Rex Murphy's handwringing.
Twice a week I get all tingly, and I silently, fulsomely thank the Globe and Mail for bringing us John Ibbitson (it's the same warmth I feel toward David Remnick for bringing us Hendrik Hertzberg at least every other week) and then I'm tempted to read the other op-eds in the Globe. Today's edition finds Rex Murphy, feeling really prosy, saying this about the Katrina aftermath:
The failures of planning and response may, in part, be set down to that sense of immunity to disaster, our sense of favoured exceptionalism, that has seeded itself in the West. The recklessness and criminality on display from some in New Orleans perhaps belongs to some territory beyond explanation. Both factors have made a horror more horrible.
However, there is one aspect of the debate that is a very troubling signal of the state of American politics now. The ferocity of unstoppable partisan frenzy, which began with the first news of Katrina's landfall, is, I fear, almost too much for the American political system to contain. For the antagonists of George W. Bush, there is nothing too grotesque or outrageous by way of insinuation or allegation to lay on his doorstep. Of which the charge that racism "explains" whatever shortcomings the U.S. federal response may have displayed is both the most vivid and toxic.
A great natural calamity is just another stick to wield in the partisan wars. American politics is day by day more a continuous fever of accusation, irrational hostility, and destructiveness. Partisan combat knows no limits. A democratic system cannot be sustained under such a pitch of opportunism and cynicism.
The dead have not been numbered, grief has not been given its time -- and, yet, partisanship rages on. This may be Katrina's second dour gift: the eclipse of American politics.
Good God. I personally agree with Ezra and Michael Froomkin that hurling racism charges at Bush misses the point and is probably even "unfair" on a personal level(though Froomkin's commentators make good arguments to the contrary). But what country does Rex Murphy think he's living in to be bemoaning the overheatedness of partisanship?
Just as a small example of what I mean, back in the summer, when the Tories were trying to bring down the minority federal government on one of several potential non-confidence votes, a mini-scandal arose when the Tories became convinced that the Liberals were trying to stage a crucial budget vote specifically when two Tory MPs were out of Parliament for terminal cancer treatment. "We're not going to play another week so that (Martin) can hope the health of some members of Parliament deteriorates," said Steven Harper. "Next they'll be dragging in Tiny Tim" said Liberal-leaning MP Carolyn Parrish when the Conservatives had their two cancer sufferers take the floor during Question Period. Jack Layton accused everybody of using cancer sufferers as "political footballs". And that was just two days of the fun that transpired throughout the Summer of Not-Quite-Non-Confidence. Not long afterward, the Tories started running TV ads against the Liberals claiming that "Paul Martin will do anything to hang on to power. He eliminated parliamentary debate on Liberal corruption. He blew $4.6 billion of your money to buy off the NDP." Harper later called the Liberal-NDP budget the work of a "red-orange coalition" with everything that implies. Then there was the intrigue surrounding the Bloc. Gilles Duceppe, right before a budget vote that the Liberals won, declared that "Beyond the simple arithmetic in the House of Commons, Paul Martin no longer has any credibility or legitimacy'' to govern. A few weeks later, Duceppe's party happily screwed over the Conservatives to preserve the government when their election prospects started to look a bit dimmer. Accusations of "demagoguery", "secret plans to destroy Medicare", "vote-buying", "desperation"... you name it, filled the air and the papers and the halls of Parliament. And that's not even getting into the sponsorship scandal or the early leaks from the Gomery Report.
Yup, we Canadians can do "accusation, irrational hostility and destructiveness" with the best of world's political classes. Really, the difference between our partisan mudslinging and the American version is that up here it's the politicians themselves who actually say these things, while with the Americans, its the political observers who are the most overheated. American pundits clutch their pearls when Howard Dean calls the Republicans "pretty much a white, Christian party" or when Nancy Pelosi calls Bush a "dangerous" leader. Up here, these kinds of comments are just the markers of a good day's Question Period. If anything, American pols aren't frank enough, particularly compared to their fiery Canadian counterparts. Jack Layton annoys the crap out of me, but it's because I'm a card-carrying Liberal and he's constantly effectively dissing my man Martin and pushing on him from the left. By contrast, the Democratic critique of Bush hasn't been particularly convincing, not enough heat or light (with exceptions, of course.)
The "opportunism and cynicism" Murphy is on about really refers more to the sort of Bush-hating shmoes who comment on blogs or write letters to the editor, or picket occassionally in front of the White House, or maybe about the stray rap star going one comment too far (if that) -- after an otherwise rather poignant monologue on Katrina -- on national TV. I understand the sensation perfectly well; partisanship can be blind. But what does it matter? People have opinions, particularly about things they care about, and Americans care a lot about politics right now.
And that's a good thing. At a time when turnout in presidential elections has basically caught up with our own declining turnout in federal elections, maybe we should wish that the hyperbole coming from parliamentarians would spread to the Martin-, Harper-, Layton- antagonists out there in cyberspace or in bars and coffeeshops across the land. For all its lack of delicacy, an angry, hyperbolic, tuned-in electorate basically beats a disinterested one, faintly distrustful of the status quo and easily influenced by the reflexively cynical, studiously non-partisan media. That's what brought us Bush to begin with, and what I fear could bring us Harper, if he gets his party's act together. On the other hand, that's probably want Murphy wants...
The failures of planning and response may, in part, be set down to that sense of immunity to disaster, our sense of favoured exceptionalism, that has seeded itself in the West. The recklessness and criminality on display from some in New Orleans perhaps belongs to some territory beyond explanation. Both factors have made a horror more horrible.
However, there is one aspect of the debate that is a very troubling signal of the state of American politics now. The ferocity of unstoppable partisan frenzy, which began with the first news of Katrina's landfall, is, I fear, almost too much for the American political system to contain. For the antagonists of George W. Bush, there is nothing too grotesque or outrageous by way of insinuation or allegation to lay on his doorstep. Of which the charge that racism "explains" whatever shortcomings the U.S. federal response may have displayed is both the most vivid and toxic.
A great natural calamity is just another stick to wield in the partisan wars. American politics is day by day more a continuous fever of accusation, irrational hostility, and destructiveness. Partisan combat knows no limits. A democratic system cannot be sustained under such a pitch of opportunism and cynicism.
The dead have not been numbered, grief has not been given its time -- and, yet, partisanship rages on. This may be Katrina's second dour gift: the eclipse of American politics.
Good God. I personally agree with Ezra and Michael Froomkin that hurling racism charges at Bush misses the point and is probably even "unfair" on a personal level(though Froomkin's commentators make good arguments to the contrary). But what country does Rex Murphy think he's living in to be bemoaning the overheatedness of partisanship?
Just as a small example of what I mean, back in the summer, when the Tories were trying to bring down the minority federal government on one of several potential non-confidence votes, a mini-scandal arose when the Tories became convinced that the Liberals were trying to stage a crucial budget vote specifically when two Tory MPs were out of Parliament for terminal cancer treatment. "We're not going to play another week so that (Martin) can hope the health of some members of Parliament deteriorates," said Steven Harper. "Next they'll be dragging in Tiny Tim" said Liberal-leaning MP Carolyn Parrish when the Conservatives had their two cancer sufferers take the floor during Question Period. Jack Layton accused everybody of using cancer sufferers as "political footballs". And that was just two days of the fun that transpired throughout the Summer of Not-Quite-Non-Confidence. Not long afterward, the Tories started running TV ads against the Liberals claiming that "Paul Martin will do anything to hang on to power. He eliminated parliamentary debate on Liberal corruption. He blew $4.6 billion of your money to buy off the NDP." Harper later called the Liberal-NDP budget the work of a "red-orange coalition" with everything that implies. Then there was the intrigue surrounding the Bloc. Gilles Duceppe, right before a budget vote that the Liberals won, declared that "Beyond the simple arithmetic in the House of Commons, Paul Martin no longer has any credibility or legitimacy'' to govern. A few weeks later, Duceppe's party happily screwed over the Conservatives to preserve the government when their election prospects started to look a bit dimmer. Accusations of "demagoguery", "secret plans to destroy Medicare", "vote-buying", "desperation"... you name it, filled the air and the papers and the halls of Parliament. And that's not even getting into the sponsorship scandal or the early leaks from the Gomery Report.
Yup, we Canadians can do "accusation, irrational hostility and destructiveness" with the best of world's political classes. Really, the difference between our partisan mudslinging and the American version is that up here it's the politicians themselves who actually say these things, while with the Americans, its the political observers who are the most overheated. American pundits clutch their pearls when Howard Dean calls the Republicans "pretty much a white, Christian party" or when Nancy Pelosi calls Bush a "dangerous" leader. Up here, these kinds of comments are just the markers of a good day's Question Period. If anything, American pols aren't frank enough, particularly compared to their fiery Canadian counterparts. Jack Layton annoys the crap out of me, but it's because I'm a card-carrying Liberal and he's constantly effectively dissing my man Martin and pushing on him from the left. By contrast, the Democratic critique of Bush hasn't been particularly convincing, not enough heat or light (with exceptions, of course.)
The "opportunism and cynicism" Murphy is on about really refers more to the sort of Bush-hating shmoes who comment on blogs or write letters to the editor, or picket occassionally in front of the White House, or maybe about the stray rap star going one comment too far (if that) -- after an otherwise rather poignant monologue on Katrina -- on national TV. I understand the sensation perfectly well; partisanship can be blind. But what does it matter? People have opinions, particularly about things they care about, and Americans care a lot about politics right now.
And that's a good thing. At a time when turnout in presidential elections has basically caught up with our own declining turnout in federal elections, maybe we should wish that the hyperbole coming from parliamentarians would spread to the Martin-, Harper-, Layton- antagonists out there in cyberspace or in bars and coffeeshops across the land. For all its lack of delicacy, an angry, hyperbolic, tuned-in electorate basically beats a disinterested one, faintly distrustful of the status quo and easily influenced by the reflexively cynical, studiously non-partisan media. That's what brought us Bush to begin with, and what I fear could bring us Harper, if he gets his party's act together. On the other hand, that's probably want Murphy wants...
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