WATERMARK

I hope my regulars, who come here for poems, pictures, and silliness, will bear with me just a little longer. I promise this will not become a poliblog; I’m just a bit obsessed at the moment.

Senator Kerry is still the debate winner in today’s polls.  I think my expectations of President Bush were so low that I was overly impressed at his ability to form complete sentences last night.  I have been thinking, though, about how I would feel if President Bush were my candidate.  This is difficult, but let’s try:

My Candidate (MC) has been president for one term.  I voted for him because I agree with him politically, and disagree with the positions of the Opposing Party (OP); in fact, I find some of the OP positions, especially on social and cultural issues, morally abhorrent.  When I cast my vote, I believed MC to be an honest, moral, upright man with strong advisers. 

Four years later, the economy is weak; hundreds of thousands are out of work; we are entangled in a war that is costing American and Iraqi lives and seems to have been entered into under a misapprehension that MC still hangs onto against all evidence; Osama Bin Laden is still at large; and MC’s debate performances have been worrisome.  In the first, he was incoherent and petulant; in the second, aggressive and whiny; and only in the third did I see the candidate I previously voted for.  Even then, he lost the debate, side-stepping some issues and, well, prevaricating on others.

But, however I feel about the other candidate (OC), I disagree strongly with the OP’s positions. What do I feel, think, do?  Perhaps I am concerned about MC’s competence, but trust his advisers (?).  Perhaps I believe that MC can adjust his course (even though he can’t seem to think of any mistakes he has made so far, so why would he change?)  Perhaps I am simply in the position of voting against the OC, rather than for MC.

Stepping away from the rhetorical for a moment, I remember feeling humiliated by President Clinton.  Humiliated that I had voted, twice, for a sexual predator.  I was angry, embarrassed, furious.  And still, I endorsed his stated (not his personal, behavioral) politics.  What if I had known this before his second term, and was confronted with the choice between him and the candidate of a party with which I disagree about almost everything?

I think that, this time, some Republicans are in an uncomfortable position — not regarding their candidate’s moral, sexual behavior (political lies are a different thing altogether, I’m sure they would say); but regarding his job performance and possibly his intellectual competence.  What is one to do?

Finally, I send you to FactCheck.Org, which says of both Senator Kerry and President Bush:  The debates are over and the results are clear: both candidates are incorrigible fact-twisters.