Les Jeux Sont Fait
MichaelW on Oct 13 2006 at 5:53 am | Filed under: Domestic Politics, MichaelW's Page
I’m done. Politics will continue to fascinate me, but the major parties have lost what pale shine they still retained prior to this season’s dirty and shameful tactics. I have voted in every election for which I was legally registered since I turned eighteen, and this year I will refrain. Why? Because between the candidates being fungible in terms of honesty, ability and statesmanship, and the media being either unwilling or incapable of comprehending the facts of any particular matter (God forbid there be any numbers involved), candidates are not evaluated or elected based upon the actual issues. Instead, battle lines are drawn between and “left” and “right” (or, in my parlance, “not-quite-as-left”), sides are chosen, enemies are demonized and the proxy for violence (i.e. voting) lets slip the hounds of war. All based entirely on partisan rhetoric, false promises and fraudulent reporting. The Machiavellian machinations are certainly entertaining to watch, but I’m done participating.
From now on, if a candidate has an R or a D after his/her name, they are automatically disqualified as far I am concerned. No more “voting for the individual.” That ship sailed long ago. When a candidate declares as being a member of one party or another they have declared, in my mind, that they have no sense of honor or decency. Such candidates have no greater purpose in mind than their own agrandizement.
Think I’m wrong? Point me to any Senator, Represenative, President or other elected official and, at least on the federal level, I can provide you reams of evidence accounting for their total lack of decency and fair-dealing. Such people are not driven by any altruistic motives; they are, instead, driven by an insatiable desire for power and fame. You’ve all said amongst yourselves: “All politicians are crooks. You can’t get into politics unless you’re willing and capable of getting dirty. Everyone knows an honest man can’t elected.” Well, no more for me. If you want my vote, you better run as an independent, and I better not hear a thing about how corrupt, flawed of character, naive, dishonest, and/or unpatriotic an opposing candidate is or you will be dropped from the radar.
In truth, it is I who am naive. I really believe in capital-T Truth, the goodness of man, the honor in serving fellow citizens, and in the powerful profundity of this great experiment we call the United States of America. I get goosebumps when I hear the God Bless America. On the morning of 9/12/01, when I peeked out the rear window of my Arlington, Virginia apartment to be greeted with a menagerie of red, white and blue garments of all shapes and sizes, seeing flags, blankets, hats, and whatever else anyone could muster of national color, I had to sit down and cry. I actually wept because that silent gesture said to me “We’re all in this together, and no two-bit, I-gotta-grudge, down-with-the-Great-Satan fool is going to tear that apart.” At that moment, on that day, I felt invincible. Little did I know that the danger was not to come from without, but from within.
What do I mean exactly? Well the latest two “October surprises” serve as excellent examples. The Foley Follies have all the intrigue of an Oscar Wilde farce. In fact, if he were alive today, he would likely lament the fact that he had not written such a drole satire of political society. If the “scandal” had remained confined to just the ephobphile himself, that would have merely delayed the demise of mainstream party candidates for me. The truth is, this particular pretense exposed just how unscrupulous and corrupt, how insular and self-serving every politician on Capitol Hill is. Either no one knew, or they all did. The pages themselves seemed pretty clear. And yet here, on the eve of an election, mirroring the Rathergate spectacle of the last national elections, we are treated to breathless reporting about emails and IM’s (often conflated for dramatic effect, of course), and righteous indignation at what is clearly and abdication of all oversight and responsibility on the part of one party alone? Who buys such codswallop other than partisans and vaguely interested voters?
If the truth of this matter had been disclosed from the outset, the righteous indignation may have been appropriate. How many times did Foley have to be warned about freaking out the pages before he was put out to pasture? (N.B. I don’t subscribe to pages as innocent lambs led to the gay slaughter, since I was 16 not that long ago and I worked with that population for several years; to paraphrase their docent, they’re not that innocent.) The Republicans didn’t keep him around in order to keep his seat. He is (or was) in one of the safest seats in Congress! Finding another candidate would have been easy. They kept him around because nobody cared, whether Republican or Democrat. The culture of privilege that pervades those once hallowed halls is what enabled a Mark Foley to survive for so long. That it was sprung on the American electorate now was a matter of expediency, not righteousness. The Democrats, offering nothing in the way of leadership, couldn’t seem to take much advantage of the consistent failure of Republicans to offer much beyond the kind of arrogance that only power can breed. All the mewling about “the children” won’t change that.
In answer to the Democrats’ handwaving, we get the Republicans’ poor excuse for an October surprise: Harry Reid’s alleged financial dealings. To be sure, the Republicans who launched this little zephyr picked a good topic to get past the Democrats’ watchdogs (i.e. the MSM) since it deals with “numbers” and requires looking up “rules” and, heaven forbid, “laws.” Knowing full well that such insignificant things as “facts” would not be researched by the so-called “reality-based” contingent, casting doubt about a common transaction that is at a minimum two years old seems like the perfect way to right that Republican ship.
Of course, if anybody had actually bothered to look at the relevant disclosure rules (say, the ones that declare transferring an interest in property to an entity wholly owned by the same party does not have to be reported)*, this would have been a non-issue. But it smells of money, greed, and capitalism. Of course the MSM will eat it up! Reid’s not up for election now anyway, so what do they have to lose? And yet, it’s not the land deal that should have Harry in hot water, it’s the shady dealings behind the scenes, and his poor choice of business associates. But, because the MSM doesn’t care about any of that, and because the Republicans are too stupid to call out the behavior that really deserves scorn, we will get an increasingly muddled picture from the media (so much so that the public will lose interest), and Congress will find some cause to interfere with a legitimate business transaction that just happens to be the bread-and-butter of my law practice. Fun.
So, in short, I’m done with them. When statesmen and servants of the people are allowed to play again, that’s when I’ll vote for another mainstream candidate. Until that time, I simply won’t vote or I’ll vote for myself.
* After some further review, I can’t seem to find the exact rule that led me to the scratched-out conclusion. The Instructions for Financial Disclosure exclude “transactions solely by and between you [the Senator], your spouse, or your dependent child” from being reportable (see p. 14), but that does not necessarily translate into what I described it as.
23 Responses to “Les Jeux Sont Fait”
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I feel very much the same way. I have adopted a slightly different tactic, though: anti-incumbency. Simply vote every incumbent out of office, remove the incentive to play dirty games to stay in office, and things should improve as people realize they are in power only temporarily.
I dunno, it feels better than not voting.
“Anti-incumbancy” was my original approach, but I’ve just become fed up with whole charade. Very few people vote based on facts, and whatever information can be gleaned from a candidte’s website (for example) about the way that candidate will behave if elected is most likely pure hogwash.
It does not help that I have no one to vote for in my District other than D, R or Green.
I find that an equally compelling argument. I think my problem is that if we drop out, only partisans will decide elections, and that serves no one. Assuming voting is a necessity, I can only think of creating de facto term limits (1) to keep the entrenchment at an absolute minimum.
That’s a good point, Josh.
Re: term limits; isn’t it funny/sad that there is only one job in all of federal government that has a term limit (i.e. President)? In fact, maybe that should be the political movement for this century: passing a Constitutional Amendment limiting each Representative to no more than 4 terms (8 years), and each Senator to no more than two terms (12 years).
I agree with that 100%, but it is a ludicrously uphill battle. Not a single incumbent in Congress - not one - will ever support that. And there is no incentive for any legistator to support it: if it passes, they’re out of a job. If they block it, and they’re voted out, then no loss, as they would have been out anyway. If they block it and nothing happens, then they stay in power.
That’s why, as much as I would love to see term limits in Congress, they won’t happen unless we make them happen. By voting.
I am still going to vote third party where possible, otherwise I am withholding my vote, but that is an old song and dance for me.
I will say there are a few legislators in the major parties that I would support, unfortunately they are not in my district.
Amen, Josh. If non-partisans do not vote, we lose. If we vote, we have at least a chance of making our voices heard.
Regarding term limits, I fully agree with what you have said. The only way that I can see term limits being applied is to force a direct vote on the matter state-by-state. If each state’s Congresspeople are forced by vote of the state’s electorate to limit their terms, then they will comply. Now here we enter onto the shaky ground of state v. federal law. Let’s assume that the SCOTUS finds such a term limit law unconstitutional (a fairly likely outcome). What do you think the reaction of the electorate would be? Food for thought guys. Food for thought.
Actually, that’s the method I have been thinking is the only viable option. As Josh pointed out, you can’t leave the decision of what to do with the henhouse up to the foxes. But if some sort of referendum, either through state legislatures or actual voter issue votes (even scientific polling) were to force the issue, eventually enough pressure could be brought to bear on Congress to pass such an Amendment.
There was a reason I said this should be the issue of the “century” as opposed to “year” or “decade.”
Sounds pretty glacial to me. I guess global warming hasn’t reached Congress, yet.
Mike…
well, on the plus side.. now this is some genuine bipartisanship. or, um, bi-anti-partisanship. something like that.
But really, the search for purity of spirit or arms within any institution with more than 3 or 4 people is a predictably disheartening experience. It’s the wrong way to look at it. The polarization of vision leads to unneccesary condemnations and unneccesary defenses.
Like everywhere, Congress has fairly honest people and small-minded scumbags. They work in a sludge whirlwind of legal minutiae, byzantine institutional incest and tremendous amounts of money. People are shaped by their environment. I work at the DoD, so I’m indifferent to the death of sentient beings. I work in Hollywood, so I’m indifferent to being fawned on. I work in Congress, so I will be part of something that someone considers an ethical violation, some of which are completely clear, some of which are a question of perspective.
Anyway, the point is that working in those environments doesn’t preclude you from being a decent person, barring the situation-wide weaknesses, and doesn’t preclude the place as a whole doing good things. Hollywood is a place argued to be terrible that produces, along with a bunch of crap, some good movies. The DoD is an arguably terrible place that produces, along with a bunch of crap, a generally safe American populace. Congress is an arguably terrible place that produces, along with a bunch of crap, a relatively prosperous and peaceful society.
What I’m saying here is that you have to macro out and center your views on a broad view of reality when you’re tempted to just pack it in.
Furthermore, there’s a natural justice to the world that takes care of situations like these all by itself. Foleygate is following that rough justice - The Congressman behaved terribly inappropriately, and the Republican majority kept it quiet for a while, and then it inevitably leaked, and now he’s gone. Foley made his choices, set his priorities, and truth won the day, and he’s history. The Republican House Leadership made their choices, protected him for their own benefit, and are now paying for that as well. The public isn’t blaming the Democrats because Foley isn’t a Democrat. Public blame follows perfectly reasonable institutional affiliation. Justice is served.
Justice is also served in the Reid affair. Like I said, he’s in Congress, and apparently also trying to make money at the same time, so he is therefore a target. Once those two conditions are met, you have to be perfect, and he arguably forgot to disclose something. Thus he is tracked down and roasted for it. Again, there’s a certain degree of justice, or natural cause and effect (and I love Harry Reid). The AP piece is nasty, because in my opinion is creates an image deep scandal in the case of a fairly techincal and immaterial forgotten disclosure (immaterial in the sense that the transaction would have been perfectly legitimate if he’d disclosed it, and it’s hard to see any reason for him to have deliberately covered it up).
But it’s also fair. He made a mistake. There’s a lot of scrutiny of mistakes on Captiol Hill. The blogosphere has helped further that, better or worse.
I doubt there will be any substantive new regulations.
So, really, it’s okay. Go ahead. Vote Republican. In the longest view, the system’s doing ok and basically deserves your particupation.
Glasnost, we both know better than that. I doubt even Foley really knows the truth of what happened in the backhalls of Congress. All we’ve seen is an incremental leak of details, some minor and some major. It’s also details that are skewed by those doing the leaking (be they R’s or D’s). The same is true in the Reid thing. The information was leaked for a specific purpose and with a specific slant. Rumor-mongering and realpolitik is the only thing that really happens in D.C. I find it to be absolutely coincedental that the country continues to function and remain fairly safe and prosperous. It certainly isn’t due to the direct actions of any elected officials.
Uh no glasnost. I ain’t voting for the Republicans. The corruption and various sins like Michael describes are not the reason, but right now both parties as of now have no other thing to recommend them. Both are not just concerned with maintaining power and privelege, they have no ideological program that stands above those. Politics is fine, I expect that, and complaining about politicians using their policies and events to sway voters are just stupid. However, I do expect them to offer me some kind of set of policies they actually will hold to in a general sense, and that those policies are something I can support in the first place.
Neither party is offering either to me, and from what I can see hardly anybody really, but me in particular. The kinds of stuff we are discussing are what both parties are really about at this point.
Lance is absolutely right. The problem isn’t that the two parties are political, it is that they are political extremists—nothing trumps the good of the party, not child molesters, fraud, or any other felonies.
That is what galls me. Plus, each has completely abandoned its principles—the Dems don’t like Bush’s entitlements because they’re from a Republican (even though he has aped most of their domestic agenda), and the Republicans have actually aped the Democrats’ domestic agenda!
How could either be trusted with power? They simply cannot. That is the unfortunate choice we have next month: who will hopefully abuse their position the least?
Exactly Josh. Of course one of the problems, which was my problem when Bush ran in 2000, this idea of ideology shouldn’t be an issue, that being pragmatic, a centrist, is a virtue. Obviously it is a virtue if you agree with the general idea of what being a centrist or pragmatic politician is, but when it means you abandon wholesale any idea above and beyond reaching a consensus and maintaining your position in Congress or the Senate what do we have left? Well, all this crap. The only things I liked about Republicans have been pretty much abandoned by them. The few things I liked about Democrats have been sacrificed either for their individual election prospects or to create some kind of difference between themselves and Republicans, often perversely so.
No Child left behind is a good example. In order to compromise all the good things in the NCLB were abandoned and all that was left was the government bureaucracy, but somehting was done. Then we get to hear constant complaints from the Democrats anyway even though by their own political principles before 2000 no President has done more. So we are now faced with a vastly expanded government bureaucracy that if the liberals will get their way will remove the accountability aspects.
let me be clear, I think the whole process is flawed, but if your going to go the big government way then the accountability aspects are key. Supposedly the liberal response prior to this was a government bureaucracy that could actually monitor and improve. Now they want to remove the checks on incompetency to boot so they can be better than Bush since he pretty much adopted their preexisting platform. It is a joke.
It is a joke, and not a particularly funny one either.
I’ve had Ron Paul for almost a decade…what the hell is everyone else doing?
Paul once handed out a recipe for a date-rape drug(quite innocently imo) and the people-not-living-in-Texas-14 just couldn’t tolerate it. Sucks to be them I guess since the people who actually could vote against him tolerated it quite well(as we’ve tolerated his batty isolationism).
Honestly, I’ve never understood American politics. Why, exactly, should I give two shits about Harry Reid or Mark Foley? Neither represent me and neither ever will. If the good people of Nevada or the district in Florida prefer said gents then so be it. I couldn’t care less.
This whole loss-of-innocence routine really does nothing but betray naivete. It’s much easier to inveigh against politicians than admit the problem lies with the people casting the ballots. There used to be this whimsical belief that to be a capable politician one only had to posses 4 traits: (1) love of one’s city/polis/country, (2) hope/vision to better one’s city/polis/country, (3) ability to communicate (2) to your citizens, and (4) incorruptibility. Now if the poor SOB selected to govern wound up lacking in any of those four then it was the fault of the poor SOBs who selected him and each took a bite of the sandwich. Granted this belief only persisted for a couple dozen centuries but I think it is better than the narcissitc approach we currently have.
But who am I to quibble. Keep voting for your guy based on how some other people’s guy acts. Hope it works out for you personally. It certainly won’t do squat for the rest of us.
Good points rasied by all. My main contention is with the faux indignation paraded about by politicians. None of them actually care about corruption or unethical behavior (which is one the reasons even borderline or de minimus behavior gets blown out of proportion) except when it is perceived as an opponent’s weakness. That’s why we don’t hear too much about these issues except in election years.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality. Because the federal government exercises so much power over the the people, at the expense of the States, what Harry Reid and Mark Foley do in Congress is of great import to everyone. It sholdn’t be that way, but it is.
Maybe I am naive (in fact, I think I stated that pretty clearly), but the voters only get to vote for the candidates available. Because there is so much power in federal government nowadays, those who are most likely to seek and win Congressional seats are those to whom power is of utmost importance. Winning at all costs is more important than service since there is so much at stake.
Now who’s being naive? The laws passed by Congress affect even those who live Rep. Paul’s district.
Yes, most laws passed affect everyone but I am responsible for my congresscritter alone. If Congress passes a law I find distasteful and my congresscritter had a hand in it I take it out on him/her. What am I to do about the other districts’ critters? Cry about it loudly enough in the hopes of influencing those voters? That wouldn’t be very libertarian of me now would it? I take offense when outsiders try to tell me how I should think or feel and I presume most others do as well. I’m obviously wrong in that regard but, as they say, I deny your reality and substitute my own and act accordingly.
I can’t recall specifics offhand and I’m not going to dig through my boxes of books but…there was a politician involved in ABSCAM. A Democrat in case anyone’s wondering. Video taped counting the money. Indicted by a federal grand jury. Found guilty! Yet still came within 2-3% of winning his primary. Ever since then I’ve held a firm belief that voters are the problem. We get the government we deserve. And then we blame everyone else. It’s the American way.
I do agree with you that politics tends to attract a fair share of degenerates but I just think that share is representative of the general population.
That would be the late New Jersey Senator Harrison Williams. Curiously enough, Jack Murtha was also involved and was actually indicted, however the charges were later dropped after he
ratted outturned state’s evidence and condemned his fellow conspirators. After a party line vote against filing a House ethics complaint, the Special Counsel assigned resigned in protest. See this especially damning letter : http://www.politicspa.com/FEATURES/baileylttomurtha.htmCareful Omar,
Pointing out the general disreputableness of Jack Murtha is an attack on the character of Vietnam War veterans and means you think all anti-war folk are not patriots, especially Max Cleland. I know that is what you are up to and my steely gaze is upon your pathetic attempt to bind laughingman to your warmongering cause.
I think Michael is blaming the voters and refuses to enable them in their folly. That is my approach. I don’t have much faith in men to be much better than these, I do hope they will at least have less power.
Lol. It should have been “imperialist, racist warmongering cause.” Let’s stay on narrative here, please.
Actually, the one I remember is John Jenrette of South Carolina. Williams works just as well though.