THE WANDERER, AUGUST 5, 2004
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Family Problems in the 21st Century
In Tolstoy's famous words, "Happy families are all
alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." A
guest commentator on National Public Radio (where else?)
has found a way even Tolstoy never imagined. It seems her
father has had a sex-change operation, and the family is
split over the appropriate pronoun: Should they refer to
the paterfamilias as "he" or "she"?
Terry Kerry
Americans talk about politics constantly but seldom
reflect on it. This melancholy truth occurred to me again
as I listened to the speakers at the Democratic
convention in Boston.
Nowadays the nominations are settled well before the
delegates actually convene, so the problem is to create a
sense of excitement about foregone conclusions. The
principal oratorical device used for achieving this end
is shouting.
The speakers shout unexamined cliches, and the
delegates shout back. It's so dull that the TV networks,
despairing of ratings, have sharply cut back their
coverage. I remember the days when there were three major
networks, all of them showing all the proceedings for
days, depriving good Americans like me of THE LONE RANGER
and SUPERMAN.
This year's most touted speaker was Barack Obama of
Illinois, who is running for the U.S. Senate, unopposed
(his Republican rival having dropped out because of a sex
scandal). He is a genuine African-American, with a
genuine African name; his father, whom he hardly knew,
came from Kenya, his mother was a white American who
raised him alone after his father left. He grew up in
Hawaii and went to Harvard.
Obama is already being discussed as a possible
future president. He laughs off such talk with gracious
modesty. In an interview on National Public Radio the day
of his scheduled speech, he was frank, charming, and
well-spoken. I looked forward to hearing him that night,
the second night of the convention. Alas, his speech
proved nearly as stentorian as the others, though less
abrasively partisan.
The surprise of the night was Ron Reagan, son of the
late president. He spoke with conversational ease, as if
addressing rational beings rather than fanatics.
Unfortunately, he was urging stem-cell research,
something his father opposed; and, in fact, he
inadvertently made a case against abortion. He noted that
stem cells don't have fingers, heartbeats, and other
attributes of developing human beings. It was a strange
argument to make to people who don't mind destroying
fetuses that do have all these attributes! Not noticing
the logic of this line of thought, they cheered him
anyway.
The climax of the evening was Teresa Heinz Kerry,
the presumptive nominee's wife. Like young Reagan but
unlike her husband, she didn't bellow at the audience.
She spoke softly, almost intimately, as if she were among
close friends, making the party ideology sound more
reasonable than revolutionary. She also greeted the
audience in five languages, reminding us that she would
be our first foreign-born first lady.
Republicans shouldn't underestimate this woman.
She's no Hillary Clinton, stridently making enemies.
Hillary reminds me of de Tocqueville's observation that
American women are intelligent, capable, self-reliant,
admirable in many ways -- but not feminine. The
difference between American and European women can be
heard in their voices. Even the most beautiful American
women (outside the South) often break the spell they cast
as soon as they open their mouths; European women often
speak with an enchanting music.
This is what Teresa Kerry does. She is a thing
unheard of on these shores, a feminist with femininity.
If, on the eve of the convention, she showed a bit of a
temper at a reporter who provoked her, it was the
spontaneous temper of a human being, not the rancor of a
political doctrinaire. Her speech displayed exactly what
her husband sorely lacks, the perfect emotional pitch
that seems to reach an audience without effort. If John
Kerry could talk like his wife, he'd win by a landslide.
The funny part of this is that the Kerry campaign
has been fearful of Teresa's spontaneity. Given that
their candidate is a monumental stiff, with all the human
warmth of something revivified by Doc Frankenstein during
a violent storm, they should be worried about him, not
her. One of the marks of a spontaneous personality is
that it responds, sometimes immediately and unguardedly,
to other people. John Kerry seems never to listen to
anyone but himself.
After all, there are higher stakes in this election
than charm. It may be just as well that Kerry doesn't
have any. The Democrats still haven't learned to present
liberalism with a human face, despite all their
mechanical rhetoric about compassion and diversity and
the rest of it.
Not So Liberal?
I was amused to learn that the American Communist
Party has endorsed Kerry for president. I guess the Reds
are willing to overlook his passionate Catholic faith and
his deep personal opposition to abortion. The poor
Commies have been rudderless since their own perennial
presidential candidate, Gus Hall, died a few years ago;
but it's good to know that they see Kerry as the man most
likely to lead us toward the socialist paradise.
This endorsement struck me as funny, because the
Democrats have been trying so hard to play down Kerry's
liberal record, even though both THE NATIONAL JOURNAL and
the hyperliberal Americans for Democratic Action rate him
the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. Nevertheless,
his supporters insist that he's not a liberal, he's a
moderate! A moderate Marxist-Leninist, perhaps.
The Communists may seem like a somewhat comic relic
of another age, but they have always known their
business, and it may help us get our bearings that they
perceive Kerry as the most "objectively progressive"
candidate -- at least "progressive" enough to warrant
their support. Ralph Nader might seem more to their
liking, but they probably don't view him as a serious
contender.
Maybe this is the real "Reagan legacy" -- that as
the government keeps moving leftward, even under
Republican control, politicians feel compelled to
camouflage their leftism. The Republicans call themselves
conservatives, the Democrats resent being called
liberals, and everyone pays lip service to conservative
"values" -- patriotism, the family, the free market. At
least, amid all this confusing verbiage, we can turn to
the Communists for some straight talk!
+ + +
Michael Moore says we can't trust the government.
Agreed. But, asks SOBRAN'S, can we trust Michael Moore?
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--- Joseph Sobran
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