The New York Review of Books solicits the opinions of some of its most notable contributors on the upcoming U.S. election. Interesting reading if you can find the time. Some highlights:
Ian Buruma draws an interesting parallel between the current U.S. regime and and Margaret Thather's reign
I am often reminded, in the US today, of Britain during the twilight years of Margaret Thatcher's rule. Then, too, hard-line Tories talked a great deal about battling for freedom and the like, but usually in a snarling, spitting, fearful rage against "Europe." The Battle of Britain would be invoked against trade policies hashed out in Brussels. D-Day would be remembered in fishery disputes. And Winston Churchill was regularly trotted out as the spirit incarnated by the first female Tory Party leader.
This is promising, if only for the hope that the GOP in America might be heading the way of the Tories. It could happen.
Norman Mailer, as always, has some interesting thoughts on the election as well.
It is cruel but true that he (Bush) has the vulnerability of an ex-alcoholic.
People in Alcoholics Anonymous speak of themselves as dry drunks. As they see it, they may no longer drink, yet a sense of imbalance at having to do without liquor does not go away. Rather the impulse is sequestered behind the faith that God is supporting one's efforts to remain sober.
Giving up booze may have been the most heroic act of George W.'s life, but America could now be paying the price. George W.'s piety has become a pomade to cover all the tamped-down dry-drunk craziness that still stirs in his livid inner air.
It’s an exceedingly interesting point. Without booze, Bush has substituted one crutch for another. Before reading this, I had never been really convinced that Bush had completely kicked his drinking habit. But now I wonder. And this is simply a fantastic line:
Bush's first confidence, after all, is that the devil will never desert him in his hour of need. His only error is that he thinks it is the Son who is speaking to him."
And Edmund S. Morgan echoes many of my own thoughts. If Kerry loses, it won't be because of the media.
In the eyes of the world the ultimate accountability lies not with the President or his men. In the end it lies with the sovereign people of the United States. The government is our government, resting on our choices and supported in all its activities by our taxes. We may claim with some reason that the last election was stolen, but we have had to accept the result. In the last analysis people get the government they deserve, and ours, more directly than most, is the product of our choice. We have been credited, rightly, for what it has done in the past, for standing up, however belatedly, to the Nazis, for assisting the recovery of Europe under the Marshall Plan, for containing the threat of imperial communism. We cannot now escape credit for what our government has so shamefully done. We began as a people with "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and we won admiration for it. We have now lost the good opinion of mankind and with it the self-respect of decent Americans.
Election Thoughts by Famous People. Yea!!!!
Posted by mike at October 28, 2004 06:09 PM