The Truth of Where We Are

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http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/10/10_402.html

 

The Truth of Where We Are

 

The big news from debate number two was not in the answers, but in the

questions.

 

By Joshua Wolf Shenk

 

October 9, 2004

 

 

The real story of last night's debate was not on the stage, where two

men, certain of themselves, roamed around a bright red-carpet with

wireless microphones and American flag pins on their crisp suits. The

story wasn't in the networks' after-party, either, where pundits sat

in judgment like a roundtable of critics after a Broadway show.

 

The real story of last night's debate was in the stands, where a panel

of uncommitted voters assembled and asked, among them, eighteen

piercing questions. The answers to those questions matter, gravely,

but they were remarkably similar to the statements of the first debate

on September 30 and showed, to a large and unfortunate extent, less

interest in direct answers than in pre-fabricated lines, molded by the

rhetorical equivalent of an industrial planning commission.

 

Better than the candidates themselves, the voters who gathered to

query them told of where we are as a country and what challenges we

face. While attending with all due seriousness to the ideas and

characters of President Bush and Senator Kerry, we would do well to

pay strict attention to the reality of our moment, and make our choice

with a firm grounding in that reality.

 

The headlines say that the debate was more or less a draw. This means

less than it might seem to, for two reasons. First, it's totally

unclear whether people, when asked " Who won the debate? " are answering

based on their own evaluation of the candidates, or on some abstracted

sense of how the candidates performed in the eyes of other voters.

The question ought to be, " Based strictly on this debate, who do you

think is better suited to lead this country as president? " Or, " Who

more impressed you tonight with his ideas and ability to lead you,

your family, and your country? "

 

The second reason the polls don't mean much is that we live in a

culture saturated by plot-twists, comebacks, and falls-from-grace. As

surely as Rocky is going to get boxed into a corner and then come out

swinging, we could expect that flash polls would see improvement for

President Bush, even if his performance was remarkably similar.

 

If polling highlights one of our culture's weaknesses -- the use of

technology to search out and broadcast quick and unreliable judgments

-- the format of the debate highlights one of our strengths, our

insistence on direct and unflinching access to candidates. President

Bush kept saying that that Senator Kerry could run but not hide. From

the rough time he's had being out of the bubble of loyalty-tested

crowds, we might say the same of him. Many people are deeply

discouraged about the present state of affairs. But it bears

remembering, and appreciating, that we live in a country where it is

not at all remarkable to see citizens directly questioning their

leaders. Power is in the voters hands.

 

Last night, the called-upon members of the audience exercised that

power decisively and skillfully. Historians who want to know where the

United States stood in 2004 will do well to look over a transcript of

these questions. The fact that, in many cases, they received no

answers only magnifies their importance -- not just for history, of

course, but for the country that will go to the polls on November 2.

 

The questions to President Bush were especially powerful.

 

Robin Dahle: Mr. President, yesterday in a statement you admitted that

Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but justified the

invasion by stating, I quote, 'He retained the knowledge, the

materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass

destruction and could have passed this knowledge to our terrorist

enemies.' Do you sincerely believe this to be a reasonable

justification for invasion when this statement applies to so many

other countries, including North Korea?

 

Nikki Washington: Mr. President ... What is your plan to repair

relations with other countries given the current situation?

 

Matthew O'Brien: Please explain how the spending you have approved and

not paid for is better for the American people than the spending

proposed by your opponent.

 

Rob Fowler: Why are my rights being watered down and my citizens'

around me? And what are the specific justifications?

 

Linda Grabel: President Bush, during the last four years, you have

made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives.

Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made

a wrong decision and what you did to correct it.

 

What do these questions tell us? We are fighting a war abroad that was

begun on pretenses now universally acknowledged to have been false.

We've alienated essential allies. We are deeply in debt, and we

continue to spend more than we earn. Citizen's rights that are

inviolable in peacetime have been suspended with the justification of

a war on terror that was never legally declared and which has no

foreseeable end. In all this, we are led by a man who plainly will not

acknowledge error, even, or perhaps especially, when he is in error.

 

None of this is particularly surprising, because none of it is new.

And none of it is really the crux of the matter. Americans have mostly

made their judgment on President Bush. Given a good alternative,

they'd like to turn him out of office. They're uncertain, however,

that John Kerry would do better. On top of this traditional doubt

about challengers, there is the heightened uncertainty about swapping

leaders in the midst of a war.

 

The questions to John Kerry got straight to the matter of why many

people -- including the crucial swing voters in the crucial swing

states -- hesitate to give him their support.

 

Cheryl Otis: Senator Kerry, after talking with several co-workers and

family and friends, I asked the ones who said they were not voting for

you, " Why? " They said that you were too wishy-washy. Do you have a

reply for them?

 

Ann Bronsing: Senator Kerry, we have been fortunate that there have

been no further terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Why do

you think this is? And if elected, what will you do to assure our safety?

 

Jane Barrow: Senator Kerry, how can the U.S. be competitive in

manufacturing given ... the wage necessary and comfortably accepted

for American workers to maintain the standard of living that they expect?

 

Three-and-a-half weeks before the election, John Kerry still suffers

from three basic problems that these questions illuminate. First, the

attack-ad message that he is an equivator has sunk in to the point of

now being conventional wisdom. It is not likely to be dislodged, but

will have to be overcome. Second, people know that this world is

dangerous and that neither candidate is leveling with them about what

that means. This falls harder on the candidate who argues that he

belongs in the White House because he will level with people in a way

the sitting president clearly will not.

 

The last issue is the one that has gotten the least attention, but

that may be the most important. For more than three decades now, the

basic economic strength of American families has been in decline. The

very technologies that most distract us at home are being used abroad

to suck good jobs -- from manufacturing to software engineering -- to

other lands. The story of progress that has kept this country together

for the last two centuries needs revision, and it has to be begin with

a plain acknowledgment of the facts. As Lincoln said, " If we could

first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then

better judge what to do, and how to do it. "

 

The good news is that the race now finds John Kerry in his strongest

element. He made his public career when he came back from Vietnam and

told Americans, plainly, eloquently, that they were in trouble; that

their leaders were too proud and stubborn to acknowledge the problem;

but that he and his fellow veterans would level with them, and that

the truth would not set the country back, but help move it forward. In

the new documentary film, Going Up River: The Long War of John Kerry

-- which is a must-see for anyone who expects to pass judgment on the

candidate's character -- Kerry told a crowd of war protestors in

Washington, " This is not the struggle of one day or one war. It's a

struggle and an effort and a sacrifice and a contribution that we make

for the rest of our lives. "

 

Now more than ever, the country needs to hear the simple truth. The

men and women of Missouri last night began the conversation, and it's

now up to John Kerry to lead it for the next 25 days.

.. What do you think?

 

Joshua Wolf Shenk is the author of " The Melancholy of Abraham

Lincoln, " forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin, and a past fellow at the

Carter Center, in Atlanta Georgia. He is covering the presidential

debates for MotherJones.com.