The Wright Angle
June 18, 2007

News from around the political arena

By Scott Wright

Lowell tries the high road
In case you haven't been following the news lately -- and judging by the absence of an angry mob armed with torches and pitchforks pounding on the front door of the White House right-freaking-now, many of you haven't -- I thought I would adorn this week's column with a collection of recent news items.

Come on, keep reading. The crossword can wait. You might even learn something that'll keep you from sounding like a moron the next time you're cornered at a social gathering with people who actually pay attention to the world around them.

First off, there was good news from the two Alabama senators whose disagreement ended in a physical confrontation before a bank of TV cameras. Fyffe's Lowell Barron, who called fellow Sen. Charles Bishop an SOB on the floor of the state Senate earlier this month (and rightfully received a mouthful of teeth in return) said he won't press charges against Bishop for his closed-fisted attempt at reverse dentistry.

By his actions, Bishop, a Republican from Jasper, pretty much made himself and everyone else in Alabama look like an idiot the world over when he whacked Barron, a Democrat. Thanks a lot, Chuck. The video footage made The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, along with a bunch of other news outlets that no one watches, namely Fox News and CNN. Jay Leno and David Letterman took their swipes at Sweet Home Alabama, too. Yes sir, the state took a real beating across the nation and the entire world, and it wasn't a glancing blow like the one Bishop delivered (I was kidding about the teeth).

Fortunately, for Bishop at least, the amount of scorn he caused the state is more than adequately tempered by the heaping helping Alabamians have already been subjected to from the rest of the state Senate.

Remember? First, they voted themselves a 61 percent pay raise; then, they didn't do a thing for the next four months except argue over who was going to sit where; finally, last week, on their way out the door to go home and tell their constituents that the sham the state's “upper” chamber has become is someone else's fault, they voted themselves a 68 percent discount on their state-sponsored health insurance.

It seems to me it's a little late in the game for Lowell Barron (or any other state senator) to try and take the high road by not taking Bishop to court. I wish he'd go ahead and press charges. Maybe the judge who hears the case will call Alabama's other 33 senators to testify, realize what a low-down, sorry lot he's dealing with, and toss them all out on their asses.


McCain? McDone; Fred fails, too
The only politician Republicans are abandoning faster than President Bush these days is poor old John McCain. The war hero and Arizona senator recently pulled out of a straw poll in Iowa because his campaign “is showing signs of unraveling,” according to a report in the June 13 Washington Times.

According to the story, McCain's donations are drying up because of his controversial stances on core conservative issues.

“Even in his own state … 60 percent of the people oppose the amnesty for illegal aliens that he favors,” Republican fundraiser Gary Kirk said of McCain in Times article. “He has undercut his own party … on tax cuts, campaign finance and other issues.”

A recent Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll shows McCain has the support of only 12 percent of Republicans, while Rudy Giuliani's numbers are more than twice as good, at 27 percent. Actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, who hasn't even officially entered the race, is at 21 percent. In the same poll, 22 percent of Republicans said they would not vote for McCain “under any circumstances.”

So barring a miraculous turnaround in Iraq, combined with the simultaneous surrender and voluntary deportation of the 15 million illegal aliens currently living in the United States, we're likely about to see the last of John McCain. For many Republicans and even a few Democrats, McCain's soon-to-be two failed attempts at the White House were fun while they lasted.

Moving on, political commentator George Will wrote in the most recent issue of Newsweek that Thompson, the former lawyer and “Law & Order” star, may be the next bright light to shine for the GOP, albeit briefly: “Some say (Thompson) is the Republicans' Rorschach test: They all see in him with they crave. Or he may be the Republicans' dot-com bubble.”

Will, as close to a political genius as many of us will ever have the chance to read, warns that Thompson might be exactly what the GOP doesn't need in the long run: “What enthusiasts are smitten by, so far, is (Thompson's) manner. He deep-fried Southernness bears a strong resemblance to the Southwesternness of, say, Midland, Texas, (but) the country may have had its fill of that flavor.”

Obviously, the bow tie-clad Will -- the conservative's conservative -- doesn't think much of Thompson's abilities or his odds of winning over a majority of his fellows. After running through a laundry list of Thompson shortcomings, including an incongruous stance on campaign finance reform and an all-around lack of pretty much anything other than a newcomer's charm, Will concludes his column thusly: “A sound you may soon hear from the Thompson campaign may be the soft 'pop' of a bursting bubble.”

If my (and many others') prediction about McCain proves correct, and Will turns out to be right about Right Said Fred, that leaves Rudy and Mitt Romney to try and take the White House for the GOP. Yikes.


Complexity required
Speaking of the coming presidential campaign, there was an interesting op-ed piece in last week's USA Today titled “Wanted: A president with a complex mind.” Obviously, I don't need to tell you which chief executive columnist (and Harvard University professor) Robert Kegan used for contrast.

Still, Kegan -- unjustifiably, in my opinion -- gives President Bush a smidgen of credit in the concluding sentence of one of his early paragraphs. “The tragedy of the Bush presidency is not about failure; it is about a conception of success that is much too simple.”

Ah, but Kegan's follow-up paragraphs quite adequately fill the void. Certainly, George W. Bush is a simpleton if ever there was one. And Kegan backs up that notion with analogical analysis of Bush's foreign policy -- specifically, the Iraq war.

“The real world is not a western movie. In 'High Noon,' when the lone heroic actor succeeds, the town is saved. In the real world, a super-power sheriff acting essentially by himself … imperils the global town no matter the outcome of the gunfight.”

Kegan asserts that in Bush's “simple world,” a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq seems illogical because it will surely have the counterbalancing effect of girding the will of the terrorists. However, in Kegan's analysis, America's desires to increase the political strength of Arab moderates who can “form alliances with the West that will withstand tough, mutual demands for accountability” require real-world considerations; specifically, that any rise of Arab moderates “cannot occur while we continue to occupy.”

Kegan also believes there should be ample consideration of the possibility that an American withdrawal from Iraq “could ultimately place the terrorists in a weaker position.”

Kegan argues that America will not have learned anything from the previous six years' worth of international folly unless this one fact comes to the forefront when voters choose the next commander in chief: As dangerous as the real world is, a simple world like the one George W. Bush calls home is an even more dangerous place.

According to Kegan, there is at least one litmus test that eluded the electorate when it chose George W. Bush. He insists it must be asked, repeatedly, as we close in on November 2008: does the candidate in question have “a mind that can be in conversation with itself, or is it blissfully unencumbered by alternative possibilities?”

Kegan claims the question should be asked of all potential chief executives, for, “In a complex world, a complex mind in the leader is no luxury. We simply cannot afford otherwise.”

Halfway through the second term of the Gomer Pyle presidency, Kegan's seems like the most obvious statement anyone has ever uttered.

If only the voters had thought to ask Kegan's question 6½ years ago, maybe simple-minded George W. Bush and his dumbed-down foreign policy wouldn't have ever had the chance to lower our nation's status throughout the rest of the "real world" to the most despised country on the planet.