THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (81 page)

Bush benefited because, despite his “blue
blood” Connecticut pedigree, he had moved to Texas and made his own
fortune there. He ran for the U.S. Senate from Texas twice and was
a Houston Congressman. But political ironies go both ways. Whereby
the Right benefited from the civil rights movement, the Democrats
benefited from the conservative’s Cold War victory.

When the Soviets capitulated, the U.S. no
longer needed to maintain a huge nuclear and conventional arsenal.
The so called Military Industrial Complex, which for lack of any
other central location exists on the west side of Los Angeles
between Santa Monica and Long Beach, was forced to lay off
thousands of defense workers. This caused a relatively short-lived
economic downturn in 1991-92, but unfortunately for Bush had its
greatest effect in the electoral-rich state of California, which he
had won by a close vote in 1988.

Democrat Bill Clinton’s campaign manager,
James Carville, somehow convinced enough people that this blip in a
12-year run of peace and prosperity was the “worst economy since
the Great Depression.” This was kind of like saying, “Roberto
Clemente is the worst player” in a field that includes Hank Aaron,
Willie Mays. Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds. “It’s the economy,
stupid,” was Carville’s mantra.

It really did not work, but Texas
billionaire Ross Perot ran an as independent. He siphoned enough
votes away from Bush to give the White House to Clinton, who
garnered only 43 percent of the vote (a majority in only two
states). Many national security-minded voters saw that the Cold War
was over and heeded Francis Fukuyama’s admonition that with all our
enemies vanquished, we had reached
The End of History
. Like
British voters who rejected Winston Churchill in 1946, they
rejected the Republicans, who were victims of their own
success.

Clinton’s eight years boasted peace and
prosperity, and he rightfully deserves to take credit for it. It is
also right to note that the “peace dividend” he benefited from was
a gift, courtesy of Republican Cold War victory (not unlike LBJ
telling Bill Moyers after signing the Civil Rights Act that “we’ve
just handed the country to the Republicans for the next 50 years”).
Clinton managed a steady economy, for sure. He also benefited from
the sudden, almost-out-of-no-where “information superhighway,” the
popularization of the personal computer, the rise of the Internet,
and all its fabulous spin-offs. All those smart, tech-savvy defense
workers, laid off between 1989 and 1992, landed on their feet as
Internet entrepreneurs.

Clinton also benefited from a Republican
Congress. His 1992 “Year of the Woman” victory (which featured such
liberal Democrat women as two San Francisco Jewish ladies, Dianne
Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, elected to the U.S. Senate, among
others) ushered in two years of a true Democrat majority (White
House, Senate, Congress). Since 1966, there have only been six of
these years (1977-80, 1992-93). Prior to that, the Democrats held
true majorities from 1933-46, 1949-52, and 1961-65. One Democrat
Presidential nominee has won 50 percent of the vote since LBJ in
1964, and that was Jimmy Carter in 1976 with a “resounding”
50.1!

In what could only be described as complete
refutation of the Clintons, the 1994 midterm “Republican
Revolution” saw the GOP capture the House, the Senate, state
legislatures and governor’s elections in the most sweeping, total
victory in the history of American politics. Led by House Speaker
Newt Gingrich (R.-Georgia) and his Contract with America, the GOP
held Clinton’s “feet to the fire” on taxes and social spending.
Clinton, a brilliant politician, knew a good thing when he had it
forced upon him and eventually accepted. The result was
unprecedented economic and stock market boom times.

Conservative talk radio rose during the
Clinton years. Its “father” was Rush Limbaugh. It was a voice for
those dispossessed by the perception of a liberally biased dominant
media culture of newspapers, network news, magazines, books and
Hollywood. Conservative talk radio gave claws to an ideology once
confined to readings of Ayn Rand’s
Atlas Shrugged
at William
F. Buckley’s mother’s house in Connecticut. Heroes of the Right
were people like G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, both of whom ran
afoul of the law but were viewed as patriots who did what they had
to do because the Left did not have the guts to stand up for
America. As much as Reagan, conservative talk radio has been the
most influential, powerful political movement since World War II.
The Left despises it, does all it can to stop it, only to
helplessly watches it devour them time after time. They have vowed
to censor it with a nefarious scheme called the “Fairness
Doctrine,” but if they ever seriously attempt to do so, the
backlash against them from the millions of loyal talk radio
listeners could have the force of ending the Democrats as a viable
party, if other factors do not lead to this eventuality first.

Talk radio fueled the Republican repudiation
of the Clintons and further blowback against them when George W.
Bush defeated their Vice-President, Albert Gore in 2000. It led
Hillary Rodham Clinton to declare it to be a “vast Right-wing
conspiracy.” On this, Mrs. Clinton was correct. The “vast
Right-wing conspiracy” continues to this day, in the form of
millions of patriotic American citizens who register and vote.

Music, just as it had in the 1960s, took on
a political edge. Country music became an anthem for conservatives
and patriots, particularly of a Southern bent. Rock ‘n’ roll
glorified sex, drugs and debauchery. Country glorified God, family
and country.

The embodiment of Southern political power
manifested itself most forcefully in the era of George W. Bush. In
1992, 1996, and 2000, five of six Presidential candidates were from
Dixie. George H.W. (1992) and George W. Bush (2000, 2004) were from
Texas. Clinton (1992, 1996) was from Arkansas. Gore (2000) was from
Tennessee.

On September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda carried out
the airplane-destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
Bush ordered the United States into Afghanistan, where they
successfully deposed the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim group
that provided safe harbor to Osama Bin Laden. In the days, weeks
and months after 9/11, Bush was seen as a Churchillian leader in
desperate times. In 2002, the Republicans carried out another
historical sweep, almost as devastating as their 1994 midterm
victories.

In March 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq,
deposing and eventually hanging murderous dictator Saddam Hussein.
In one of the most brilliant military victories ever executed, they
accomplished the mission by May. The invasion of Iraq, however, was
fraught with political peril from the beginning, exacerbated by a
fierce Jihadist resistance that did not allow the U.S. to follow
military victory with peaceful Democracy. Democrats, fearful that
another Bush victory in Iraq would marginalize their party, perhaps
forever, opposed the war in varying degrees. When the War on Terror
was transferred to Iraq, and ultimate American victory became a
hard slog, they found a political angle to play. Intelligence
failures, a lack of promised weapons of mass destruction, and other
failures were all cited for all they were worth.

While Democracy in the Middle East, revenge
for Saddam’s attempt to kill his father, the decision to take the
fight to the terrorists, and a desire to finish the job started
when the U.S. liberated Kuwait in 1991; were all part of Bush’s
reasoning, an honest assessment must conclude that the GOP’s
motivations were very political, as well.

Bush’s advisor, Karl Rove, and leading
strategists, gambled that the Iraq War would resemble the 1991
Persian Gulf War; a total American victory which gave W’s father 91
percent approval ratings for a few months. Combined with
Afghanistan, the leadership after 9/11, the natural fear of
terrorism requiring a strong leader, and a growing economy, Rove
and company concluded that if Iraq went as planned, the Republicans
would win at all state, Federal and national levels in 2004, 2006,
2008 and beyond. The margins would be so enormous as to possibly
dismantle the Democrats into splintered independents by 2012, or
maybe even by 2008. The specter of Hillary Clinton hung before
them. They wanted to destroy Hillary’s chances, her party, and
everything they stood for.

There is a tendency to see politics as a
blood sport, which is how Rove played it. What the Republicans
failed to understand was that American tradition calls for a
two-party system with a loyal opposition. One party dominating in
the manner Rove envisioned cannot help but be corrupted by power,
not unlike the PRI that was impregnable in Mexico for almost the
entire 20
^th
Century. On the other hand, there were many
who saw the Democrats as having fallen so far from their origins;
the traditions of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Scoop
Jackson, as to beyond redemption.

In 2004, phase one of Rove’s plan was
carried out. For the second time in a row, the GOP destroyed the
Democrat Party at the polls. Bush garnered the most votes any
President has ever won in U.S. history. It was the third time in a
decade (1994, 2002, 2004) that the Republicans had trounced the
Democrats. In 1996 and 2000, the Republicans made modest-to-good
gains. The Democrats had not enjoyed anything they could call a
real success since the Perot-skewed 1992 campaign.

But between 2005 and 2007, the Republicans
and Bush made major errors. The Right assumed that with political
capital Bush would be emboldened to fight in Iraq without fear of
consequence, thus ending the bloodshed with a mighty sword. Bush
missed his opportunity to do so. As terror continued in and around
Baghdad, diluting the victory of 2003, the U.S. began to lose its
political will.

In 2006, Bush veered from conservative
principles on immigration. Again, Rove’s hand was at play. The
advisor felt that the next great voting bloc is and would continue
to be Hispanics. He endeavored to make them a Republican
constituency not unlike how the New Deal and especially the Great
Society made blacks dependent on the Democrats. It backfired. The
Democrats won solid victories, creating a gridlock entering the
2008 Presidential campaign, which promised to be the most bruising,
divisive in history.

By 2007, Bush was no longer popular and his
party no longer controlled the entire agenda. Still, he had some
things in his corner. The Democrats quickly squandered their 2006
victory and faced lower approval ratings than Bush. A party of
self-interest and questionable appreciation for the traditions that
made America not simply great, but
powerful
, they kept
shooting themselves in the foot.

Furthermore, no terrorist act had occurred
on American soil since 9/11. The Left used this to imply that there
was no terrorist threat
, which was like saying that Tom
Seaver beat the Orioles in the 1969 World Series only because the
Orioles
were no threat to win the game!
It was the kind of
mindset that virtually assured continuing Democrat losses at the
polls. Then, in the late summer of 2007, the Democrats’ worst case
scenario began to play out: under the command of General David
Petraeus, U.S. forces had engaged in what came to be called “the
Surge” in Iraq. By August, it was working. Since the Democrats had
not supported it, they stood to be viewed by the voting public as a
political party literally not rootin’ for America; which is not a
good, uh, strategy.

“The Surge” was a military strategy not
unlike: General George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware during
the Revolution; General William Sherman’s “march to the sea” in
Georgia to win the Civil War; Teddy Roosevelt’s “charge up San Juan
Hill” to win the Spanish-American War; General “Black Jack”
Pershing’s Argonne Offensive that won World War II; General George
Patton’s lightning thrusts that punched a hole into Germany after
the Battle of the Bulge; General Douglas MacArthur’s ingenious
Inchon invasion in Korea; President Nixon’s Christmas bombing that
brought Hanoi to the peace table, ending Vietnam; General Norman
Schwarzkopf’s desert drive to liberate Kuwait; the decisive ousting
of the Taliban; and General Tommy Franks’s “shock ‘n’ awe”
campaign, destroying Saddam’s forces in less than two months. The
Democrats faced an unenviable position: defending a policy that
seemed not only to have failed to learn these historical lessons,
but seemingly
did not possess knowledge of them!

If this were not enough “bad news” for the
Democrats, the U.S. economy had reached a point where it was,
historically, the strongest it had ever been. If James Carville’s
admonition that campaigns were won or lost because of “the economy,
stupid,” it bode well for the Republicans. Furthermore, the
economic record of George W. Bush was particularly impressive on
two fronts.

First, he had husbanded the national economy
to this level in the aftermath of 9/11, during trying times.
Second, the Bush economy was not based on “false markets” built up
by an Internet bubble. Solid fiscal principles – low taxes, minimum
market manipulation – were the backbone of record-breaking numbers
on Wall Street, near-minimal unemployment, and strong housing
starts. Some day, when dispassionate historians are able to
accurately assess such things absent election-year agendas, this
will be considered a great achievement. For lack of any other
starting point, let this book be that accurate assessment.

Finally, there is the issue of terror, and
this can only be viewed as a historian looking at the big picture.
The current political climate only sees it for its effect on
election cycles. The legacy of Nixon and Kissinger must be made
apparent here.