Is The Election Over Yet?

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I didn’t watch the debates last night. I was invited to attend the San Diego Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” awards dinner, so of course I went. It was an excellent celebration of the success of women in business. 25 women were especially honored, and it was nice to see such a diversity of work and types of success. That doesn’t mean I avoided politics, however.

There was a keynote speaker. She was a Carnegie Fellow with the Endowment for International Peace, so I expected a few barbs against Bush. I was not disappointed in that expectation. She began the speech mentioning that she had worked in the Clinton administration. This received a “Go Kerry” from someone in the back of the crowd. She joked that she didn’t expect Kerry supporters in San Diego and we all laughed—San Diego is a fairly conservative town for California. She began with a few neutral comments about the importance of voting, and agreed with both candidates that the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists was one of the most important threats. Then she moved into the idea that Bush’s team believed that the international network of treaties was ineffective at stop proliferation. That was certainly a fair point—I have written it myself. Then she suggested that the Bush had decided to retreat behind a missile shield instead of bother to deal with other countries. Suddenly I realized that I was trapped listening to a partisan rant in an inappropriate forum.

She then immediately segued into the dangerousness of North Korea and how we had to negotiate with them because they had nuclear weapons. Unstated, of course, was the fact that she worked for the administration which failed to stop North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons before it had them. She also used the words “I told you so” about Iraq suggesting that the “inspectors needed more time”. Unstated were her thoughts on the reports that for some reason Saddam was attempting to maintain the ability to quickly reconstitute WMD programs once sanctions ended. Further ignored was the issue of Saddam diverting tens of millions of dollars from UN programs which were theoretically created to feed Saddam’s starving people. The transformation of UN relief funds into bribes with a focus on France, Russian and China are directly pertinent to a discussion of how international ‘pressure’ works—especially considering that France and Russia were advocating an end of sanctions. This brings us right back to why Saddam wanted to maintain easy to restart WMD programs for once sanctions had ended, but such discussions weren’t what the speaker was interested in.

By this point a surprisingly large number of people had ‘gone to the bathroom’, and soon thereafter someone at one of the head tables yelled out “What does this have to with women?” The speaker toned it down a bit at that point.

You all know I love a good scrappy partisan discussion. But I felt it was an inappropriate forum—especially considering the tone she chose to take. I’m not entirely happy with the shouted out question either, but I don’t know what the proper response would have been either. Maybe the tone of the discussion wouldn’t have seemed so offensive if the election weren’t 18 days away, or if I were not so deeply immersed in politics as to know the background behind every jab.

In any case, I’ll be happier when the election is over. Then we will know more about how we are going to proceed.

14 thoughts on “Is The Election Over Yet?”

  2. That woman sounded like she meant business. Was she hot, Sebastian? Maybe you could have used a couple of RNC generated pickup lines on her.

  4. I wonder what they expected a “Carnegie Fellow with the Endowment for International Peace” to talk about. I mean for a Carnegie Fellow with the Endowment for International Peace to talk about threats to international peace…I’m shocked. Shocked! Shocked and frankly a bit outraged. How utterly inappropriate.

  5. That woman sounded like she meant business. Was she hot, Sebastian? Maybe you could have used a couple of RNC generated pickup lines on her.
    Y’know, I’m going to put serious money on that not happening.

  8. I suspect that partisan comments in inappropriate forums will tone down a bit after the election.
    Partisan comments in inappropriate forums continued for about 11 years after the 1992 election, at my estimate. I hope the Republican Party has grown up since then, and will accept President Kerry with rather more grace than they accepted President Clinton.

  10. “Unstated were her thoughts on the reports that for some reason Saddam was attempting to maintain the ability to quickly reconstitute WMD programs once sanctions ended.”
    I’m curious why is this being held up as the alternative, as if sanctions really were going to be lifted. Were they? It sounds like the two options were:
    1. Invade Iraq, to find non-existent WMD
    2. Lift sanctions and encourage Saddam to build something so he could nuke us.
    Was #2 ever really a possibility? Was there no middle ground? I mean, could GWB have kept sanctions without invading? It sounds like that would have solved our little “threat” problem, and saved us a lot of money and lives.

  11. Sebastian: and hope that I was horribly wrong about him on the war on terrorism.
    Got a challenge for you, Sebastian.
    I’m fairly sure Kerry is going to win 2nd November, and absolutely certain that anyone can do better than the current disaster-area administration in the “war on terrorism”. But this challenge works no matter who wins. Even Nader.
    Why don’t you make a list of objectives that you want to see accomplished as part of winning “the war on terrorism”. Don’t make them too short-term or specific (“attack Fallujah” is both, for example). Goals that there should be measureable progress towards in a year.
    Then, come November 2005, do a follow-up.

  14. Jesurgislac, good idea though I think a proper view is probably longer than a year.
    *trying not to sound too snarky* I think that three years has been long enough to make a decision about Bush’s abilities, but I know Republicans who don’t.
    I suppose by a year we can know if the proper tack is being taken.
    I think that a year is long enough to tell what tack is being taken – pretty much. In any case, you could keep returning to it – hell, make it October instead of November, and it’s a good recurring theme to run till 2008. 😉

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