In a thoughtful article in the Wall Street Journal
titled “Anger Mismanagement,” Stephen Miller takes the
temperature of the feverish political season in which charges of
lying and even criminal behavior by both sides but especially by
Democrats against the Bush administration have become almost
commonplace — most notably when John Kerry let slip that he
thought the Republicans “the most crooked, you know, lying group
I’ve ever seen” into an open mike and then refused to apologize. It
was widely supposed that, in this election year, he would look
better to his admirers by not apologizing for the remark than by
apologizing for it. “Righteous anger is for many Americans a good
thing: a sign of one’s commitment and integrity,” writes Mr.
Miller, and he quotes Senator Clinton, our former first lady, as
saying approvingly of Kerry’s defiance of good manners and civility
that it is “a signal that John Kerry is sending, that ‘if you dish
it out I’m going to dish it right back.’”
Somewhat oddly, both she and William Safire, who calls Kerry’s refusal to apologize
an example of his “phony toughness,” seem to assume that his anger
is calculated. This sign of “commitment and integrity,” this signal
of toughness, phony or otherwise, must have been cooked up by the
sagest of Kerry’s campaign strategists, or perhaps by Kerry
himself, as more likely than modesty, forbearance, humility,
civility or good humor to win the votes of key electors. It all
reminds me of Leo Rosten’s joke about how sincerity is the most
important thing to learn — “and if you can fake that you’ll have
the world at your feet.”
But the way the political game is played now is determined by
our media and celebrity culture, which has changed faking sincerity
from a paradox into a high art. The successful candidate is always
going to be the one who can demonstrate his authenticity in terms
the media understand by a judicious display of emotion. Remember
what happened to poor Michael Dukakis when he couldn’t do this!
Remember what happened to poor Howard Dean when he went overboard
doing it!
Yet no one appears to have thought very much about it when Dean
blamed George W. Bush for the terrorist murders in Madrid. “The
President was the one who dragged our troops to Iraq, which
apparently has been a factor in the death of 200 Spaniards.” Now
there’s anger for you! Not only did he not blame the terrorists for
terrorism, it didn’t even occur to him, any more than it
did to
Richard Cohen in the Washington Post the other week to
blame the chaps who actually planted the bombs. Not even in a
half-hearted disclaimer: “Of course we all deplore these appalling
acts of terrorism, but the President … etc.” No, sir. It was
all Bush’s fault — presumably because, by making war on Iraq, he
made the terrorists as angry as he made Howard Dean. Or John Kerry.
If they are to be applauded for authentic feeling in giving vent to
their righteous wrath — and who in the media doubts that they are?
— why shouldn’t the terrorists be granted the same indulgence? At
any rate, the anti-war Democrats seem to accept it as axiomatic
that if you’re nice to terrorists they won’t attack you, since Bush
is blamed for provoking them to blow up Spaniards by having
“dragged” the Spaniards into the war against them.
I would say that Dean’s remarks were an indication of the extent
to which the Democrats are going all out to dragnet the Yuppie vote
— anyone who knows what “conflict avoidance” or “peace studies”
are is surely already a goner — but that his thinking and that of
the Spanish voters seem exactly to coincide. There is this
difference, however: the Spanish position, though deplorable, is at
least rational. By dissociating themselves from the war on
terrorism, the Spanish may reasonably hope that the terrorists will
leave them alone, at least in the short term, and turn their
murderous energies against the remaining members of the coalition.
Their success with Spain means that Rome or London or Warsaw are
likely to be very bad places to be a few days before the next
elections in Italy, Britain or Poland. The same may be true of
Washington next Halloween if Bush is ahead in the polls then —
though I’d like to think that Americans wouldn’t react like the
faint-hearted Spanish.
Anyway, dropping out of the fight isn’t really an option for us
the way it is for them. That’s why what is rational, if not
sensible, in the mouth of the egregious Señor Zapatero is
sheer madness in the mouth of Kerry or Dean. The great prize and
the ultimate goal for the terrorists is to see the U.S. — not
Spain, Italy, Britain or Poland — helpless and frightened into
forswearing the exercise of its power and influence in the rest of
the world. By offering them the prospect of just such a victory as
early as next January, the Democrats only encourage them to
redouble their efforts to kill Americans everywhere in the world.
And when President Kerry brings our boys home, they can start
concentrating on killing Americans in America again — though they
might well, at that point and without any further fear of American
intervention, decide to finish off the Spanish first. I look
forward to our new president’s expressing his highly authentic
anger when they do.
