Notes From The Mailbag
A couple weeks ago a friend currently residing in Washington DC wrote me to say,

"--the whole political atmosphere is just so asinine at the moment. I know you're keeping up with whats going on from your weblog--trust me, it's worse than you know. "

As you can imagine, this statement got me a bit curious, so I wrote back to ask him what was going on that I didn't know about. He wrote me back and expanded on his thoughts about the political atmosphere in Washington DC. I thought it contained some interesting insights, so asked him if I could post it on my weblog. He agreed, with the following condition:

"Also, can I ask a favor? Please don't print my name or location. I am being honest with you when I say that some of the information I work with is sensitive, and we are constantly warned about telling others that we work with the kinds of people that we do. I alluded to it in my diatribe and that's about as far as I want to go. If anybody has comments or questions, can you just forward from your address? Thanks."

(He later added I could say he was in DC, because it was pretty obvious anyway, so don't worry I'm not betraying any confidences with that information.)

Anyway, here is his piece. As stated above, anyone who has any questions about this can e-mail me and I'll forward it along.

Thoughts on the Political Situation
I'm just speaking about the tenseness that seems to pervade everything here in DC. Tangibly speaking, DC is about 90% Democrat so it’s not hard to find people who support Kerry--but seeing as how DC and NY are essentially the epicenters of the political debate in this country during this election, you're constantly flooded with dissenting arguments and opinions, etc. This is usually a good aspect of a political debate, but ever since I returned to DC, it just seems like everyone is banging their head against the wall on both sides, without making any constructive progress. I will make no pretense about being unbiased on this argument; I’m a Kerry supporter. I am just trying to present what it’s like here in a city dominated by Democrats and a White House and Congress full of Republicans.

Right now is the whole flap over the Swift Boat ads and Kerry's service in Vietnam. Now, a majority of people say that Kerry himself has made his service the focal point of his campaign, and has opened himself up to examination and criticism--that is true, and it is fair that you look at his record. And now there are ads lambasting his service, saying he lied about his wounds, lied about his service, etc. The only problem is that the party that the ads support have a candidate who, yes, did serve in the national guard, but there was no way in HELL that he was ever going to be sent to Vietnam (say what you will about the “possibility” of Bush going into service; I can almost guarantee you it was NEVER going to happen with Bush 41 at the controls), and a Vice-President who deferred 5 times because he "had other priorities in the 60's". Kerry volunteered for service and they didn't; they made an active effort to stay out. Now, when you bring this up with Bush supporters, their argument is that it’s the principle of the matter--lets say that Kerry DID lie about his medal(s); does the fact that he volunteered make it right? The problem with this argument is that OTHER people had to sign his papers--he didn't give himself the medals. It’s amazing that all of these doctors who have come out to say that Kerry had self-inflicted or harmless wounds, etc 1) actually remember these supposedly insanely harmless wounds out of the thousands they treated during the war, and 2) I think in most to all cases, their names aren't even on the treatment forms.

Another problem is that every person who is in these Swift Boat ads never served directly with Kerry (when they say "served with", it means "they were in Vietnam at the same time he was"). A third problem is that every soldier Kerry DID serve with supports him and his version of events. Pretty much everyone and their mother have proved these ads false, yet they continue to run. So there's that. Oh yeah, now Bush has asked McCain to help him stop all 527 ads. This is the same McCain that Bush tried to smear in terms of his decorated military past in the LAST election.

Then we have Kerry's claims of war atrocities committed by American soldiers. Bush supporters say they’re "appalled" at the allegations, but as far as I know, no one has come out to refute them. My question is: what motive could Kerry possibly have by creating lies like that? I mean, if he was lying, what could he possibly stand to gain? He had to have known that he would have been labeled a “war criminal” right along with his comrades. I don’t see it.

Then there's the whole Iraq situation. No WMDs, soldiers still being killed, Osama still on the loose; 7 Marines were killed in a car bomb yesterday (9/6). And you have Bush making these asinine speeches stating "America is safer, America is safer" and then later saying "America is in danger!" to justify the war and the Patriot Act--these are verbatim comments from his recent speeches. And THEN you have Bush come out on NBC News last week and say “I don’t think the war on terrorism can be won.” Naturally, the minute the words left his mouth, the White House staff pounced into action to “articulate” what he was saying and reiterate that the war can be won. You get the feeling that keeping people in a seemingly never-ending war against, not a people, but an ideology, is very favorable in terms of the Bush “doctrine.” By the way, you should have seen Michael Moore on the O’Reilly factor a few weeks ago—I don’t always agree with Moore, but this time he totally thrashed O’Reilly--it was awesome.

Then there are the arguments over the wealth of the Kerry-Heinz family versus the Bushes. It’s interesting to me, that suddenly, the fact that someone has $80 million is vastly different to someone who has $30 million. The right-wing loves to argue that Kerry and Teresa have “all of this family money” and “they can’t relate to the common man.” Wait a second. Bush went to Yale, like Kerry, then to Harvard Business School. He and his family are worth tens of millions of dollars. Yet SOMEHOW they are more apt to “relate to the common man” than Kerry because they have a ranch in Texas or something. I read an Ann Coulter article a couple of weeks ago and she argues for Bush because “he has the lowest amount of wealth of any of the presidential candidates.” I guess that means I’m voting for Bush because he’s only got $30 million (I don’t know the exact numbers but you get the point) instead of Kerry because Kerry has $80 million. Bush must have a much greater understanding of me since my income is SO much closer to his. Sheesh.

Finally, something that I can see directly. I work for a defense consultant. My project at the moment is working with all of the CIO’s of the entities of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to formulate their response to the 9/11 Report Recommendations. Examples of DHS entities are: the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, Border and Transportation Security, etc. While I can’t mention a lot of the detailed information that we've been working with, I can say one thing: this nation is not nearly as prepared as Bush says it is. Yes, some important programs have been implemented since 9/11, but they are marginal at best and a great deal of information is still slipping through the cracks, and will continue to do so for some time.

So this is how we see it right now--the Bush administration acts as though every Monday is the start of a new news cycle, and pretends to completely forget everything that happened in the last week. And the problem is that so much new news is being created from all of this crap, he can do it and get away with it. And every time you talk with a Bush supporter, these are their main arguments:

-on WMDs: "but isn't it good that Saddam is out of power?" 
that’s not the point! The world would be a better place with HALF of its leaders out of power! We went to war because Iraq was an "imminent threat", which turns out to be completely false. And now we have over 1000 soldiers dead and have spent almost $150 billion. Oh, and by the way, Congress never declared war. I guess Bush should label himself an “armed conflict president” rather than a “war president.” 
--on Vietnam: They turn the entire argument back on Kerry, trying not to talk about Bush and Cheney balking on Vietnam; it’s amazing. You have National Guardsman and a deferrer picking apart his SILVER and BRONZE STARS and his THREE PURPLE HEARTS on "principle.” Regardless of any of the arguments made about what happened once Kerry was in Vietnam, Kerry volunteered to go. He volunteered his life, and earned various medals because of it. Absolutely amazing. 
--on terror (with a severe INCREASE in the amount of terrorist acts in the last year): the only thing they ever say is "Bush is strong. Four more years!" 
--What does that mean? He's strong? What the hell kind of reason is that? Yeah, you can be strong and lead the nation into a destructive war and be weak and lead the nation into a destructive war. His policies should be the focal point of the argument; not his ability to be “strong”, whatever that means. And because the country has become so polarized, there is absolutely NO constructive debate occurring. And that’s where the "banging the head against the wall" aspect comes in. The problem we see, as Kerry supporters, is that the facts obviously refute almost everything that Bush says, but all Bush supporters retort with is "Bush is strong. Kerry is a flip-flopper." [Side note: The Daily Show did an awesome editing trick on Bush last week. They had Governor Bush debate President Bush on the aspect of nation-building, with clips taken from speeches. Governor Bush was adamantly against it, and President Bush is obviously adamantly for it. I have every belief that all politicians are flip-floppers in some regard depending on what they think will get them elected (in most cases), but let’s be fair here. Bush is a politician just like the rest of them.] It’s as though Democrats point to a list of facts and say "what have you done besides take us to war on false pretenses and piss everyone off?" (it’s more detailed than that, obviously) and Republicans look back and use some kind of visceral response like "Bush is a good man; a strong man. He's a good president. You’re looking at skewed facts." --But where the hell are YOUR supporting facts and data??! (They try to use the “we’re turning the corner” set of explanations, looking at very slight recent upturns in the economy and job market, even though as a whole the entire economy is still in the dump and Iraq is FUBAR). It’s completely asinine. [Side note: Coming from a background in International Relations, I have to say that this whole idea of “Bush doctrine”, which is a slightly differentiated version of Teddy Roosevelt’s expansionist policies, cannot work in today’s international environment. You cannot just “play the hegemon” anymore. And those who think they can are naïve and ignorant.] I could honestly write about this for an hour but I'll stop now because I have work to do. Needless to say, you can’t live in DC and not have a strong opinion about this stuff. I'll just say that regardless of the any debate going on, I will be glad when November comes so maybe we can stop talking about this stuff all day, every single day. It’s stressful and frustrating as hell. I'm gonna head off and watch another bush speech about how we're safer because of his magnificent leadership.

P.S. These are the thoughts of a man who is bored at work. Bored at work and getting tired of this political “debate.” Both sides have their points; both sides have their counter-points, no matter how ineffective they might be. No one is listening anymore. Except for the magical 3% of the population that can’t seem to make up their mind (I, for one, haven’t met a single one of these people), the nation is seemingly on autopilot until the election. Sigh.

 Addendum: Anyone who's up for a little more reading should check out this piece by Aaron on the debate about the war record.