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Overwhelming grief
Rob, who had been watching the election returns all night, came and woke me about forty-five minutes ago and held me while I cried.
Injustice won. Now this man who has made an unprecedented power grab for the executive branch, who authorized the use of torture, who has trampled on civil rights, who has lied and lied and lied to the American people, is going to have the chance to reshape the Supreme Court for the next generation. Bigotry won. I cannot bear it that the bigot's side of the argument on a civil rights issue that I care so deeply about, gay civil rights, was what pushed conservative voters out to the polls to return this man to the White House. Stupidity won. He totally lost track of who attacked us on September 11, he has ignored the threat of North Korea and Iran, he has failed to guard the borders, he has taken us into an unjust, immoral and unnecessary war which has killed our people and a hundred thousand Iraquis, spent our resources, inflamed the world against us and multiplied our enemies a thousandfold.
And we have rewarded him by returning him to the White House.
I have never been so ashamed to be called a Christian, if people who call themselves Christian feel that they are honoring their religion by voting for him over John Kerry. I have never been so afraid and so grief-stricken for my country, no, not even after September 11, because this time we are administering the wound to ourselves.
Injustice won. Now this man who has made an unprecedented power grab for the executive branch, who authorized the use of torture, who has trampled on civil rights, who has lied and lied and lied to the American people, is going to have the chance to reshape the Supreme Court for the next generation. Bigotry won. I cannot bear it that the bigot's side of the argument on a civil rights issue that I care so deeply about, gay civil rights, was what pushed conservative voters out to the polls to return this man to the White House. Stupidity won. He totally lost track of who attacked us on September 11, he has ignored the threat of North Korea and Iran, he has failed to guard the borders, he has taken us into an unjust, immoral and unnecessary war which has killed our people and a hundred thousand Iraquis, spent our resources, inflamed the world against us and multiplied our enemies a thousandfold.
And we have rewarded him by returning him to the White House.
I have never been so ashamed to be called a Christian, if people who call themselves Christian feel that they are honoring their religion by voting for him over John Kerry. I have never been so afraid and so grief-stricken for my country, no, not even after September 11, because this time we are administering the wound to ourselves.
no subject
"Devil May Care" by Tucker Carlson, Talk Magazine, September 1999, p. 106
"Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it.
While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder.
'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'
I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking.
'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights." [Carlson, Talk, 9/99]
no subject
'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.'
Letting the judicial system operate--trials, appeals, the works--and then stepping in to change a legally-arrived-at outcome is not enforcing the law; it is circumventing or obstructing it. Failing extreme circumstances, Bush felt himself bound to let the system operate, because that was the law. This is what judges have to do, as well, and what people never believe they can--look at the point of law and the broader picture, not their individual positions. The law may or may not be a good law; but it is the current law of the land, and he saw his job to be to enforce that law.
Not a good answer, for those who (a) don't believe in the death penalty and (b) don't like Bush. If it helps--for those of you who hate him--consider him Snape and not Malfoy. Give him, at least, his personal integrity.
~Amanda