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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Paglia says "this entire administration needs to be replaced" -- but finds time to unload on Edwards, O'Reilly and Franken, and many others.
Oct 30, 2004 | Salon readers -- and the world! -- have been deprived of the political opinions of our favorite cultural channeler/critic, Camille Paglia, for a year, since she last spoke to Salon. During that time Paglia, university professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, has been at work teaching and putting the finishing touches on her five-year book project "Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems" (March, Pantheon).
On the eve of the election, she agreed to break her silence and talk to Salon about this political moment -- from the "devious and Machiavellian" Dick Cheney to the "unethical and grotesque" manipulation of his daughter by Democrats; from her respect for Jon Stewart and that "dynamo" Sean Hannity, to her pity for Bill O'Reilly, the "blowhard" with a bad case of "psychosexual paralysis." And she explains how, despite her concern over his "poorly managed" campaign and terrible TV skills, she believes Sen. John Kerry is the only viable option for president.
You had concerns about how "strained, dead and aloof" Kerry seemed on the stump, and how his handlers had turned him into a "prissy" figure. But he's your choice this year. Why?
First of all, I think Kerry will be a far better president than he is a campaigner. This is a man with gravitas who is totally prepared to be president. He has national political experience, historical knowledge, and personal contact with the wider world -- unlike Bush. Where he lacks information, Kerry will inform himself -- unlike Bush. I think he will make good appointments -- unlike Bush. And Kerry will repair our alliances: He will win back respect for America abroad. He speaks other languages -- unlike Bush. And Kerry's wife, Teresa, despite her current excessive candor (reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's arrival at the White House), is a truly international personality who speaks many languages and understands world cultures.
Kerry will build bridges again to the outside world. He will be someone whom America can be proud to represent us. In the age of terrorism, we cannot simply withdraw into our fort the way Bush has and imagine all will go well. There are no walls any longer. Our walls are absolutely porous to infiltration by terrorists. Thus we cannot have a world poisoned by anti-Americanism the way it is now, thanks to the clumsiness and arrogance of the Bush administration.
Secondly, on Iraq: I still say, as I told Salon before the war, that it was despicable that most of the Democratic senators lay down flat and voted for the Iraq war resolution. So Kerry is trapped in that. He really does blow with the wind -- as the Republicans satirized in one of the greatest political ads ever, which showed him wind surfing back and forth across the screen. Nevertheless, Kerry's in a much better position to get us out of this damned war. Reelecting Bush just mires us in the same failed policies: Bush will just go on and on to prove he was right in the first place. He never fires anyone! And so we'll only have a stubborn continuation of the same blinkered strategies -- and maybe more foolish incursions. Iran and Syria may be next. We're throwing billions of dollars down the drain.
Third, this entire administration needs to be replaced. There's not a single one of them that I respect. I used to think Condi Rice was a great role model for women, but she's shown that, as a Sovietologist, she had no feel for the religious sectarianism and roiling animosities of the Mideast. And Colin Powell is craven. After those intelligence wonks sent him before the U.N. with crappy evidence of WMD, he should have resigned in protest. The obedient good soldier has lost his soul.
