Washington Week . Student Voices

COLUMN: The scariest shadow
By Adam Zmick
Daily Illini (U. Illinois)
02/03/2004

(U-WIRE) CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Most years, Feb. 2 is the day a cuddly brown rodent comes out of his hole and predicts the length of winter. But not this year.

A far more fearsome shadow than his own was already cast. Monday, Punxsutawney Phil was too scared to even step outside his hole.

What was the grim spectre that so frightened the groundhog? What could be worse than six more weeks of frigid winter? The answer: Four more years of Bush.

At this point, a second term for Bush seems nearly inevitable. While the Democrats are busy wasting money and fighting among themselves, Dubya's donors have been buying $2,000 hamburgers to fill his campaign coffers. I can only guess at the clever campaign slogans that Bush's strategists will create with the $200 million they will have at their disposal.

Bush/Cheney '04: Elect us again, for the first time.

Bush/Cheney '04: Four more wars.

Bush/Cheney '04: 9/11. 9/11, 9/11, oil, 9/11, 9/11.

However, Bush isn't counting on his money to win the election. He's counting on his Ministry of Truth. Does anyone else remember when Halliburton swiped more than $61 million from U.S. taxpayers back in December? Of course not. Overcharging for oil became old news when Saddam was found two days later. The telescreens happily neglected the fact that it was Kurds, not Americans, who found him. Nobody was the wiser.

Does anybody even remember why we went to Iraq in the first place?

During his last campaign for president, Bush said, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building."

Then Sept. 11 happened. All of a sudden, Iraq was behind it. Iraq was an imminent danger. Iraq was building nuclear weapons and could deploy them in 45 minutes. We couldn't wait; "the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud."

Once the troops rolled in, we realized that Iraq's strongest weapon was a sandstorm. The WMDs were AWOL. No biggie. Don't you remember? We went to Iraq to bring them democracy.

We all love the president, he's doubleplusgood.

But who will the Dems put in the ring with Bush's well-oiled political machine? Today, seven states' worth of Democrats are scratching their heads and punching their chads to figure that one out. Despite John Kerry's victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, the race for the nomination is still wide-open. Unless today's primaries are complete blowouts, the actual Democratic nominee will be decided in the smoky back rooms of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

There hasn't been a brokered convention since 1952. For political junkies like myself, this is the good stuff. When July rolls around, nearly every voter with a television will be tapping his veins and tuning in to feast his dilated eyes upon this political oddity.

I could definitely settle for John Kerry as the nominee. He's got a strong record on the environment. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that he is against the death penalty. While he did vote for the war, he could represent that majority of Americans who were duped by the president.

A Bush-Kerry debate would be fun to watch, especially when the topic of Vietnam comes up. While Bush was going AWOL and probably snorting blow, Kerry was busy saving lives and taking shrapnel on the Mekong Delta.

"Anyone but Dean" is my new battle cry. Just imagine that campaign. Dean would go somewhere to host a pancake breakfast, and Bush could be there in the afternoon to host an ice cream social.

I had a conversation with a Deaniac last week. I asked him why he was still supporting Dean.

"Because of the direction he's taking the Democratic Party," he told me.

"But Dean's stands on the issues are all halfway measures. Why not Kucinich?" I asked.

"Yeah, I really like Kucinich on the issues, but I think Dean can win."

"So the direction you want us to take is toward selling out our ideals? I think we do that enough already."

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