Voting and Waiting

The first time was 1948. I was 24 and had fought in a war, but the voting age was 21 then, and I cast my first ballot for Harry Truman, a centrist choice between Republican Thomas E. Dewey ("the little man on the wedding cake," Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice had dubbed him) and the liberal Henry Wallace, who had been Truman's vice president before being dumped from the ticket.

Clare Boothe Luce had pronounced Truman a "gone goose," but the man from Missouri ran a "Give 'em hell, Harry" campaign and won the White House after serving more than three years there in the wake of FDR's death in 1945.

All this ancient history comes back to mind today after my sixteenth vote for a president (more often for a loser than not, thanks to the Bushes) and recalls the range of emotions on Election Days for someone who believes politics really matters.

The two Eisenhower victories were days of resignation, even though I had been a volunteer speech writer for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. In the next decade, to my surprise, I learned to "like Ike" very much.

In the nail-biter between JFK and Nixon in 1960, I went to an afternoon movie to make the time pass but, even so, had to stay up all night to get the final result. It was worth it.

But in 1968, after working for Eugene McCarthy to try to end the war in Vietnam and being tear-gassed at the Democratic convention, I voted but refused to campaign for Hubert Humphrey and regretted my "purism" when Nixon won by less than one percent and went on to give us Watergate.

Since then, Election Days and Nights blur together except for 2000, and the less said and thought about that the better.

Today will be long and hard, but age has taught me to be patient, even in the face of an historic moment I never believed I would live to see. But, as in 1960, the waiting will be worth it.

Lame Duck a la Bush, Side Order of Rice

While Karl Rove was doing his TV victory lap, another Bush stalwart has been missing in action. Condoleeza Rice, once touted as a possible ’08 Presidential candidate, has been out of sight.

A week ago, there was a public moment as the Secretary of State appointed baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr. the nation’s Sports Envoy, starting with a trip to China.

Since then, we have had Rice’s written statement congratulating the Somalia National Reconciliation Congress on completing Phase One of an agreement to stop killing one another--and silence. At yesterday’s Departmental press briefing, her name was not mentioned.

Ironically, as she was disappearing from media radar this month, Rice was named by GQ Magazine “The Most Powerful Person in Washington,” ahead of George Bush and Dick Cheney, one of the hazards of the long lead time of monthly journalism, as I can testify from experience.

It may be that Rice has reached a critical point in the tension between fierce personal loyalty to George W. Bush and her understanding of what history will say about her tenure as Secretary of State.

For months now, rather than front for the lame duck disaster in Iraq, she has been working the fringes of Middle East policy, trying to establish some communication with Iran, joining Secretary of Defense Gates in urging Saudi Arabia to clamp down on Sunni terrorists and making efforts to unblock the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate.

After Rove’s announced departure, her spokesman announced that she will stay the course of the Bush Presidency. But at this point, Condoleeza Rice may also be keenly aware of what loyalty has been doing to the arc of her life from growing up in segregated Birmingham to being named on Time Magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People four times and twice as the Most Powerful Woman in the World by Forbes since the turn of the new century.

Complete career suicide is unlikely to be on her agenda for the future.

Bush on Mt. Rushmore

The George W. Bush Afterlife Society will please come to order. First, the invocation from Rabbi Joe Lieberman:

“(H)e will be judged as a president who saw the threat, and in the midst of an unpopular war, he stuck with it...his ratings among the historians will be greater than his ratings in the polls today.”

The Reverend Rush Limbaugh rises to expand on this theme in today’s sermon:

“Long after we’re all dead and gone, when historians who are not yet born begin to write about this era, they’re going to place George Bush in the upper echelon of presidents who had a great vision for America.”

And then the featured speaker, the theologian and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute Michael Novak, who had a few words to say about the honoree:

"Faith is not enough by itself because there are a lot of people who have faith but weak hearts. But his faith is very strong. He seeks guidance, like every other president does, in prayer. And that means trying to be sure he's doing the right thing. And if you've got that set, all the criticism, it doesn't faze you very much. You're answering to God."

Amen. At this point, members will pray for the historians who answered a survey of the History News Network--338 heretics said they believed President Bush is failing, while 77 said he is succeeding. Fifty heathen thought he was the worst president ever, worse than Buchanan. We will pray for enlightment for these lost souls.

The final item on the agenda this evening will be a report from the Committee to Raise Funds for the George W. Bush Sculpture on Mt. Rushmore