American Politics Journal -- Shut Your Eyes and Vomit

Mac MacArthur Takes On the "Sniffing" Bill Buckley's Essay, Close Your Eyes and Distinguish
Shut Your Eyes... and Vomit!

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 1999 -- WASHINGTON (APJNS) -- In honor of Bill Buckley giving the "Kevorkian" treatment to his weekly PBS interview program Firing Line, Mac MacArthur replies to Buckley's most recent essay. Enjoy!

Buckley's original is in black; Mac's comments are in green.

The appearance of the six Republican candidates in debate on Monday brings to mind a complaint made a few years ago in England by a venerable Tory columnist with some reputation for fastidiousness. What he wrote, one morning, was that he could not stand it any longer! Not stand what? The policies of Prime Minister John Major? But Mr. Major ruled Britain as a conservative. No, said Peregrine Worsthorne, not Major's policies, though they were deficient. What he couldn't stand any longer was -- Major.

The trouble, he said, is that it was impossible to turn on television for the stretch of an hour without running into John Major. He was speaking in Parliament, or calling on the queen, or going to church, or opening a veterans museum, or going off to meet other Majors in Europe or elsewhere. Never mind that John Major had a perfectly agreeable face and manner; the mere thought of having to see him 20 times every day for the next uncounted months caused Sir Peregrine to turn off his set and express his disgust for that part of public life that conscripts not public officials, but television viewers.

The debate on Monday alerted those who are aware of this problem of how much worse it is in America than in Great Britain, because for every appearance of a prime minister on television, there must be five by the American president, or certainly by this American president. No tulip can wither in a public garden but that Bill Clinton is there to mourn its passing, and encourage its successor.

It is the sense that that is in store for us which attaches so much importance to the face and manner of current contenders. And, it has to be acknowledged, the Republican candidates are a pretty presentable lot. None of them, for instance, has, say, a tic that would drive you crazy if you had to view it for the whole length of a State of the Union speech, let alone every day of the week for four years.

Right, Bill. Like Gary Bauer -- whose bulging, weird-aqua eyes would stop a vampire in its tracks, or New Hampshire's Bob Smith, who looks like his namesake, "Bob's Big Boy." Or how about John McCain, who unfortunately looks like a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and a burn victim?

But BushBaby is the real find in this arena. The guy is actually starting to look like Nixon -- really! And not only does he look like Nixon, but he has also adopted Tricky Dick's facial expressions, especially what I thought was the patented "Nixonian angry smirk," which is akin to a non-spoken "How dare you!" blended with a "Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?!"

Remember that? Bill, take a look at Bush W. in a question and answer session, and you'll start to laugh -- I guarantee it. It is that Nixon "temper tantrum" quality that will defeat him in the end.

So Bill, you're wrong -- as usual.

But I won't hold it against you because you're a sailor, and so am I.

Now as for what they say -- the positions they take -- there are, of course, differences. But it isn't by any means clear to the viewer that such differences as there are would translate immediately into different policies, were one of them elected. There is only a single position on which some say flatly Yes, while others say No, and that is the question of whether to encourage China's membership in the World Trade Organization and its inclusion in the ranks of most-favored nations.

Sure -- as if the average beer-drinking, football- playing, condo-living American gives a darn! Besides, what do you mean by not openly attacking carnivores like Bauer, Keyes and Forbes, who have about the same chance to win the Presidency as Pokemon! These three buffoons are running for one reason, and one reason alone: to get higher salaries when they lose, and to be able to tell their grandchildren they were "presidential" candidates.

Jeez, the next thing we'll hear is that you are running! But you know what? You'd garner far more credibility and have more standing than all of three of those lunatics -- combined.

At least the Bush brat is part of a "Dynasty" of misanthropic cry-babies and foot-stompers. To the Republican Eagles he's the closest thing they have to Prince Charles, and they aren't about to give that up for a Vietnam Vet, are they?

Or are they? .

Gary Bauer says: No -- we do not deal that way with nations that are rank oppressors. George Bush says: Yes -- because by dealing with them we encourage entrepreneurial knowledge and habits that are subversive of centralized control.

Look, Bill: Gary Bauer is nothing but a third-rate Bible beater who doesn't even have enough talent to make a decent stump speech. He's lived most of his life leeching off morons who think he'll "save" their children -- and even China's children -- if he only had the chance. I could hurl every time I hear him refer to his do-nothing position in the Reagan Administration, acting as if he was running the Oval Office while Ronnie took a snooze.

The question at hand isn't so much who is right. It is: What would be the difference in policies if either were elected? President Bauer could reject an MFN invitation to China, and could even veto one initiated by the Senate. But ... he would not call for an embargo on American trade with Chinese purchasers. He could be more active than a President Bush in attempting to embargo trade in certain products or materials. But we aren't going to revive a cold war attitude toward China, and even if we did, there would be trade, as there was under President Reagan, notwithstanding the formalistic refusal to grant MFN status.

Absolutely correct and even right, Bill! I couldn't agree with you more -- except to add that with Bauer as President you would see federally funded televangelists anchored 25 miles off Kowloon Bay with a 2-million watt transmitter aimed at mainland China.

If Bush was President, he'd make a beeline for China -- not to talk about opening their markets, but to beg for a direct connection to the Golden Triangle.

On the matter of taxes? Social Security? Close your eyes and ask: One year after election, what radical reforms in the Internal Revenue Code would we anticipate under: President Forbes, President Bush, President McCain? President Hatch or Keyes or Bauer? They are all oriented in the correct direction (diminish public-sector spending), but by the time Congress, the bureaucracy, the lobbies and the general torpor of government got through stacking mud on the track, how fast would movement actually take place? And where would the new president end up, with his reformist program?

Agreed. But why not just call them straight-out liars? That's what they are -- just plain liars.

As a matter of fact, the only Presidential candidate I can think of that told the truth about taxes was Walter Mondale, when he said he might have to ask Congress to raise them -- and you see where that truth got him!

It is such thoughts as these that bring on a certain indifference. And indifference curiously combined with a general acceptance of the morning line, as given by the pollsters. Suppose -- just suppose -- that every word uttered by Alan Keyes on Monday night had been spoken by George W. Bush! What would the press have reported on Tuesday? My guess is that they'd have written (we'd have written) about the marvelous spontaneity and fluency of George Bush. About his nifty way of catching a question and moving it in an agreeable direction. Put in another way, the words spoken by Alan Keyes incited audible approval by not a few spectators. What if he had spoken not as someone with a single-digit standing in the polls, but as the heavy favorite?

Ah, you've fallen for the Keyesian presence. However, although Alan is a great speaker, he is nothing more than an opportunistic human oxymoron who pays himself hefty salaries to run for office and thereby simply steals from the very people who support his candidacy. Who has ever heard of a political candidate paying himself a salary out of his campaign war chest?

Keyes is a double or treble hypocrite who "speaks for Jesus" while practicing political witchcraft. The media -- dumb as they are -- know Keyes is a snake oil salesman (and has been since he wangled his way into his Junior Ambassadorship). He let Reagan use him to get it -- and he learned to be a black man in a white man's private club

That must be very lonely -- as lonely as George DumbBellYou hanging out in the Bronx .

Putting Keyes' words into Bush's mouth wouldn't make them any less hypocritical or more substantive.

Keyes need only ask former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a Democrat, how this modern "race thing" works. Bradley actually led in statewide polling right up to election day; both in his bid for the Governorship of the Golden State (a leader in the politics of racism) and during his bid for a US Senate seat in California.

He lost both races. Mystifying, isn't it?

What Bradley could tell Keyes -- and what Colin Powell already knows -- is that it is tough enough to be a Black Democrat and get elected to anything but a local office, let alone to run as a Black Republican and get more than 2% of the vote from your fellow African-Americans, and more than 6% from Whites and Hispanics who vote to "prove" they are liberals.

What Tom Bradley could tell Keyes is that Americans even lie to the pollsters when the issue of race comes to the fore.

We learn, and continue to learn, about democracy, its weaknesses -- and its strengths.

William F. Buckley

Huh?

What we should really learn is what Vernon Jordan said the day after California passed Proposition 13 almost 25 years ago, an act which cut fortunate Californian's property taxes in half -- although middle class voters knew very well that the impact would be felt most by minorities, the poor and the mentally ill.

Jordan said that day, "America's dirty little secret... racism."

Well, that's not much of a secret any more is it Bill? And phonies like you -- and me -- sail our Hinckleys in utter bliss -- and with utter disregard.

The truth is that neither Bauer nor Bush nor Keyes deserve to sit in a trailer, let alone the Oval Office. Instead of focusing on your violin, you should face the fact that under your tutelage as the intellectual Godfather of the conservative movement, America has become a greedy, racist, homophobic nation whose students demonstrate against the World Trade Organization -- of all things -- but can't get themselves together to throw the bums who run the House and Senate out on their Neofacist asses.

Mac MacArthur

PS: Bill, when are you going to buy a new shirt and shake that dandruff off your shoulders? I know the prep look is always chic -- but you go too far!

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