Hype or Hope? The 2006 Election Cycle
Late 60’s slain inspirer-in-chief, Bobby Kennedy, once said “one-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” Watching the politico witch-hunt commercials of Election 2006, it seems like four-fifths might be more accurate. At a time when news from the Baghdad front is grim and the best that can be said from one of my brave friends stationed over there is that “it is constant ebb and flow here of success and setback. Baghdad has more intensity than Mosul in 2004. There are more people trying to kill you here, but Mosul had deadlier IEDs and more snipers” we are all looking for something to believe in, a ray of hope that the tattered Middle East times and climbing casualty counts are a changin’. Instead, we get TV images of crack-infested inner Baltimore and mentions of the long-past Tailhook scandal with the not-so-secret implied query, “Do you want men with this baggage to be YOUR public servants?”
In the two years TLRG has been serving enquiring minds on-line, I’ve been careful not to discuss my politics much with you. No regailing of my college summers spent at the Republican National Committee, no tales of my politico pavement pounding. Truth be told, I live and work in the swamp of the DC Beltway, a career for which I’ve received much ribbing from my family who rank “those lawyers in Washington” just above toxic sludge. I’d have to disagree. I’ve worked on both sides of the partisan aisle for more than a decade and can tell you that there are some remarkable legislators out there who spend the time that they could be collecting enormous fees on the speaking circuit or being private consultants decked out in the best Brooks Brothers money can buy to instead work on issues of real consequence to the citizens of our country. And they won’t stop until their vision of improvement is achieved. Is it naïve of me to want these stories told? To instead turn on the boob-toob and hear about how the local candidate I elect can make a positive impact on my environment, school or specialty hospital? No more images of slain soldiers, immigrants hustling over the borders or our unspeakable inner cities. We know how we got here but who is going to get us out and how? These are the issues of our times. This is why I go to the polls. I wish Bobby Kennedy were still alive to deliver great oratory and unite us as a nation but unfortunately all we’ll have is the new Emilio Estevez biopic with quasi-moving cameos from every A-List starlet shopping at Kitson.
Bobby when alive emphasized that “few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” What will you do?
Signed,
TLRG