The other side of 2-faced

I am so-o-o-o-o glad it’s over and so-o-o-o-o glad George Bush won. He didn’t just win, he WON – with the highest vote total in history, in an election with a record number of Americans voting.

We don’t have a count of the non-citizens voting, but that’s another story for another day.

But as much as I love politics, this presidential election was almost more than I could bear. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

The campaign was too long. By the time the conventions ended, I’d had enough. But Kerry’s convention arrival and salute signaled there was more to come. In fact, there was – much more than Kerry anticipated.

He thought a “military panache” to his image would win him the boomer vote as well as the older vets and their families. We’re at war, so he thought he’d be rolling in patriotic votes even though for the sake of his anti-war credentials, he waffled.

Hah! The Swift Boat Vets blasted on the scene, and their testimonies as to what happened with Kerry in Vietnam and after the war literally blew that campaign for a loop. Suddenly, the best-laid plans of his consultants backfired. Kerry never responded directly, didn’t release all his military records and sidestepped too many questions.

After that, it was downhill all the way. Never mind the pandering:

• by attending services and campaigning in black churches (so much for separation of church and state),

• by macho hunting trips with the really tough challenge of bagging farm-raised geese,

• by including his loose-cannon wife in the campaigning – at least until she shot off her mouth once too often and had to be muzzled,

• by posing touchy, feely, huggy with his veep choice whose name has already slipped most minds. (I can still see John Edwards’ teeth glistening like the Cheshire Cat, but the face has faded from memory.)

And especially, never mind his plans. John Kerry had a plan for everything, except he forgot to tell us what they were.

With President Bush, it was an entirely different story. Voters know where Bush stands on the issues – it was easy. He says what he means and means what he says. What a concept!

No wonder the Kerry campaign was flummoxed. When people are used to spinning, deceiving and pandering, encountering an honest man throws them completely off course.

Chris Suellentrop, writing for the liberal Internet site Slate.com on Nov. 5, summed it up nicely as to “Why Kerry lost: He was good. Bush was better.” Ouch!

There was something else about the campaign. Hate. It wasn’t hate of ideas, ideals, political strategy or party line. The Democrat mantra was a constant tirade of personal vindictiveness, of pure hate against the man, George Bush.

You saw it in the most openly partisan mainstream media coverage of the campaign. It was clear in speeches, commentaries, interviews, discussions and commercials. Liberal talk hosts – nationally and locally – ranted and hectored without letup against President Bush. To them, he is the personification of evil. I loved the comment of one: “We’re the only moral ones.”

But since John Kerry lost the election, that hate has taken a different turn, even against their own. Author Hunter S. Thompson, in an interview in the Aspen Daily News, referred to the effort by the Dems to capture the youth vote: “Yeah, we rocked the vote all right. Those little bastards betrayed us again.”

Yeah, that should get them loyalty.

In her Slate article, the overly praised writer Jane Smiley launched her fusillade of insults, but this time against the people who voted for President Bush.

If you wondered what it means when (take your pick) Democrats/liberals/progressives/socialists/communists are referred to as elites, consider these descriptions by Smiley of Republicans, conservatives and others who voted for the Bush-Cheney ticket:

• “ignorant,” “greedy” and “full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.”

• “full of original sin” with “a taste for violence.”

• their religion is filled with fire and brimstone, stoking fear of the devil and retains its control over people by keeping them ignorant and non-thinking.

• “love to cheat and intimidate”

• “are borne of hubris and hatred”

Smiley claims Ronald Reagan told those dumb clucks “they could do anything they wanted.” She concludes that they “do not want to be told what to do … prefer to be ignorant … are virtually unteachable.”

Is that elite enough for you?

She says Dick Cheney represents “big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know” who use the religious right in a class war against the middle class.

She says the Bush-Cheney team “knows no boundaries or rules … are predatory, resentful, amoral, avaricious and arrogant.”

According to her, those who voted for them just “don’t know which end is up.”

Her conclusion? “The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry.”

My conclusion? The gloves are off – no more Mr. Nice Guy. I hope George Bush is listening.