29 June 2004
J.R. Brantwood
The Limits of the Imagination
We can never know - we cannot expect ever to have even an inkling - about what President Gore would have done in response to that PDB on August 6, 2001 - the one entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S." There seems to me to be little reason to doubt that his response would have been at least as vigorous as the one suggested in the New York Times editorial on the subject of President Bush's inaction. Surely he would have returned to Washington (if he had not been there already) and would have started some urgent lines of precise investigation and sought the best thinking of which his staff was capable. BUT, it seems to me, the chances are slim that things would have turned out significantly differently from what actually happened. And I say that because I accept the point made by people in the Bush administration as well as by some pundits: "No one had the kind of imagination that would have envisaged such an exceptional, such an unprecedented, such an unthinkable thing." I am not ready to second guess anyone on that point. By the same token, I find myself worrying that us 'good guys' may be suffering from something very similar in terms of what the farthest edge of a normal imagination is compared with Karl Rove's when it comes to tactics in the coming election.
For my own part I would have to say that flying a hijacked commercial airliner into a skyscraper is as much out of my range as the tactics employed in 2002 against Max Cleland. The story is by now very familiar, but I invite you to concentrate your every brain particle on it for a few seconds. Could YOU have thought up the idea of putting out a campaign television commercial on behalf of his opponent in the Senate race in Georgia in which you described Max Cleland as unpatriotic because he had voted against one of the various resolutions having to do with money for the invasion of Iraq? Could you imagine yourself putting out such a statement, no matter what the urge, about a man of integrity who had lost both legs and an arm while serving his country in Vietnam? God knows I can be very mean-spirited, and I have a pretty wild imagination at times, but the tactic used against Senator Cleland is, I am glad to say, way beyond my imagination's limits. But it was not beyond the Bushies'. AND, OF COURSE, IT WORKED!
Various commentators recently have written about the signs that the people in the White House may be "losing it." Some signs are certainly there, but so what? It's not in the least inconceivable that much of this signaling is just as calculated as everything else. Cheney's "Fuck you" to Pat Leahy is at least as likely to have helped him with his core constituency as it is to have harmed him with people who were never going to vote for him in the first place. Who is to say it was or was not a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings? Not I, Sir.
And what¹s to come is, as Feste's song says, still unsure.
The farthest I have been able to stretch my imagination on the subject of Rove's tactics in the November election is, I'm sad to say, both scary and very plausible. It is the idea that a very little while before the Republican coronation of George W. Bush, Mr Cheney's doctors - some doctors - will be said to have told him that it is unwise for him to run again for the vice presidency. And Mr Bush, having expressed his regrets and the nation's gratitude for four years of magnificent service, announces that he is going to run with Rudolph W. Giuliani. Rudy, like every good politician is an opportunist, and he knows that even if Bush were to go down to defeat, Rudy will be the man to beat for the Republican nomination in 2008 (after all, it can't have been, in the least, his fault that Bush failed.) And if they win, he's even more of a shoo-in the next time around. Do I think Giuliani could make such a difference that Cheney would be dropped? YOU BET I DO. And anyone would be crazy to doubt it. This man is the closest Middle America (and much of the rest of the country) has right now to a National Hero. And, boy, does he have charisma! Whatever else we may think about 9/11, it's hard (though not impossible - but that's a very different thing) to criticize Giuliani's performance that day and during the succeeding weeks and months. Most people would consider it unworthy to try to take anything away from the praise he won from every corner of the world. For most people it would be a bit like calling Max Cleland unpatriotic!
For me the really horrifying thing is the thought that my imagination may be too much in sync with Karl Rove's. Does he read Buffalo Report, I wonder?
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.