I just want to set the record straight here (and kill some time at work, as there's not a lot going on) about how I feel about the Republicans and the Democrats.
I was born in 1972. The President then was Richard Nixon. I do not remember him as President at all. Neither do I remember Gerald Ford. The first President I do remember was Jimmy Carter, and my childhood recollections of him, although few, were not horribly favorable ones. They weren't horribly unfavorable either, but I recall my father not liking him a whole lot, as opposed to my mother, who liked Carter. (My father has generally voted Republican, and my mother Democrat. Needless to say, there were a few interesting conversations around the dinner table in election years.)
The first President that I can recall the election of (or more accurately the campaign of) was Ronald Reagan. I can still remember a summer vacation in Hilton Head where Reagan was whupping up on some opponent or another. I want to say it was someone else running for the Republican nomination, but this would have been in June or early July of 1980, so odds are it was a debate and not a primary. Needless to say, Reagan was clearly the winner of the night.
Reagan became President when I was eight years old. And I liked him. Let that sink in for a few minutes before you launch into some vitriol of how bad the Reagan years were, or how odious you find the man. I was eight. Reagan was President from the time I was eight until the time I was sixteen. These were some of the best years of my life. My family would probably have been considered solid upper-middle class. Nice house, two (later three) cars, a few pets, and come '82, another kid in the form of my baby brother. And Reagan came across as this friendly, grandfatherly type. It was easy for me to like him.
So when people say that Reagan was a horrible President and that he was an evil man, and all that stuff... I just nod my head and move on. Because I never saw any of this. I'm not saying it didn't happen, or that the Reagan years were flowers and candy for everyone. But my experiences, limited though they were in the mildly-urban area of South Carolina that I grew up in, were pretty damned good.
So those years color me a bit, needless to say.
Then, President Bush. A bit of a stick in the mud. Possible the most uptight, white-bread person I had ever seen on TV up to that point. And he had to deal with the first Gulf War. And he did a pretty good job of it, in hindsight, even if at the time, I couldn't understand why he didn't have the Army roll into Baghdad and hang that SOB Saddam Hussein.
Then we had President Clinton, and goddamn if this man didn't seem to do something to piss me off every week. Yes, now I know how trivial some of those things were, but it seemed like he had subscribed to the Scandal-of-the-Month club back then. Was he helping out old buddies, and covering up some of his own dirty laundry, and even more? Hell, yes. But ultimately, no one died because Clinton lied about getting a blowjob. (Okay, maybe Vince Foster...) The Whitewater scandal cost some political careers, not lives.
So then we get to the current Bush. What can be said about him that hasn't been repeated by thousands upon thousands of people?
I used to consider myself a Republican. Not your typical Republican, perhaps. Maybe like one of P.J. O'Rourke's Republican Lounge Lizards, who were in favor of Republican policies, but liked kicking back and tying a few on, maybe partying a bit. (Oddly enough, as I don't drink alcohol, do drugs, or fool around, I'm still probably more conservative in those regards then 90% of politicians who call themselves Republicans.) I had, for many years, long hair, listened to classic rock or heavy metal or both on any given night, and looked more like a transplant from the heights of hippie-dom then anything else.
I don't consider myself a Republican any more. I don't want to affiliate myself with what is ever more increasingly becoming the party of fear and paranoia. You've got Bush with his "The Senate needs to pass this crappy legislation or the terrorists win." or Romney's little "aiding a surrender to terror" dig at the Democrats.
But I don't yet consider myself a Democrat. Too many of the Democrats piss me off on a regular basis for general "stick their head up their ass"-ness legislation then I like. And Hillary Clinton as President disturbs me on more levels then I like. I think she would end up being what The Who sang about: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." She wants to be President, but she wants it so bad, she seems willing to do anything to get it; cross any line, smear any opponent.
And that should not be the way to become the President. We should be smarter then to accept that kind of campaign from anyone, Republican or Democrat.
But the point of this is this: If I slam a Democrat for acting in a manner I don't like, it doesn't mean I think the Republicans are the way to go. Or vice-versa. Too many of the people we elect to office to represent us, to help us, to govern us, have lost track of the fact that they are public servants. That they should put our interests and our needs ahead of their own personal ones. And all too often, we accept blindly whatever lies they feed us, whatever truths they manipulate to their own effect.
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