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Friday, November 05, 2004

Honorably Nuts
It was 1988, and Michael Dukakis was giving his concession speech in the race against Bush the Elder, when it occurred to me that the Duke had been traveling the country for a year saying what trouble we'd be in if we elected Bush, but now he was congratulating him and pledging to work with him--in a sense, volunteering to assist in the disaster he had spent so much time predicting. From that day forward, I've wished that candidates would say what they really mean when they concede: "I tried to tell you that this guy is a disaster waiting to happen, but you wouldn't listen, would you? Well, screw him and screw you, and good luck when the roof falls in, you losers. I'll be in the bar." I never thought it would really happen, though, because a politician would have to be crazy to do it.

And then . . . Alan Keyes conceded defeat to Barack Obama in the Illinois U.S. Senate race yesterday. Keyes says he didn't call Obama with congratulations on Election Night because he believes Obama's views on issues such as abortion are "wicked." Keyes said: "I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for and will stand for a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country. I can't do this, and I will not make a false gesture."

Even though I'm utterly opposed to his politics and find him creepy in the extreme, there's something admirable--honorable, even--about Keyes' statement. More than most politicians, he remains unequivocally devoted to his principles no matter what, and simply doesn't give a fuck about what people think of him because of it. Of course, that probably explains why he can never pull more than 27 percent of the vote anywhere.

Recommended Reading: Juan Cole has a guest column by Professor Mark Levine of Cal-Irvine who, after 9/11, coined the phrase "we're all Israelis now." Back then, he referred to the way we would forever after live our lives under the threat of Islamic terrorism. Today, he uses the phrase again to title his column, suggesting that Americans are Israelis now for a different reason:
Think about it: in Israel, the majority of Jewish citizens support the policies of Ariel Sharon despite the large-scale, systematic (and according to international law, criminal) violence his government deploys against Palestinian society, despite the worsening economic situation for the lower middle class religious voters who constitute his main base of support, despite rising international opprobrium and isolation. Sound familiar?

As for the country’s "liberal" opposition, it's in a shambles, politically and morally bankrupt because in fact it was a willing participant in creating and preserving the system that is now eating away at the heart of Israeli society.
The column is long, it's deep (anything that invokes the name of the Italian anti-Fascist theorist Antonio Gramsci always seems pretty deep to me), and it's also very much worth your time.

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