Remember John McCain's 2000 campaign pledge to defeat the special interest "forces of evil" that have corrupted our politics, and to blow up the "Death Star" of the traditional Republican Party? Does any of that sound familiar?
At the time, McCain's black-and-white worldview got him into deep trouble.In particular, GOP stalwarts fought back hard after McCain classified Pat Robertsonand Jerry Falwell in almost precisely the same way that George W. Bush recentlydescribed Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But if McCain went over the top innaming evil-doers in 2000, today it seems as though Republican party evil-sayers can't go far enough. Even McCain's most dire opponents on campaign finance reform are now casting themselves as Luke Skywalker.
Take the example of Republican congressman Roy Blunt of Missouri, who usedthe word "evil" four consecutive times in reference to soft money on Meetthe Press on Sunday. "If soft money is corrupt and evil," said Blunt, seeming to agree, "then let's eliminate it" (rather than consenting to the various exceptions included in the leading House of Representatives campaign finance reform bill, Shays-Meehan).
Though it made him seem like a reformer, in practice Blunt's language was literally 180 degrees off from McCain's. The congressman supports an array of amendments that would effectively strangle the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill, the House of Representatives foil to the McCain-Feingold bill, which should finally see an up-or-down vote on Wednesday.
Blunt's cosmic logic isn't even consistent with that of other campaign finance reform opponents. The Republican party head in the House, Dennis Hastert, recently likened the possible passage of Shays-Meehan to Armageddon, a "a life and death issue" because it would defund the Republican Party. With respect to the nature of evil, that would seem to put him in stark opposition to Blunt, who spoke as though he considered soft money (rather than the lack thereof) the root of all wrong. But on campaign finance reform itself, Blunt and Hastert find themselves on the same side of the fence.
The whole manipulation almost makes one long for the cosmic clarity following September 11, when even those who reflexively distrust the much-abused word "evil" were prepared to admit that we had witnessed its closest possible human equivalent. But now, with conservatives labeling everything in sight "evil," from Osama bin Laden to Iran to greenbacks, it looks like conceding this ground may have done more harm than good. Even evil, it seems, can lose its innocence.
