corrente

I speak of Michael Moore, the public citizen, not Michael Moore, the film maker. There is much to admire about both. All liberals could take a lesson from Michael's bonhommie in the face of personal attacks. His showing of the colors, with a smile and a wave, at the Republican convention is an exemplar. But this, from his latest column is not helpful.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times from discouraged Democrats and liberals as the Republican convention here wrapped up this week. Their shoulders hunched, their eyes at a droop, they lower their voice to a whisper hoping that if they don't say it too loud it may not come true: "I...I...I think Bush is going to win."

Clearly, they're watching too much TV. Too much of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. Too much of swift boat veterans and Fox News commentators.

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For some reason, all of this has scared the bejabbers out of the Democrats. I can hear the wailing and moaning from Berkeley, Calif., to Cambridge, Mass. The frightening scenes from the convention have sent John Kerry's supporters looking for the shovels so they can dig their underground bunkers in preparation for another four years of the Dark Force.

I can't believe all of this whimpering and whining. Kerry has been ahead in many polls all summer long, but the Republicans come to New York for one week off-Broadway and suddenly everyone is dressed in mourning black and sitting shivah?

Exactly what moment was it during the convention that convinced them that the Republicans had now "connected" with the majority of Americans and that it was all over? Arnold praising Richard Nixon? Ooooh, that's a real crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth Dole decrying the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in Alabama? Yes, that's a big topic of conversation in the unemployment line in Akron, Ohio. Georgia Sen. Miller, a Democratic turncoat, looking like Freddy Krueger at an all-girls camp? His speech — and the look on what you could see of his strangely lit face — was enough for parents to send small children to their bedrooms.

Now I could not agree more with Michael's points about faintheartedness.

My friends — and I include all Democrats, independents and recovering Republicans in this salutation — do not be afraid. Yes, the Bush Republicans huff and they puff, but they blow their own house down.

As many polls confirm, a majority of your fellow Americans believe in your agenda. They want stronger environmental laws, are strong supporters of women's rights, favor gun control and want the war in Iraq to end.
Rejoice. You're already more than halfway there when you have the public on board.

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The Republicans have no idea how much harm they have done to themselves. They used to have a folk-hero mayor of New York named Rudy Giuliani. On 9/11, he went charging right into Ground Zero to see whom he could help save. Everyone loved Rudy because he seemed as though he was there to comfort all Americans, not just members of his own party.

But in his speech to the convention this week, he revised the history of that tragic day for partisan gain:

As chaos ensued, "spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then-police commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, 'Thank God George Bush is our president.' And I say it again tonight, 'Thank God George Bush is our president.' "

Please

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And there were the Band-Aids. The worst display of how out of touch the Republicans are was those Purple Heart Band-Aids the delegates wore to mock Kerry over his war wounds, which, for them, did not spill the required amount of blood.

What they didn't seem to get is that watching at home might have been millions of war veterans feeling that they were being ridiculed by a bunch of rich Republicans who would never send their own offspring to die in Fallujah or Danang.

Kerry supporters and Bush-bashers should not despair. These Republicans have not made a permanent dent in Kerry's armor. The only person who can do that is John Kerry. And by coming out swinging as he did just minutes after Bush finished his speech Thursday night, Kerry proved he knows that the only way to win this fight is to fight — and fight hard.

He must realize that he faces Al Gore's fate only if he fails to stand up like the hero he is, only if he sits on the fence and keeps justifying his vote for the Iraq war instead of just saying, "Look, I was for it just like 70% of America until we learned the truth, and now I'm against it, like the majority of Americans are now."

All excellent perceptions, stated clearly and with passion.

Problem is, it's more complicated than that. When John McCann used the word "disingenuous" to describe film maker Moore, he probably meant by it "deceitful,"and "dishonest,"but it also means, fittingly for Micheal, wily and artful. But Michael Moore as public figure and writer of Op Eds is just as surely and as often, ingenuous, i.e., open-hearted, candid, innocent and naive.

"Al Gore's fate," contrary to public perceptions, was not driven primarily by Al Gore's failure to "fight," and I would have hoped that the extraordinary series of speeches he's given in the last two years, fearless speeches that have invoked the great ideals of American democracy to measure how far short have fallen the policies of this President, speeches for which, from the first one he gave in September 2002, laying out what was wrong with the Bush doctrine, especially as applied to Iraq, to the last one, about the dishonor of Abu Graib, and the damage it has wrought on the rest of the world sees us, Gore has received almost nothing but contempt and derision from the right wing, and its instrument, the SCLM. Damaged, but unfazed, Gore gave another brilliant speech at the DNC, and he'll give more of them. Gore doesn't fear combat. We can see now that was never the problem.

In 2000, Gore's campaign made mistakes, not least in thinking that it could somehow create a separation between itself and the mud that the Republican party was still effectively slinging at Bill Clinton. What Gore never figured out how to fight was the total trivialization of the campaign. How do you cope with the "issue" of your choice of shirt? And isn't it interesting that the larger truth about Gore his wardrobe was supposed to speak to was his wavering identity. He was a "serial exaggerator" because he rightly lacked confidence in his accomplishments; his identity wavered because his values and beliefs did too; here was a man who would say or do anything to get elected, even wear earth tones when he doesn't really like them.

It's true that Gore didn't do as well in the debates as one would have thought he might, but Bush was not impressive. He appeared to "win" only because the RNC was successful in an immediate campaign of derision aimed not at what Gore said, but the way he said it. And the reason the SCLM was more influenced by Republican than by Democratic talking points, aside from their greater skill at propoganda, was the softening up of the electorate by means of trivialization. Remember, Bush wasn't drawing a sharp distinction between his policies and Gore's, this was an election about values, about character, we were told. Even that was a lie, of course, else why was the press so disinterested in exploring Bush's history getting into TANG, and the nature of the record he'd established; why so little interest in Bush's business history? The campaign wasn't about character, it was about the perception of character. If Bush and the Republicans had run on reversing the major policies of the Clinton years, they would have lost, hands down. And Gore still won, let us not forget. And not just the popular vote.

Nor did Gore lose the post-election vote-counting campaign in Florida because he wussed out. I don't know why so many Democrats and liberals insist on focusing their anger on Gore. He and his lawyers fought, but they were up against bigger, not better guns; even so, had it not been for the Supreme Court, that final recount would have gone forward, including the overcounts, and Gore would be the President today.

Today, it's still a game of perceptions , and right now, Republicans are controlling which perceptions are framing the two conventions. Their strategy, tell Americans what a scarey world it is and to be afriad, very afraid, and then to paint George Bush and themselves as "winners," and to deride and mock John Kerry and the Democrats as losers. If John Kerry can't win the battle of the conventions, what hope does he have against "the terrorists." (You won't hear them too often using the words Al Queda or Osama Bin Ladin; that would make it all too real). And one way to tell that Kerry's lost that battle is to point out that his campaign is in free fall, that he's lost the confidence of his grass roots and the party itself, that John Kerry and his campaign are on the verge of collapse.

Here's a prime example from our old friend, John Derbyshire, writing at The Corner:

At the beginning of last week, Mike Potemra -- NR's back-pages editor, and an old Reagan staffer -- told me that the bottom would drop out of the Kerry campaign over this next few days. I was doubtful, but Mike was right. That great Convention helped tremendously, of course. Above all the issues, sheer political dexterity counts for a lot. John Kerry is a lousy candidate, George W. Bush is a terrific one. On to the debates!

So, Michael, it doesn't help when you paint Democrats as easily discouraged wimps. Why should independents and repentent Bush voters come over to us if we're so unconstant. They shouldn't. But we're not inconstant. We're not wimps. And two polls do not an election make. We know what's going on here. God knows we've seen enough of it in the eight years of the Clinton administration and in the 2000 campaign.

In fact, I'd say that battle of the conventions isn't over yet. Michael' s right about the vulnerabilities displayed at the RNC. It's not too late for the Kerry campaign to turn what did and did not happen there back against the Republicans.

This President is running against the truth; he's running against the news. Nothing that happens outside of the campaign itself that warrants a headline will cut to his advantage, that's how thoroughly he's mismanaged his responsibilities - no reports on the environment, on the economy, on Iran or North Korea, none from Iraq, will strengthen the Republicans. I'd rather have our facts than his by a factor of infinity.

Yes, it's still an uphill fight, but for them too, and the last place we should be pointing our rhetorical guns it at one another.

UPDATE: Blogger published this before I'd had a chance to include a link to Moore's op ed and then wouldn't load for several hours. So sorry.

You can read all of Moore here and make up your own mind as to the exact mix of smarts and not smarts.

UPDATE II: This post received a healthy thread of comments, most of them more complimentary to Michael Moore than to me. I'm tempted to say I was misread, but when so many intelligent readers, including two of your own blogmates, seem to have misread you, then surely it is time for you to rethink your own clarity.

I did not mean the post as an attack on Michael Moore; perhaps my title, which was meant as a humorous back-handed homage to the kind of straight-foward rhetoric Michael uses turned back on him, was misleadingly severe. I agree with the majority of commenters and with most of what Michael said in his op ed that no one who has questions about giving this president four more years should let the nasty triumphalism of the RNC convince them Bush has this election wrapped up. My problem with the op ed had to do only with the frame Moore chose - his bucking up of already stoop-shouldered too easily frightened Democrats, because that is one of the talking points being pushed assiduously by the right wing smear/media machine, first, that Democrats chose a candidate for whom no one had affection, but strictly on the basis of susposed electability, and now that they see he isn't electable, the grass roots is in a panic, and the campaign itself in free fall.

To be absolutely clear, I view Michael Moore as one of the good guys, whether or not I agree with every word he utters. And surely all of us could take a lesson from him in how to stay focused and how not to lose one's sense of humor while the object of a category 12 shit-storm of smears and jeers. I still think that question of how to battle back is more complex than Michael suggests in his op ed, but perhaps I should have recognized that was not its focus.