The year of the ‘hustle’
Commentary by Pat Murphy
After lying for 14 years about his
gambling, bad boy Pete Rose is trying to mend his ways with confessions he hopes
will end his banishment from baseball. Thus Rose’s nickname, "Charlie Hustle,"
as in snake oil salesman.
Not far behind is the National Football
League hustle—its phony outrage about the trashy Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake
halftime Super Bowl flesh show. Come, come. What would pro sports be without
trashy behavior?
But this is the year of bigger hustles—the
quadrennial run for the White House when candidates airbrush away politically
damaging pasts and willy-nilly throw around "When I become president ..."
promises.
One dodge of some wannabes is to hustle
voters with the claim they’re "outsiders" unsullied by Washington politics, but
utterly unfazed by the obvious hypocrisy of "outsiders" panting to become the
ultimate insider.
Democrat Howard Dean, an unabashed
hustler, boasted early on he doesn’t discuss religion. But now he announces
he’ll engage in Bible talk to curry votes in the Bible Belt, where he hopes to
also appeal to good ol’ boys with Confederate flags on pickup trucks.
Democrat John Kerry surely will need to
explain his promise to fight "special interests" in light of a report from the
nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that he’s collected more funds from
lobbyists—$640,000—than any U.S. senator in 15 years.
You know it’s election time when the
incumbent president begins his hustle—doling out goodies by the billions of
dollars to capture voter blocs.
President Bush has proposed costly new
programs at a breathless pace.
A program to pay for prescription drugs
(the seniors vote). A mission to Mars (the scientist vote). "Healthy marriage"
counseling program (the religious vote). Adding funds for the
right-wing-detested National Endowment for the Arts (the culture vote).
Surely soon on the way will be goodies for
the environmental vote, black and Hispanic votes, Muslim and Jewish votes,
female vote, educators vote. The White House takes care of the CEO vote every
day.
How much this would cost (if not just
election year drivel) doesn’t matter. The federal deficit and national debt
already are soaring into the realm of the unreal and unmanageable.
But even debt and deficit are part of the
hustle.
In his Saturday radio speech, President
Bush promised "making spending limits the law. This simple step would mean that
every additional dollar the Congress wants to spend in excess of spending limits
must be matched by a dollar in spending cuts elsewhere. Budget limits must mean
something, and not just serve as vague guidelines to be routinely violated."
Bush talks as if the Republican-controlled
Congress, not he, is responsible for a spending spree that fellow Republican
Sen. John McCain of Arizona says reminds him of "a drunken sailor."
By the way, 2004 also is the year of the
monkey on the Chinese calendar.