All Things Work Together

The SEVEN 7 May 2012 As we move into the election season on a full-fledged basis, I thought I'd share a Sportin" Life column from 2008, which details in part how we got to where we are (and, hopefully, will be for another four years). Enjoy!

All Things Work Together There is a Biblical verse that states, in part, that all things work together for good. On the other hand, there is a misconception that the Chinese word for "crisis" contains the characters that symbolize "danger" and "opportunity." That being said, I would submit that both of these concepts were in place and a part of what took place on November 4th, 2008. First, let's hit the rewind button and return to the year 2000. The presidential candidates were Al Gore, the vice-president during the generally successful Clinton presidency, and Texas governor George W. Bush, known largely for presiding over an unbelievable number of executions during his two terms. After a month-long battle over Florida, the foreign policy-inexperienced Texan was the winner...of sorts. More on that later. Before long came the events of September 11th, 2001 which shocked the nation and the world. Even generally peace-loving people were supportive of going after Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden...but strangely enough, it took just a matter of hours before adminstration people were tossing around the name of Iraq's president Saddam Hussein and his "weapons of mass destruction." So while we went into Afghanistan supposedly in search of Al-Qaeda, President Bush and other continued to talk Iraq, and the president asked for Congressional authorization to use force against Iraq "if necessary." In October of 2002 that authorization was granted. You know the rest of the story...Bush blew off the United Nations, we invaded Iraq, toppled Saddam's statue, mission accomplished. Except for the fact that our soldiers kept dying, and then there was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the Guantanamo Bay prison scandal, and mission NOT accomplished...and by the way, what was the mission, anyway - since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? Meanwhile, on the home front, Hurricane Katrina forced as many as 30,000 people to head to the Superdome, not to see their often-mediocre Saints but to hope that some saints would help keep them alive. The sight of President Bush telling FEMA's Michael Brown that he was doing a "heck of a job" left many with either the thought that Kanye West was right in saying George Bush didn't care about Black people, or that this was a tremendously incompetent administration...or both. So what would have happened had the votes been properly counted in Florida, or if Black voters had not been kept from voting through purging and election-day shenanigans? Almost certainly the 537 vote difference between Bush and Gore would have been more than eliminated, and Gore would have won the presidency. Or what would have happened if Gore had been less concerned about distancing himself from Bill Clinton, and used him to campaign in his home state of Arkansas, which then went to Bush? Or if Gore had put in time to ensure he carried his own home state of Tennessee? In each of these states, the swing to Gore would have won him the presidency. Let's just say he had won, and didn't invade Iraq, and used his presidency to promote his environmental concerns. He probably would have been a relatively successful two-term president, and there would have been no real call for change in 2008. Instead, the country's mood was clearly for change. Iraq remains a most dangerous place, and the Iraq war was and is a crisis, but the 2002 authorization vote which preceded the war in Iraq provided an opportunity, in the 2008 campaign, for someone to point out that many Democrats had, in fact, supported this authorization. What would have happened if Senators Clinton and Edwards, among others, had voted against the authorization? Such a vote would have enabled them to position themselves as the anti-war, anti-Bush policies candidates - which they were unable to do. Barack Obama presented himself as the agent of change, and the others never recovered from the effects of their vote during the primaries. But then came the general election campaign against an American hero who would certainly be a formidable foe...until his vice-presidential pick. What would have happened if McCain had selected Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, or even Condoleezza Rice? We'll never know - but we do know his pick hurt more than helped. Though we could not have envisioned it during an incredibly rough eight-year period, all of these things worked together for good. And Barack Obama is the President of the United States.