There was a time when your well worn essayist lived in Chicago. In former days when employment was accepted from AT&T, that company reserved the right to send its employees where it thought they could best serve the company. And so in the early 1950’s, this former AT&T employee was sent from St. Louis to Kansas City and then to Chicago in a matter of less than four years. There were many disabling features about being moved so often. Foremost among them was finding housing in a tight market in the years following the end of World War II. On the other hand, my two year stint in Chicago was enjoyable and highly rewarding which was attributable to the people who worked and lived there.
Newspaper reading has always been one of my avid interests. Wherever my military assignments took me from Accra, Ghana to Cairo, Egypt to Rome, Italy or to Greenwood, Mississippi, it was my intention to read – or attempt to read – what the papers had to say. But all that reading did not prepare me well for Bertie McCormick’s Chicago Tribune.
The Republican Party is well known for the ideas espoused by its right wing. Bertie McCormick generally managed to take positions to the right of the most conservative reactionary elements of the Republican Party. But McCormick was a wealthy man who wanted things done his way – regardless of the cost and the damage to less well off citizens. He had the financial wherewithal to overwhelm other competitive newspaper publishers.
Bertie had powerful radio and television stations. He named them WGN to stand for “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” No modesty there. He also referred to people within the reach of his communications empire as “Chicagolanders.” Old Bertie thought of us 24 hours a day.
By this time in 2004, it must be supposed that Bertie is an archangel in Paradise, but his right wing spirit lives on. This morning, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Bush for a second term. This comes as a great relief to this old essay writer and former AT&T worker. If Bertie’s successors had endorsed Kerry or Ralph Nader, my heart, brain, lungs, aorta as well as my lower intestinal tract would be so shocked as to render me a casualty and therefore make it possible for me to join Bertie’s army in the sky.
While the Chicago Tribune endorsed Bush, several other papers endorsed John Kerry. The New York Times, the Boston Globe and the St. Louis Post Dispatch all gave enthusiastic endorsement to Kerry. Clearly, the most surprising endorsement came from the Lone Star Iconoclast published in Bush’s home town of Crawford, Texas.
Perhaps a sample of what three papers had to say would be instructive. If agreeable, let us start with words from the first and last sections of the long editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Any suggestion that this paper has been picked to start this sample because it is my home town paper, will be rejected in a compassionate and loving fashion, as Bush would say.
Here is what the Post said on October 10, 2004:
“Based on his record, President George W. Bush has not earned re-election. He has mishandled the war on terrorism, shut his eyes to disagreeable facts, left the next generation in hock and presided over a sharp loss in jobs, health insurance and prosperity for millions of Americans”
The final paragraph, which comes much later says:
“America needs a leader who sees the world as it is, who knows how to rebuild international alliances, who focuses on threats to homeland security, who runs the government for the benefit of all Americans. By virtue of his knowledge of world affairs, his life story of national service and his moderate values, John Kerry is that leader.”
The rest of the endorsement editorial from the St. Louis Post has much to do with George Bush’s failing’s during his current term in Washington.
The New York Times, which has now been my new hometown paper for many years, had an endorsement damning George Bush. In its Sunday edition of October 17, 2004, the Times had these observations:
“But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we have seen. He has the qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent. He strikes us as a man with a strong moral core.
“There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush’s disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned over the government to the radical right.
“All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It’s on these three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.”
From big city newspapers we turn for one final sample to a small town newspaper called the Lone Star Iconoclast published in Bush’s home town of Crawford, Texas. Endorsing any Democrat and especially a Democrat opposing the Crawford hero is probably dangerous business in the great state of Texas. The editor is W. Leon Smith. The editorial published in the Iconoclast on September 28th was called, “Kerry will restore American dignity.”
So far, Leon Smith has paid a high price for exercising the right to free speech in Crawford. His subscription list has been cut in half. His advertising revenue has suffered a similar drop. So the message is clear. Exercising a basic American freedom guaranteed by the Constitution can be very costly in Crawford, Texas. Seemingly, Crawfordites would prefer the self serving adoring accolades in Reverend Moon’s Washington Times. Here is a sample of the editorial that has aroused so much unpleasantness in Crawford:
“Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
- Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in American the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor and senator. Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.
That is why the Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take this country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.”
Editor Leon Smith edits a paper in ultra-conservative country where dissent is often called unpatriotic or perhaps, even treasonous. His editorial was written and published with great courage. Financially, he has paid a heavy price. This is the way the Bush people work. If you don’t endorse all the views and programs of the Bush adherents, there will be an attempt to cripple or crush you financially.
This old essayist is not panting to know what goes on in Crawford, Texas. Keeping up with events in New York City nearly exhausts me. Nonetheless, it seemed important for two New Jersey residents to tell Leon Smith that his words speak the truth. We have subscribed to the Lone Star Iconoclast.
Their address is P.O. Box 420, Crawford, Texas, 76638. The rates are $45 per year or $22.50 for a six month subscription. Crawford needs a moderate voice, even if it is now Bush’s hometown. It would be well to show that Bertie McCormick’s bullying tactics don’t work anymore, even in Texas.
TWO OTHER THOUGHTS
When Bush’s father, George H.W., held office, he asked Brent Scowcroft to serve as his National Security Advisor. That job today is held by Condoleezza Rice.
John Winslaw who lives in a neighboring town, wrote a letter to “The Independent”, a weekly paper servicing this area of New Jersey. Mr. Winslaw’s prose is succinct and persuasive. Here is his letter:
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
President Bush, listen to your father
To the editor:
In 1998, former President Bush and his national-security advisor Brent Scowcroft collaborated on a book entitled, “A World Transformed.” In one section of the book, they explained why they stopped military operations after driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. They wrote that they did not advance to Baghdad to force Saddam Hussein from power because to do so would have involved “incalculable human and political costs.”
Bush and Scowcroft went on to say , “We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well… Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different – and perhaps barren – outcome.”
It’s too bad the current President Bush didn’t listen to his father instead of the “higher authority” he hears inside his head.
John Winslow
Summit, N.J.
On Sunday, October 17, the Boston Globe published a story attributing more damning comments to Brent Scowcroft, who was National Security Adviser to George H. W. Bush. When you read what the Associated Press and the Boston Globe report, please remember that Scowcroft is a Republican.
Scowcroft calls war ‘failing venture’
By Associated Press | October 17, 2004
WASHINGTON — The national security adviser under the first President Bush said the current president acted contemptuously toward NATO and Europe after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and is trying to cooperate now out of desperation to “rescue a failing venture” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Brent Scowcroft, a mentor to the current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also said in an interview published in Britain that Bush is inordinately influenced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel.
“Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger,” Scowcroft told London’s Financial Times. “I think the president is mesmerized.”
Scowcroft said the Bush administration’s “unilateralist” position was partly responsible for the decline of the trans-Atlantic relationship after Sept. 11. “It’s in general bad,” he said. “It’s not really hostile, but there’s an edge to it.”
Early on, he said, “we had gotten contemptuous of Europeans and their weaknesses. We had really turned unilateral.”
Although slightly diminished since then, the unilateralist policies remain fundamentally little changed, Scowcroft said. Recent overtures to cooperate in Afghanistan and Iraq with the United Nations and NATO were “as much an act of desperation as anything else . . . to rescue a failing venture.”
On Israel and Sharon, the former security adviser said Sharon calls Bush after strongly retaliating for a Palestinian suicide attack and says: “I’m on the front line of terrorism,’ and the president says, ‘Yes, you are.’ ”
Scowcroft said Sharon “has been nothing but trouble.”
And finally, here is a short excerpt from the New Yorker Magazine of August 9 and 16, 2004 following the Democratic Convention:
It is obvious that the opposition to Bush is visceral. In the eighth decade of my life, no such division has ever been this great. Not with Franklin Roosevelt, not even with the depressing Herbert Hoover. George Bush is the cause of more hatred in this country than any other public figure known to me. If possible, the hatred he inspires in the United States is probably only 1% of the disdain he has aroused in Europe, Asia and in the Arab countries.
In this essay, it might be contended that this writer cited only liberal publications. The Lone Star Iconoclast may not be a so-called “liberal” paper. The New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have usually taken middle of the road opinions, rather than liberal ones. This ancient writer freely admits that he did not seek out the words of the Chicago Tribune. If Bertie McCormick’s successors were to endorse John Kerry, it would be incumbent upon me to admit that pigs can fly and that goats can sing arias from Rigoletto. If the Trib endorsed Kerry, it would be my hope that a small section of their obituary section would be reserved to record the passage of a New Jersey essayist who collapsed and died from shock.
E. E. CARR
October 19, 2004
~~~
Polarization has really stepped up recently, huh. We’re heading for a near-certain scenario where for three presidents in a row, the citizens of the opposing party consider the president to be one of the worst of all time. Bush was an unadulterated disaster. Obama was excellent by almost every measure, but Republicans think he’s the antichrist. By repeatedly demonstrating that he is clueless and unprincipled, Trump has set himself up to outdo Bush in the race to the bottom. He will stand as the least-prepared, most incompetent person to ever hold the office, and I hope that record never gets broken.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that eventually, America will run out of uneducated, angry white people. Maybe when that happens we can all try to care about facts again.