YNKYH8R

Rove Was Right
One of the worst aspects of Bush's win on Tuesday is the reality that Rove was right. Karl Rove, Bush's senior campaign advisor (aka Bush's Brain) apparently always felt that if the "evangelicals" had voted in 2000, the election wouldn't have even been close. So he designed Bush's presidency to appeal to those people to ensure a second term. Witness the limitations on federal funding for stem cell research, the passage of the partial birth abortion ban, the removal of federal funds for international family planning organizations and the endorsement of a federal amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage. This radical right wing social agenda that has so incensed us on the left is exactly what got him elected, for this time the evangelicals did turn out and they voted for Bush. And according to Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times, they constitute one-third of Americans, which would explain the statistic that 36% of all Bush voters counted "moral values" as the number one issue they voted on. Greater than terrorism, greater than Iraq, greater than the economy. This utter contempt for and assault on our values is what has made us so passionate and feel like this was more than a mere election. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times agrees.


What troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?

At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president.

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ARMPIT