columns, and he's one of those odd ducks - a gay conservative. I think he's a pretty astute guy, and a good writer. Here, he summed up what I'd been thinking about the contrast between Barack Obama, the Dems keynote speaker, and Zell Miller, the Reps keynote speaker:Zell Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude.
When I described my feelings about it to people, I referred to Miller as a "sad sack angry old guy" and Obama as the man who gave the best, most inspirational speech I've ever heard in my lifetime. Of course, I'm biased, as I'm a liberal, but I like how Sullivan thinks, a lot. I can certainly understand many conservative positions. I supported the war on Iraq at first, for example, mostly because I believed Colin Powell in his speech to the UN. I guess I was wrong to.
Another reason I like Sullivan is that he's not so one-sided in his thoughts and writings. I like reading about his dissonance, about his grappling with issues. I get so caught up sometimes in thinking that anyone who is undecided at this point - the so-called "swing voters" - are idiots. In truth, I do think a lot of them are still. But Sullivan gives a compelling argument for being an intelligent undecided voter. I still think his arguments for the Republicans are weak, but it's interesting to hear them, nonetheless. Sullivan is no Bush lover, and he's no Kerry lover, but he sees some good points in both, and that's pretty refreshing right now. Partly because I'm trying to get over what is partially an irrational hatred of our President. That's not a healthy way to live. I've hated him for a long time, although I admit I did like him for about a year after September 11. Then, I just kept seeing him, and that smirk, and his refusal to see gray area, his refusals to apologize or reflect, and I hate him again.
I don't want to hate my President. While I do understand how someone can be a conservative - particularly a fiscal conservative - I really don't understand how someone could support Bush. He's run up debts that my grandkids will be paying off, for example, and, if you're in the schools, you know that his big education policy just doesn't work because he passed it but then decided not to fund it. I'd never vote for him, but if I can continue to hear some other decent arguments for him, I at least could stomach the guy. Sort of like McCain. I'd never vote for him (unless his opponent were really bad, I guess), but I genuinely like him. Not Bush, though.
I do wonder how much my job would change under a Kerry Presidency. He says he'd fund "No Child Left Behind," which is important for my school - we have no money as it is, I'm buying my own paper, yet we have to give a test and waste reams and reams of paper on it. Hopefully he'd do other stuff as well for education. I just want some paper. Maybe a working computer there or a copier as well. Kerry is pro-copier, I hear.
Very, very tired. Two bottles of wine tonight, shared with Langoki, John, and their friend Andy. Good times.