Playground Politics?

My friend Greg over at The Project (his blog, which is linked on this sight and is a terrific read, especially if you prefer not to simply digest crazed right-wing ruminations from folks like yours truly) had an interesting post yesterday regarding what he labeled "playground politics." I disagree with much of it, but it's well worth the read. There are a couple portions to which I clearly wanted to respond...

I also happen to think that the Republican demonization of Democratic politicians -- good men, who have done good things for the country, such as Tom Daschle and John Kerry -- has been far more severe than anything that has happened in reverse. I can understand resenting the fact that Tom Daschle played a role, as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, in obstructing much of an agenda that he (and his caucus) did not support. But I am absolutely baffled by the personal animosity that was vented towards one of the most honest, hardest working, and genuinely nice guys of his political generation.

And with John Kerry, well -- the demonization campaign began with the Republican negative ad barrage in the spring, and culminated in one of the most depraved political acts I've ever witnessed -- the first Swift Boat ad, and the noxious campaign those poisonous men launched against him. Let me be clear: I have nothing but respect for the service that any of these gentlemen provided to their country. But I have absolute contempt for the personal weakness they showed by injecting their venemous half-truths about John Kerry into this presidential campaign. Contextual criticism of Kerry's role in speaking out against the Vietnam War is perfectly reasonable, especially when the subject has himself made his role in the war a campaign item. But the lies about Kerry's war record, and the insinuation that somehow it rendered his service dishonorable and a disqualifier to be Commander-in-Chief, are absolutely inexcusable.

First of all, I have to disagree with the premise that the GOP and its surrogates were any more vicious in attacking Senator Daschle and Senator Kerry than the Democrats and their surrogates were in attacking President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, et al. on the GOP Side. MoveOn.org and the other minions of George Soros certainly spent plenty of money accusing the President of lying us into war and comparing the current administration to the Nazis in Germany -- I know I read at least a few folks on the left who compared John Ashcroft's Justice Department to the Gestapo (by the way, Soros' picture on the current cover of National Review is hysterical). And the media's run at Bush's service record via fraudulent documents was egregious.

I don't think either side held a vast advantage in the amount of money spent working over the personal image of their opponent -- I think the more important question was which side was more effective. Bush's campaign team successfully branded Kerry as an indecisive flip-flopping machine during the late-spring and early summer months by making effective use of the lag between the primaries and the convention -- a tactic employed very successfully by Bill Clinton in 1996, when his campiagn team effectively linked Bob Dole and the demonized Newt Gingrich at the hip while defining Dole before his convention even began.

I don't know what to say about the Daschle issue here, since I don't know the specific personal attacks Greg is referencing. Daschle is a decent man, but I'm among the cadre on the right who wanted him beaten for being the organizer of Democratic obstuctionism for the last four years in the Senate. I supported John Thune enthusiastically, and Thune's most effective attack on Daschle was the fact that Daschle publicly played up his support of President Bush in South Dakota while consistently opposing him in Washington.

As for Kerry, a few points. There's probably someone somewhere penning a newspaper column, book, or term paper (and the last category would produce a product that would at least show some research, so I'm hoping it's one of those) on the breakdown in civility in politics, and they'll probably find a way to relate it to the breakdown in civility in society in general. Hell, someone will probably relate the whole thing to the Pacers-Pistons brawl.

Personally, I don't think politics by the campaigns is any more vicious than it has been in the past -- I just think we're more aware of the "dirty" tricks than we were in the past. American politics is filled with dirtbag stuff that makes today's charges and counter-charges look pretty tame. I'm working off memories of high school history here, but Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering several children out of wedlock and having a hand in the untimely demise of his fiancee when he was young. There were accusations of Eisenhower participating in war atrocities, and lurid stories about Truman's daughter. Lincoln was accused of everything from fathering illegitimate mixed-race children to employing a cadre of female sex slaves in the White House (and considering the recent claims that he was gay, these charges look a tad more spurious). Nixon might well have been more viciously caricatured than Bush, and that was before Watergate. And let's not get started on Andrew Jackson. I do think there's an alarming level of incivility when it comes to political discourse today in the type of violence we've seen, from the shooting at the Knoxville, TN offices of Bush-Cheney to union attempts to intimidate Republican voters, but I doubt even this is all that unprecedented. Just unreported, as usual.

Save for the last part, I don't think this type of political discourse is some horrible plague on the nation; in fact, I think it's quite normal and even healthy. Let's be honest -- for all the high-minded talk about issues between the supposedly dignified partisans on each side of the aisle, a large number of voters make up their minds for reasons that make no conceptual sense -- from "I've always voted [fill in the party]" or "He smiled more during the last debate." Both parties go to war with negative campaigns because (a) they work, and (b) they work.

Inevitably, negative campaigning gets classified as a dirty trick for crossing some imaginary line, but the line is one we in the political information marketplace draw ourselves. If some attack is so outrageous that it crosses the boundary of good taste for the majority of citizens, the party producing the attack will suffer accordingly at the ballot box. Maybe we're defining deviancy down at this point, but I think the problem may be one that exists in our society as a whole. If we want this to change, we as political consumers need to be more vigilant about it. In a generation, it'll probably be considered okay to call your opponent by profane names in a debate. And it would be our fault, because we're the consumers who accept it.

Finally, a word on the Swift Boat Vets -- not every claim they made about Kerry's war record was a lie; in fact, most of their claims are impossible to disprove, while at least one (Christmas in Cambodia) is completely true. I'm tired of the demonization of men who were sickened at the prospect of John Kerry as Commander in Chief, and further disgusted by his incessant use of his Vietnam service as proof of his fitness to serve as President and as a testament to his character. If the charges were untrue, then they should have been refuted. Some were. Many were not. To the extent that Kerry could not disprove the claims, his own credibility was measured against that of the Swift Boat Veterans -- and in many cases, it was Kerry who was found wanting. (watching Kerry partisans like Lawrence O'Donnell turn into raving lunatics when facing Swift Boat speaker John O'Neill didn't help the perception that all the Kerry side had in response was screaming fits).

The answer to the Swift Boat Vets would have been refuting their charges point-by-point. The other side failed to do so for a number of days, and eventually spent more time demonizing their accusers than refuting their charges. The lack of a correct response cost the Kerry campaign dearly.