My mental stasis on the big issues of the day
The past couple of days have seen two huge stories — Ned Lamont’s victory and the foiled terror plot in England — and I’ve had little to say about either. Part of it is that they managed to occur during a week when my plate is way too full anyway, with both the kids’ activities and the paying work sucking more than their fair share out of my already short 24 hour day. Part of it, though, is that I don’t feel I have anything to contribute to these stories. I’ve read tons about each of them, and have concluded only that I have no conclusions.
Wherever I go, I see a different spin on the Lamont victory: It’s a good thing for the Democrats, signaling a sea change in America’s anti-War sentiment. It’s a disaster for the Democrats because it signals a Move-On/Kos hubris that will collapse until real world stresses (such as terror plots in London). It’s great for Republicans if Lamont actually makes it to the Senate because it will expose to the world how empty and oppositional the Democratic position is. It’s awful for the Republicans because it opens the door to impeachment and a Democratic takeover that can’t be undone by 2008, and on and on. It’s all crystal ball gazing, but it really won’t have meaning to me until November. In November, we’ll know whether we have a Democratic or a Republican Congress — and then I’ll know how I feel. As it is, people whose opinions I respect differ too greatly, and my own knowledge is too slender, to give meaning to this event. (Although if I had to bet, I’d bet that, just as people at the last minute backed off from Kerry, so too will they retreat from Lamont.)
As for today’s foiled terrorist plot, it’s already being played out as a political piece, rather than a major military intelligence coup. As I predicted, the Left is claiming that Rove did it (yes, the famous British poodle, Tony Blair, while on vacation in the Caribbean, took instructions from Rove to paralyze Britain’s air traffic system, and do untold harm to the British economy, to make George Bush look better). My mother told me that she already heard news stories about the suspects’ deprived backgrounds (maybe she said “depraved,” but I think it was “deprived”). People are criticizing Bush’s use of the phrase Islamist facists (or something like that), although I think it’s way better than the original “Islam is a religion of peace.” At least he’s hinting to people that, whether you’re in America (say, Dearborn), or Bali, or Spain, or London, or international airspace, or Iraq, or Israel, or India, or Russia, or Australia, or France, or Indonesia, or the Phillipines, or Canada, one particular religion runs like a dripping, blood-red ribbon through the major acts of violence committed against random groups of people.
And that’s all I have to say.
