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Daniel Patrick Welch - In Oz, the wizard is finally shown to be a tired old man in the corner manipulating machinery to create the impression of power. When Zod and his cohorts levelled the White House in Superman II, he saw through the stand-in for the president. “No one who commands so many could capitulate so quickly.” The real president comes out from a washroom next to the Oval Office - maybe the one Bill and Monica made famous, who knows? - and says: “I’m the one they’re protecting.” But what if the man in the corner is the actual Oz? What if the cover story is the bumbling fool, and when you pull back the curtain the actual embodiment of evil itself is staring you right in the face? This was the reaction I had when I saw just a glimpse of Dick Cheney during the vice-presidential debate on television.
In the end, Darth Vader did not eat Robin alive (no Batman to the rescue). Much to the contrary. The cyclopic spinning machine is ruling that the only vice-presidential debate in the US election, between incumbent Dick Cheney and challenger John Edwards in Cincinnati on Tuesday, was a tie - but not if you consider the numerous Darth Vader instances of, euphemistically, “stretching the truth”. Cheney denied he had made a link between Saddam and the attacks of September 11, 2001. False. Cheney insisted on an “Iraqi track record of terror”. False. Cheney said the Bush administration “captured or killed thousands of al-Qaeda”. False. But it’s astonishing that in such a crucial debate there was no mention whatsoever of the key intersection between Cheney’s oil connections and the “war on terror”.
William Saletan - How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That’s what it all comes down to. For all the differences between Iraq and Vietnam, the awful question John Kerry posed in 1971 is the same one hanging over us now. This time, however, Kerry isn’t raising the question. His opponent, the president of the United States, is raising it. Why? Because Iraq is different from Vietnam. We were attacked on 9/11. We thought Saddam Hussein was behind it. We thought Iraq posed the next threat. We don’t want to believe that we were wrong, that we’ve committed $200 billion and sacrificed more than 1,000 American lives in error. We can’t imagine asking thousands more to die for a mistake.
Don Nash - In all good conscience, I cannot support George Bush. His political philosophy of Machiavellian expedience is morally bankrupt and without precedent in the history of the American presidency. Bush’s premise of ‘preemptive war’ is so inhumanely offensive, it smacks of being almost genocidal by it’s very definition. The Bush administration is wrong on every count that one might care to examine. The Bush administration is wrong to plunder America’s resources simply to satisfy some pre-election pact that they entered into prior to the 2000 election. The Bush administration was wrong to have pulled America out of the Kyoto Accord. The Bush administration was wrong to squander America’s treasury with the still untested missile defense system. If Bush and company are for it, I am against it.
Thomas Wheeler - Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Imagine a German citizen harshly denouncing Hitler’s invasion of Poland, then volunteering for the German military and eagerly participating in the brutal occupation of Poland. Or, how about harshly denouncing the bombing of abortion clinics, then joining a group to assist them in bombing clinics. Such a person would be mercilessly ridiculed as a complete idiot. But in the upside-down Orwellian world of hypocritical liberals and the utterly dumb-as-shit military veterans that support Kerry, this sort of insanely stupid criminal behavior is applauded.
Asad Haider - The left needs to come to its senses about the 2004 election. Some thoughtful analysis has appeared on ZNet and elsewhere, but it seems that too much commentary is coming to reflect the regrettable polarization into a “more-radical-than-thou” camp and a “more-sensible-than-thou” camp, one of the most unfortunate setbacks for the left since the fall of Barcelona. It’s a real shame, because there is a great need for serious strategic analysis today, and the often dogmatic and sectarian quibbling over Kerry is a real obstacle to creating the kind of unified left that is so necessary in the United States. Last year, we were able to unite into the strongest anti-war movement in human history; what the hell happened?
Jimmy Carter - After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act’s key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes. The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.
Manuel Valenzuela - Imagine my surprise, having returned from a research and exploratory sojourn through the mesmerizing beauty of the lands, coasts and peoples of Mexico where the spirit re-energized, mind meditated and appreciation for humanity returned, all of which enabled me to escape, at least for a small respite, from the madness of a troubled world, to see that Iraq had almost overnight been transformed into a nation on the verge of a Renaissance, becoming a new beacon of democracy and security, morphing into an unyielding success, an illuminated positive road devoid of reality. A heap of garbage had suddenly become a Kandinsky, a masterpiece in waiting whose canvas Bush had transformed into a work of art with each new brushstroke of his formula for nation building and democracy creating.
Omar Barghouti - Dear Americans. After four years of having the almost perfect, nearly credible alibi, “we did not really elect him,” come November, you shall have to finally look the entire world in the eye and defend why you’ve chosen as your leader a time-tested racist, ruthless, semi-intelligent, religious fanatic who has committed enough war crimes to warrant being locked up for life at the Hague. Just this past week, Iraqis had the equivalent death toll of 9/11. In fact, they have one every week or two, on average, thanks to your sickening and utterly irrational support for the neo-con gang at the helm of power in Washington. I, and I bet most people around the earth, cannot take it any more!
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