NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND
A TALE OF TWO JOHNS
By Laurie Meunier Graves
They share the same name, but their backgrounds couldn’t be more different.
One John comes from a wealthy New England family, and he has had what might
be called a privileged life. He went to the best schools, knew the right
people, and has had advantages most of us only dream of. Still, when he was
young, this did not prevent him from making a difficult, dangerous choice
that many men of his generation rejected, and when he was literally under
fire, his courageous actions saved lives. Tall, dark, and serious, often
accused of “looking French,” he has a gravity that seems at odds with the
boldness and courage he displayed as a young man. Yet, both are part of the
same person, and to my way of thinking, they come together to make a
pleasing wholeness.
The other John is from the South, the son of a millworker and a postal
employee. As a child, he went to public schools and later attended state
universities, where he got a law degree. The first person in his family to
go to college, he knows what it means to have to work for a living and to
live on a budget, where going out to eat means going to Wendy’s. To a large
extent, his success has come from within, a combination of hard work and a
bright intellect, yet unlike many who have left a working-class life, he has
not forgotten the daily trials of “the common folk.” Despite the hard work
and the death of a beloved son, he has, at the age of fifty-one, youthful
good looks and the glow of charisma around him. His oratorical
skills are almost legendary, and I have heard that when he was practicing
law, other lawyers used to crowd the courthouse to listen to his closing
arguments. Like the other John, he is a combination of opposite traits,
which again comes together to make a pleasing whole.
I am sure by now readers will have concluded I am referring to John Kerry
and John Edwards, the Democratic candidates running for president and vice
president of the United States. Furthermore, regular readers of this column
and indeed this journal will have by now figured out I am a liberal Democrat
and proud of it. Despite the far Right’s attempt to cast liberals in the
same light as, say, Communists, or even Nazis, I make no apologies for my
affiliation. Indeed, I am proud to be part of a party that, in the twentieth
century, has had consistent compassion and regard for “the common folk,”
who, after all, are the backbone of this country. Finally, it will come as
no surprise that I give a wholehearted endorsement to these two Johns, who
despite all they have going for them, are facing formidable opponents.
While no one would ever accuse President George Bush or Vice President Dick
Cheney of being intellectuals, they both have a canny political intelligence
and a powerful base of support that has served them well over the past four
years. Right from the start, when they interfered with the Florida recount
in the presidential election of 2000 and allowed the Supreme Court to decide
the outcome, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were so relentless and
aggressive, so skilled at manipulating the press, that they managed to
convince the country Al Gore was a spoilsport for insisting on a recount,
something he had every right to demand.
From this spurious beginning came other successes. This administration cowed
Congress and the country into believing tax cuts for the wealthy were just
what this country needed to get itself back on track. As a result, they
turned this country’s surplus into a deficit. Did this faze them? Indeed it
did not. “Reagan proved deficits don't matter,” Dick Cheney allegedly told
Paul O'Neill, the former secretary of treasury, and this has certainly been
this administration’s attitude. Somehow, the trickle-down effect was
supposed to overcome the deficit and make life good for us common folk.
Well, so far it hasn’t, and I’m not holding my breath. Job loss, healthcare,
the cost of housing, and the cost of higher education have all come together
to pinch families in a way they haven’t been pinched in a long time. Bill Moyers put it succinctly when he said, “This year alone, more people will
end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. And more people will file
for bankruptcy than will graduate from college.” There are a record number
of middle-class families claiming bankruptcy, yet President Bush continues
to proclaim all is well, and, so far, he seems to be getting away with it.
However, nothing can compare with how this administration has handled the
very real war on terrorism. They turned this country’s attention and
resources away from the true culprits, Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, and
convinced us Iraq was the danger. We were told Iraq was a credible threat.
Supposedly, Iraq had ties with Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction, and
was beginning to develop nuclear weapons. National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice insisted we could not wait for the “mushroom cloud.” A
grave warning, indeed. However, every one of the assertions has been proven
false, yet the Bush administration continues blithely on its wrong-headed
course, refusing to admit that it made any mistakes. In the meantime, Osama
bin Laden roams free; Iraq has disintegrated into civil war and chaos where
American troops are killed daily; and there seems to be no good resolution
in sight. Again, this administration has managed to convince a large number
of people that this country is on the right track and invading Iraq was the
thing to do.
This November, our country will be presented with a clear choice, and we
will discover the ending of the tale of two Johns. Will the country come to
its collective senses and vote for two men who are smart, compassionate,
courageous, and engaged? Or, will it vote for two men who, to put it mildly,
have made a bad situation worse and have squandered what resources and good
will they had?
One final John story. At the Democratic convention in Boston, one of John
Kerry’s daughters related how on a family trip, the family hamster, cage and
all, literally found itself in deep water and sinking fast. Without
hesitation, John Kerry dived into the water, rescued the hamster, and even
did a little CPR on the waterlogged rodent. The hamster recovered, and all
was well.
Even if I weren’t a liberal Democrat, this story would clinch it for me. To
rescue fellow soldiers in a battle is brave and admirable, but it is no more
than what we would expect from a leader. (We should reasonably be able to
assume George Bush would have done a similar thing if he had ever been in
battle.) However, to save the family pet indicates Kerry’s concern for his
daughter and his compassion for all life. It also illustrates that John
Kerry is someone you can count on to rescue creatures great and small. And
if ever there were a time our country needed rescuing, it is now.
Being an optimist, I am hopeful that the tale of two Johns will have a happy
ending; that come next January, we will have President Kerry and Vice
President Edwards to lead the country; that George Bush will return to his
ranch in Crawford, Texas, and spend the rest of his days clearing brush and
tumbling from his bike; that Dick Cheney will return to wherever the heck it
is he came from. And that the United States will begin the task of
rebuilding itself after four disastrous years. After all, isn’t this
supposed to be the land of happy endings?
