February 22, 2002

The truth in Washington?

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

Someone wise in the ways of politics once defined a major political blunder as when someone blurts out the truth.

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer during a press briefing at the White House.

That happened the other day in Washington, D.C., when Ari Fleischer, Bush White House spokesman, commented during a press briefing that ex-President Bill Clinton's policies on the Middle East had contributed or even caused much of the turmoil currently being experienced between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

This was widely condemned by Democrats and termed a "major political gaffe" by most pundits and Fleischer dutifully assumed the role of fall guy and made a retraction statement.

Why? Was not the chief result of Clinton's "peace plan" to arm the Palestinian "police forces," so when Yasser Arafat launched his latest uprising, his people would be armed with guns and rockets instead of rocks? Yes, but you can't say it in Washington.

Why? Because Washington is nothing if not a place of politics, and despite joining ex-President Richard Nixon as the only two former presidents to earn the prefix "ex" with their disgraceful reigns, ex-President Clinton remains very popular with the hard-core Democrats, who see nothing to apologize for about him.

President George W. Bush.

And in the interest of trying to please all of the people, all of the time, political experts advise that you speak no evil of those the other side reveres, even if it's a crooked redneck like Clinton.

I'm sure there are some, perhaps many, here in Richmond County who still love Clinton despite all his escapades, so it's not too hard to understand why truth is such a rare commodity, not only in Washington, D.C., but everywhere in local politics.

And that's one of those political truths you can depend on: All politics are local politics, because it's not just the pundits in Washington, D.C., who decide elections. It's local people voting.

Because regardless of what pundits write, people still vote and have the ultimate say in who gets elected to serve in government.

And speaking of blabbering pundits, President Bush's "axis of evil" comment in his State of the Union address still has the so-called experts slobbering in dismay. Former President Jimmy Carter has said it will take "years to recover" from the comment.

I suppose Carter probably had the same thing to say about his replacement in office when former President Ronald Reagan called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the "evil empire."

But the U.S.S.R. is already in the dustbin of history, and Reagan's focus of attention on its evil nature had much to do with tearing down both the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.

Carter's comment reminds me somewhat of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's pussyfooting around with a grabby German named Adolph Hitler in the critical days leading up to World War II. You can't oppose evil without first calling it what it is. And if Iran, Iraq and North Korea aren't evil, what are they? Poor, misunderstood dictators who will respond to the sweet reason of striped-pants diplomats? Oh, if that were so.

The striped-pants pussyfooters didn't win World War II, and they didn't overcome the Communist empire. Straight talk followed by forceful action did. I believe Bush's "axis of evil" description is a necessary step toward combating terrorism.