Muck Breaker

Taking a closer look at three election issues as the big day approaches.

by Thomas Hynes

As if this needed to be pointed out to anyone, this year's presidential bout is bound to be the most conflicted and crucial decision to ever face our electorate. Either way this election turns out, about half the country is going to wake up feeling cheated on Nov. 3. So, we're going to line up these two Yalies, slap on the rubber gloves and examine where they stand on some issues. As it stands today, the untrained observer, awash in a sea of round-the-clock punditry, can probably hear nothing but finger-pointing and name-calling. With so much at stake, little-to-no room for error and so little distinguishing the two candidates, both campaigns still find a way to quibble over semantics. Let's see if we can't muddle our way through some of this muck.

Econo my: George Bush is on pace to be the first president since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression to preside over a net loss in jobs, of which, since January 2001, America has lost nearly two million. Just recently, he quietly revoked 8 million Americans' rights to overtime pay and has run up the largest deficit in our history, while also offering unprecedented tax relief. John Kerry would retain Bush's tax cut for the middle class. However, he would repeal the tax cut for those earning more than $200,000 a year, promising to take the money saved and reallocate those funds to bring health coverage to the more than 40 million uninsured Americans. Kerry originally wanted to dedicate those proposed savings toward the original $87 million Iraq/Afghanistan package for which he voted. The package that Kerry voted against, the one that eventually passed, acquired the necessary funds by way of deficit spending. What a flip-flop!

Energy and Environment: One of Bush's first presidential acts was to repeal the Kyoto Protocol, which committed to earnestly cutting greenhouse emissions. Bush pulled out because he says the threat of global warming should be addressed through new economic growth. Kerry would support the United States' inclusion in a climate-based treaty and says he wants to encourage renewable sources of energy, thereby decreasing American dependency on foreign oil. In the Senate, he has backed legislation to impose stricter mileage standards on SUVs. Bush, on the other hand, wanted to drill for oil in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Bush has something written on his Web site under the environment link. (We're not going to relay that here because it's offensive that Bush even has such a link on his Web site. There should just be a graphic of Mother Nature getting donkey-punched by him and his Texas buddies.)

Foreign Policy and the War on Terror: As president, Kerry says he'd work to re-establish the United States' strained diplomatic relationships with European powers in a hope to pursue "collective security." He opposes the White House's current "go it alone" stance, but at the same time he would never turn over our nation's security to another government. Bush has successfully invaded both Iraq and Afghanistan, giving America two new military installations in the most volatile part of the world. The primary objective of the Afghanistan operation, overthrowing the Taliban, has been met, while the equally important objective of killing Osama bin Laden seems to have fallen to the background. Kerry feels that the military actions in Iraq have diverted America's resources and attention away from Afghanistan and left us without bin Laden and more vulnerable to future attacks. (Just a hunch: Bin Laden'll be "captured" on or around the weekend of Oct. 15).

Kerry also criticizes the Bush administration's absence of a feasible exit strategy as well as the failure to win the peace. What the senator doesn't realize, however, is the Iraqi conflict was settled on May 1, 2003, when Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln wearing a kick-ass jumpsuit.

Bush also appointed a bipartisan commission to investigate 9/11. However, the White House has refused to declassify any of the 27 pages of the commission's findings on possible Saudi involvement and instead has asked for the strengthening of the already suspect Patriot Act. In an interesting development, on Aug. 30, Matt Lauer of NBC's Today Show asked Bush whether the war on terror could be won. Bush replied, "I don't think you can win it." (It is not clear, though, if Bush was referring to the collective American people or if he was simply saying, "I don't think you, Matt Lauer, can win the war on terror.")

Bush has used the war on terror as the centerpiece of his re-election campaign, even at his party's convention this year in New York City where 9/11 was all the rage. Kerry's natural response is that he served in Vietnam. However, he had better be careful on this one, because Vietnam is nowhere near as popular as the war on terror.

One facet of the war on terror that Bush has not publicly milked to death is al-Qaida's alleged plan to disrupt our elections. According to MSNBC, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met with federal election officials in July to discuss whether and how they could be delayed in the event of terrorism.

Critics of the Bush administration allege that the president and Cabinet members are manipulating the terror warning system and this threat specifically for political gain. It was not 72 hours after Kerry accepted his party's nomination that Ridge announced "new" and specific terror threats aimed at our electoral processes. This shifted the national attention towards our ever-present collective fear of death and imminent terrorist doom. The very next day, The New York Times reported that most of the information behind the new terror warning was, in fact, three years old.

Is it scare-mongering or is this really happening? The answer to both questions is yes. Bush's campaign team is not stupid. By increasing the perception of war, conflict and imminent terrorist doom, the incumbents have given themselves an amazing advantage. Would the incumbents really stoop to this? Would they try and parlay the people's collective fear into November victory? The important question here is why wouldn't they?

According to The New York Times, Vice President Dick Cheney warned last month that the United States risks another terrorist attack if voters make "the wrong choice" on Election Day.

And that's why all Americans should do everything within their power to make sure this election is not stalled, for any reason. Millions of people throughout the world and for all time have fought tooth and nail, given their lives for the right to vote. Come hell, terrorism or high water, we must get out there and vote.

Thomas Hynes is a writer for SHOUT magazine and www.raremedia.org in San Francisco. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (800 words), contact Brian Hickey, City Paper interim editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., Pa. 19106 or e-mail hickey@citypaper.net.