THE QUESTION UNASKED

ince very early in the War On Whatever, it's been clear that the Administration has wanted to lower expectations wherever possible. It didn't take more than a couple days after the initial invasion of Afghanistan for Donald Rumsfeld to declare that the capture of Usama bin Laden was not a mission critical objective (SIDEBAR: Remember, most of these current brilliant minds are the same brilliant minds that decided ousting Saddam Hussein wasn't a necessary part of the Gulf War but now seem to view it as a holy charge.) Subsequent to that, we've heard the FBI Director say that further attacks are imminent, inevitable and unstoppable. We've heard that the FBI and CIA are irrevocably deficient in their ability to communicate properly, so deficient that adding an entire new Cabinet-level department -- which the Administration admits will be mistake-prone early on -- to the mix is necessary. The White House and its various current departments are having trouble keeping their stories straight in public. If it wasn't such a political disaster the first time, I'd say we were being set up to expect another Vietnam.

Here's the thing: we can do anything. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt declared that we'd build 50,000 planes in four years. Everybody laughed and we built twice that many. In 1961, John Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon, simply for the sake of doing it, despite not having so much as put a man in orbit. A man went to the moon and eleven more followed. We have more money, more brainpower and more physical resources than any other society in the history of societies. We are, by quite a wide margin, the only superpower left on Earth. We can do anything.

So why the hell don't we?

And more to the point, why do we allow our selected officials to tell us we can't? Are these not the days of SuperLucky #1 America? How does Robert Mueller get away with saying we can't accomplish something as simple as protecting our beaches from terrorist frogmen in this environment? Frogman deterrance should be a cakewalk for us.

Yeah, I understand that nobody wants to get caught being full of hot air. But Washington is so scared right now of demanding that their lips be read -- 12 years later! -- that they've replaced the politics of achievement with the politics of grocery shopping. "Sure, we could wipe out AIDS in Africa but that isn't on the list, now is it?" The range of what we can do but don't -- whether out of cowardice, apathy or hostility -- is staggering. We could put a base on the moon and use it to send a crew to Mars. We could provide clean water and decent living conditions for the billions that go without them. We could install a stable and empowered government in Afghanistan. Just like we could've done in 1989.

We haven't done a goddamn thing in decades and I'm starting to think the next Presidential term might be when we get back on the horse. The way we're standing right now, the outlandish goal in question might be the establishment of the Department of Precrime. Think wisely this fall and over the next two years.

DON'T SAY SPITE, DON'T SAY SPITE

aul Wellstone is easily the most liberal member of the current United States Senate. He might be the most liberal member of Congress and is probably to the left of every Democratic Governor. His home state, Minnesota, produced Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale and is second only to Massachusetts in Democratic consistency.

So it's only natural that the Green Party considers unseating him a top priority.

This is apparently part of Ralph Nader's historically unsupported and dangerous belief that if things get bad enough -- that is to say, if enough hardcore right-wingers are put in office -- a true revolution will be sparked. Not only is this the kind of thinking that led to Hitler's ascent in Germany, it exposes both Nader's arrogance and hypocrisy. Why on Earth does he think, as the primary cause for things in America becoming "bad enough," that any such revolution would involve him or his politics? When the revolution comes, he's going to up against the wall with the Republicans he helped elect.

And more importantly, it shows us that every time he claimed his campaign didn't cost Gore the election he was blatantly lying. He and the other party leaders are open about the fact that they want to keep Democrats from winning elections. So when Nader's Florida returns put a simpleton in the White House why wasn't he out celebrating and taking credit where due?

In the case of Minnesota's Sentorial race, the Greens make even less sense than usual. Wellstone is apparently being specifically targetted because he supported the military action in Afghanistan and he voted for the PATRIOT Act. The thing is, the Green candidate, Ed McGaa, holds the exact same positions. So if we're supposed to be looking past party at the candidates themselves, why should any Green vote for McGaa over Wellstone?

Why, indeed.

---

Aaron Veenstra is the managing editor of Etc. House Productions.
The Fast Lane appears bi-weekly.