Can we talk?

There's a good article by Paul Loeb today over at Working For Change on how President Bush and others respond to criticism and questioning of their policies.

A former Air Force Colonel I know described the administration's attitude toward dissent as "shut up and color," as if we were unruly eight-year-olds. Whatever we may think of Bush's particular policies, the most dangerous thing he's done is to promote a culture that equates questioning with treason. This threatens the dialogue that's at the core of our republic.

I don't know how many of you have seen that movie Cool Runnings. It's the story of the first Jamaican Bobsled Team. Kind of a feel good movie. Anyway when they get to the Olympics the captain of the team comes to really admire the Swiss team (I think). He admires them so much that he tries to get his team to act Swiss (which, needless to say, they don't appreciate).

One of his teammates finally says, "Im telling you as a friend, if we look Jamaican, walk Jamaican, talk Jamaican and is Jamaican, then we sure as hell better bobsled Jamaican." Maybe we ought to try debating American.

For 200 years we've been debating and arguing and discussing and hashing out our differences. Now we are in the 21st century and all of a sudden that's not the way it works? I disagree. I think we need some good old American debate and discussion, argument and dissent.

President Bush, apparently, has a different idea about how to conduct a political campaign in America. He and his advisors want him to face only crowds of people who support his policies and love him personally. So much that, as Corrente reports, some guy lost his job for questioning President Bush.

This might also be influenced by the fact that I finally saw Outfoxed this weekend which contains a nice montage of Fox Poster Boy Bill O'Reilly saying over and over again that those who oppose President Bush are traitors, and should be in what he ominously describes as the Spotlight.

Fortunately in my mind we have a candidate on the Democrat Side who understands the American way of debating. John Kerry isn't out there in small handpicked audiences; he's in front of thousands, hecklers and all. He's not afraid of the "bully" tactics of the right, and that's one of the reasons I support him.