playing politics

The worst thing a politician (or political party) can do is play politics - by which I mean, pursue something for purely political reasons, regardless of reason, philosophy (even their own), or standard.

Let's look at the elections of George W. Bush. The Dems and their interest groups ranged far and wide to talk up his personal failings in the far past - as far back as his teen-age years, back into the sixties. We were told by the Dems that that sort of thing mattered, since those years are the "formulative" ones that help form who we become. We were told that it all mattered, because it proved -- proved! -- that the George W. Bush of today was the same person as the George W. Bush back then.

Let's look at the election of Bill Clinton. The Dems and their interest groups ranged far and wide trying to assert that past behavior didn't matter, that it didn't matter how many women accused him of rape (rape!) or sexual assault if it were all "in the past", that his writing the phrase "I can't go in the military, I have to maintain my political viability" at age eighteen didn't matter because it was "all in the past and that has no bearing on who he is now". We had Dems saying what one did during the Vietnam War didn't matter, that deferments didn't matter and were perfectly honorable, that Bill Clinton's deferments (to "maintain his political viability", which is an amazing statement from a college-age person, and a horribly cynical one from an adult) were fine and we shouldn't waste our time looking at these things.

OK. I hope all the rational people out there are reading carefully, because the sheer arrogance of the Democratic Party's double-standards is breathtaking. What they say is this: if you're a Democrat, it doesn't matter what you did in the past, or why you did it, because we need you to get elected. If you're a Republican, you'd best not have stepped on a spider on a sidewalk at age five, 'cause we're going to spend the time and money to investigate your past all the way back to that point. If you're Bill Clinton, you can go to Moscow and other European stops during the Vietnam War, using your deferment, "to maintain your political viability", and that's fine, and we shouldn't be looking at that, because it doesn't matter anyway, it was all so long ago; but if you're George Bush, we'll look at the same time-period and the fact that Bush flew in the Air National Guard and was honorably discharged... and find a way to smear that somehow, because after all it does matter what Bush did back then. Of course, the fact that even Mary Mapes and her five years of trying to smear Bush on this issue, by contorting it to show that he didn't really show up all the time and that therefore he was somehow lesser a person and a liar, turned up... evidence to the contrary, and that her only "evidence" to support her position turned out to be totally corruptible (forged documents; witnesses who were lifelong active Democrats with a record of among other things forging documents and lying to smear people).

If you're Bill Clinton, Dems turn a blind eye to his avoiding the draft, as I've said -- but we get Dems currently slamming Dick Cheney's deferments, as though not being in the military prevents a rational human being from being able to formulate national policy (also another thing that was said about Bill Clinton, who didn't serve at all, and to which we were treated to Dems saying that it doesn't matter if you serve, human beings are capable of rationally thinking out policy regardless).

The sheer hubris of this sort of enormous double-standard SHOULD be the sort of thing that the press takes up and holds up for criticism -- but it doesn't. I haven't decided what's actually doing more damage to this country, long-term: the arrogance of the Democrat Party's double-standards (which are as malleable as the wind, and utterly determined by which Party you belong to), or the absolute failure of the American Media to do its duty and through exposure hold up this sort of double-standard for all to see and thereby contribute to eliminating hte use of such double standards.

Here's a clue: we should have one set of standards by which to judge people. If we argue in the 1990s that it doesn't matter what one did during Vietnam, then it shouldn't suddenly start mattering in the 2000s. If we argue that one's past doesn't matter, it only matters what we say today, then that standard should apply across the board to our opponents as well. That's why we call them "standards".

What we have today from the Dems aren't standards and certainly aren't philosophies-of-worth: we have crass politics, double-standards, and whatever else they need to do to finally pull out an electoral win.

This column is more than happy to criticise Republicans (as we've done), but with regards to the standards each party holds and demonstrates, there is a clear uneven balance at work. The Republicans didn't like Ruth Bader Ginsburg or her policies, but they applied the same standard to her as they applied before and they voted her through, because she was the President's choice. The Dems at the time went out of their way to tell her, on the record, how to avoid answering questions, not to prejudge cases, etc. Fast forward again to the present day, and we have Dems complaining when the current nominees (from a non-Democrat President) do the same thing for the same reasons, and we have Republicans... arguing again that the President should get his pick. Which party is running a double-standard there? Hint: it's not the Republicans.

Only when the people of the United States stop accepting (and indeed being complicit, through our votes or non-voting, in) these double standards will the system begin to correct itself and will philosophy begin to reassert itself over ideology, will reason reassert itself over crass political maneuvering, and will actual, HONEST debates once more be possible.

So, I guess the conclusion is: the Democrats as above are guilty of the worst sort of double-standards, the Press is guilty for pretending these things don't exist or don't matter, and the People of the United States are guilty for either accepting double standards or not being smart enough or educated enough to realise the profound negativity that double standards create.

Sad.