The wingnut response to the Foleygate mess, predictably, has been to dredge up old Democratic scandals. I had never heard of this Gerry Studds guy before this week, but did anyone notice that his (consensual) relationship with a page occurred in 1973? That's crazy! It's almost as if Woodward was still exposing the Republican administration's lies! It's almost as if 60 Minutes was still covering Kissinger's bad advice regarding an endless war in Asia... wait a minute, maybe it really is 1973! In that case, it's time for an appropriate musical soundtrack!
For me, the best thing written about 9/11, so far, is the Portastatic record, Summer of the Shark (scroll down). Hell, this is maybe one of the best records I've ever heard, period, up there for me with The White Album and Abbey Road and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and all that shit. The reason for this is to do with the really quiet but determined way that it depicts the simple emotion of sorrow in the aftermath of 9/11. Indeed, it is the only artistic work that has to me expressed anything honest about that day, period, which is quite an achievement, given the kinds of pressures that exist to feel the "right" way about 9/11.
There are no firefighters in Summer of the Shark, no policemen -- and no terrorists. Except in the background, with the ghostly sirens. And hell, you have to take a bit on listening to the songs to even get that it's about 9/11 at all. The opening song, "Oh Come Down," makes no mention of the trauma; you only hear it by picking up cues from other songs. Like the second one, "In the Lines," which is all about trying to make a phone call to someone you're afraid might be dead: "Did you get lost?/ Or did our calls just cross/ In the lines?" Then you get to the bit where the singer gets a wrong number, and the woman who answers "starts crying": "I hope you find your friend/ I get lots of calls for him"...
That's what 9/11 was, for most people. Someone who would usually be pissed off at the wrong number, breaking down in tears because that utter stranger who's usually an annoyance... could have been killed in a totally horrible way.
And all this stuff is handled with no fanfare, no ostentation, no nothing, just the way it was.
Foley called for a quick end to the wrangling. "By any standards other than those used by political operatives, this election should be over," he said in the weekly Republican radio address.
He criticized the manual recount in Palm Beach County for its "selective enforcement" of examining chad and determining the votes on punch cards. And each time a ballot is inspected, he said, it runs the risk of being torn or damaged, and then misread.
Foley also called for an end to the welter of lawsuits and appeals that have been filed since Election Day, saying the country was "in limbo." Foley, elected to a fourth consecutive term in Congress, urged a quick end to the vote counting, no matter the result.
"It would be a sad commentary if this election ends up being taken out of the hands of the American people and decided by the courts," he said. "Florida's secretary of state will eventually certify this election, as she is required to do under Florida law. Whatever the outcome, we need to respect it."
TERENCE SMITH: Congressman Foley, if it does turn up new information, what's wrong with that?
REP. MARK FOLEY: Well, we don't like it simply because there are no standards. In fact, he just said, "We're not certain of the way we're going to conduct this or what the outcome will be." I think by now, these ballots are somewhat tainted. They've been shipped back and forth, they've been examined by people in Palm Beach County and Broward. I'm very, very concerned that this could attempt to undermine the legitimacy of this President. Mr. Gore conceded, the election's over. I think it's time, after watching the opening of this show, where members of Congress are joining together and working on education policies, that we focus on moving ahead, not backwards.
So I question: What is going to be achieved by this? If the Miami Herald and other news sources were looking at the machines, looking at the problems the machines created, I may be thinking differently now. But what I hear is we're sitting in a warehouse with reporters, we do not know the political affiliation of those reporters. As I understand it, the Miami Herald and most organizations who are doing the recounting endorsed Mr. Gore, so not suggesting a bias, but clearly they certainly an had an interest in the outcome by suggesting who may make a better president. And now, six weeks later, we're going to start going over these ballots once again and creating an element of doubt in the public's mind.
