Robert L. Borosage
May 07, 2007
Robert L. Borosage is the co-director of the Institute for America's Future. This article first appeared inThe Huffington Post .
Ten white guys in dark suits and bright ties to answer questions. Three white guys in dark suits and bright ties to ask them. Stale ideas fit the staid image at the first Republican presidential debate Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. MSNBC should have broadcast the event in black and white. The Gipper himself would have felt at home.
What do these monochromatic candidates offer? Without exception, war and more war. No exit from Iraq. New confrontation with Iran, with only former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani mumbling a hint of caution. For former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, brandishing his newborn wing-nut credentials, it’s war not just against al Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, but against Shia and Sunni, Hezbollah and Hamas and more. Wartime for America.
All this is done while invoking Ronald Reagan’s sunny optimism. But they’ve forgotten Reagan’s basic caution. While he committed serial follies in the Middle East, Reagan never got caught in a losing war. When the Marines he fecklessly dispatched to Lebanon were blown up, he cut and ran, invading hapless Grenada to cover his retreat. And when the USSR’s Mikhail Gorbachev sued for peace, Reagan ignored the CIA, which called it a trick, spurned the neocons and went to the negotiating table.
Giuliani laughably invoked Reagan’s aura as the answer to the Iranian threat when he referred to the American embassy employees taken hostage in 1979 who were set to be released before Reagan was even elected. “When they looked into his eyes,” Giuliani said, “they released the hostages in two minutes.” He neglected to mention the taking of additional U.S. hostages on Reagan’s watch, which led the Gipper to trample the law, “negotiate with terrorists” and offer up arms for hostages. That debacle ended in the Iran-Contra scandals that eviscerated the last years of the Reagan presidency. So much for looking in his eyes.
War abroad will be combined with continued decline at home. The contenders showed no deviation from Bush’s noxious economic package — top-end tax cuts, corporate trade outsourcing, deregulation, cutbacks in domestic spending. They offered up new tax breaks for the affluent — an elimination of the estate tax to relieve the idle heirs of multimillionaires and a flat tax that would cut rates for the top and raise them for the rest. Romney creatively called for eliminating capital gains taxes for the “middle class” — which at least wouldn’t cost much since the indebted middle class doesn’t earn much of them.
How would the military adventure and tax cuts be paid for? Spending cuts, all echoed, as each vied to show he wielded the biggest veto tool. Where would these cuts come from? “Pork-barrel spending and earmarks,” Arizona Sen. John McCain repeated. But that offers up but a pittance. In reality, the cuts would have to come — as they have in the past — from investment in education, clean water and safe food, children and the poor, research and development, alternative energy and basic infrastructure. All would add to America’s staggering deficit in basic investments vital to our future. Mourning in America.
On occasion, reason broke through the expressions of conservative faith. A majority confessed to believing in evolution. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee noticed that Americans were losing good jobs and U.S. manufacturers were going under. McCain and Giuliani (sort of) embraced Nancy Reagan’s support for stem cell research, heretical in the eyes of Reaganites. Giuliani at least waffled on a woman’s right to choose, while the rest seemed ready to start prosecuting doctors and women for murder.
Of the front-runners, Giuliani seemed befuddled by the daunting task of slaking the appetites of the fundamentalist right that has a death grip on the GOP primaries. McCain seemed weirdly robotic, on autopilot, intoning lines from his stump speech and then smiling proudly like a schoolboy happy to get the answer right. Romney had the tan, the jaw, the glib jabber of a Hollywood president. But his transformation into a right-wing zealot—which began conveniently two years ago when he first considered running for president—knows no limit and no shame. He’s all in—from abortion to stem cells to God as his pilot—and too slick to make anyone believe it.
As expected, the candidates gingerly distanced themselves from Bush’s debacles—the war was “terribly mismanaged,” McCain told us twice—and wrapped themselves in Reagan’s optimism. All were happy to volunteer ways they differed with Bush—they’d spend less, veto more, send more troops, manage better. Brownback invoked the need for Reagan’s “big ideas,” but nary a one was in evidence.
The divorce from reality—on the part of both questioners and candidateswould have made the Gipper proud. Denial of the fact there is no military solution to the failed occupation of Iraq. No mention of our Gilded Age inequality, or broken health care system (“the best in the world,” Giuliani boasted). They fixated on our budget deficits, which are the smallest of the industrial world, and ignored our unsustainable trade deficits and global debt, which are the largest in the annals of time and leave us dependent on the kindness of Asian central bankers. No mention of the families trying to raise children without affordable day care, paid vacation days, paid sick days or family leave. Not a word about college that is getting priced out of the reach of more and more Americans.
They offer themselves to lead America. But not only did those on the stage not look like today’s America, it wasn’t apparent that they were looking at today’s America.
May 07, 2007
Robert L. Borosage is the co-director of the Institute for America's Future. This article first appeared inThe Huffington Post .
Ten white guys in dark suits and bright ties to answer questions. Three white guys in dark suits and bright ties to ask them. Stale ideas fit the staid image at the first Republican presidential debate Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. MSNBC should have broadcast the event in black and white. The Gipper himself would have felt at home.
What do these monochromatic candidates offer? Without exception, war and more war. No exit from Iraq. New confrontation with Iran, with only former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani mumbling a hint of caution. For former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, brandishing his newborn wing-nut credentials, it’s war not just against al Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, but against Shia and Sunni, Hezbollah and Hamas and more. Wartime for America.
All this is done while invoking Ronald Reagan’s sunny optimism. But they’ve forgotten Reagan’s basic caution. While he committed serial follies in the Middle East, Reagan never got caught in a losing war. When the Marines he fecklessly dispatched to Lebanon were blown up, he cut and ran, invading hapless Grenada to cover his retreat. And when the USSR’s Mikhail Gorbachev sued for peace, Reagan ignored the CIA, which called it a trick, spurned the neocons and went to the negotiating table.
Giuliani laughably invoked Reagan’s aura as the answer to the Iranian threat when he referred to the American embassy employees taken hostage in 1979 who were set to be released before Reagan was even elected. “When they looked into his eyes,” Giuliani said, “they released the hostages in two minutes.” He neglected to mention the taking of additional U.S. hostages on Reagan’s watch, which led the Gipper to trample the law, “negotiate with terrorists” and offer up arms for hostages. That debacle ended in the Iran-Contra scandals that eviscerated the last years of the Reagan presidency. So much for looking in his eyes.
War abroad will be combined with continued decline at home. The contenders showed no deviation from Bush’s noxious economic package — top-end tax cuts, corporate trade outsourcing, deregulation, cutbacks in domestic spending. They offered up new tax breaks for the affluent — an elimination of the estate tax to relieve the idle heirs of multimillionaires and a flat tax that would cut rates for the top and raise them for the rest. Romney creatively called for eliminating capital gains taxes for the “middle class” — which at least wouldn’t cost much since the indebted middle class doesn’t earn much of them.
How would the military adventure and tax cuts be paid for? Spending cuts, all echoed, as each vied to show he wielded the biggest veto tool. Where would these cuts come from? “Pork-barrel spending and earmarks,” Arizona Sen. John McCain repeated. But that offers up but a pittance. In reality, the cuts would have to come — as they have in the past — from investment in education, clean water and safe food, children and the poor, research and development, alternative energy and basic infrastructure. All would add to America’s staggering deficit in basic investments vital to our future. Mourning in America.
On occasion, reason broke through the expressions of conservative faith. A majority confessed to believing in evolution. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee noticed that Americans were losing good jobs and U.S. manufacturers were going under. McCain and Giuliani (sort of) embraced Nancy Reagan’s support for stem cell research, heretical in the eyes of Reaganites. Giuliani at least waffled on a woman’s right to choose, while the rest seemed ready to start prosecuting doctors and women for murder.
Of the front-runners, Giuliani seemed befuddled by the daunting task of slaking the appetites of the fundamentalist right that has a death grip on the GOP primaries. McCain seemed weirdly robotic, on autopilot, intoning lines from his stump speech and then smiling proudly like a schoolboy happy to get the answer right. Romney had the tan, the jaw, the glib jabber of a Hollywood president. But his transformation into a right-wing zealot—which began conveniently two years ago when he first considered running for president—knows no limit and no shame. He’s all in—from abortion to stem cells to God as his pilot—and too slick to make anyone believe it.
As expected, the candidates gingerly distanced themselves from Bush’s debacles—the war was “terribly mismanaged,” McCain told us twice—and wrapped themselves in Reagan’s optimism. All were happy to volunteer ways they differed with Bush—they’d spend less, veto more, send more troops, manage better. Brownback invoked the need for Reagan’s “big ideas,” but nary a one was in evidence.
The divorce from reality—on the part of both questioners and candidateswould have made the Gipper proud. Denial of the fact there is no military solution to the failed occupation of Iraq. No mention of our Gilded Age inequality, or broken health care system (“the best in the world,” Giuliani boasted). They fixated on our budget deficits, which are the smallest of the industrial world, and ignored our unsustainable trade deficits and global debt, which are the largest in the annals of time and leave us dependent on the kindness of Asian central bankers. No mention of the families trying to raise children without affordable day care, paid vacation days, paid sick days or family leave. Not a word about college that is getting priced out of the reach of more and more Americans.
They offer themselves to lead America. But not only did those on the stage not look like today’s America, it wasn’t apparent that they were looking at today’s America.
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