Theatre, no supporting facts and misuse of good people

On Sunday, Mark Kirk got up in front of a local Jewish Congregation and, after evoking images of Kristallnacht and yellow badges worn by holocaust victims, invited them to picture a scene. He asked each person to imagine himself in the bathroom one morning brushing his teeth. He gets a phone call, not from just anyone, but from his best friend. The friend tells the person to turn on CNN because Israel is gone. The scene Kirk sets is meant to drive home into everyday life the idea that Israel is likely, unless we follow his plan, to be destroyed by Iranian nuclear missiles. The graphic description of everyday life was meant to blend the familiar with the unthinkable to create a gut reaction. It's actually a theatrical technique and is used to create more realistic, gut wrenching suspense.

I hear he has used the same story for years at fundraisers, but sometimes it's a cousin, not a friend, and sometimes the person is not brushing his teeth, but just getting out of bed, and sometimes there is more detail in the story like the UN calling an emergency session, and sometimes Israel is hit with 6 nukes, not a salvo, but in the end it is always simply, but dramatically, described as gone.

I'd have been way more impressed had Kirk just gotten up there with detailed, supported facts and led a debate on smart and realistic solutions. I would have been more impressed had he done less acting and more listening.

I had the opportunity to hear some facts about Iran’s nuclear program a few months ago from a real, non-partisan, expert Joseph Cirincione, Senior Associate and Director for Non-Proliferation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Cirincione is not struggling to win re-election in a congressional district about to reject him. He told the group of religious leaders and lay activists last March that Iran is several years away, if it can ever get there, from having nuclear weapons. The enrichment program of which Iran boasts is marred by equipment issues and problems with heavy metal contamination. Much more dangerous, Cirincione described, is the US rejection of its own historical policy of no exceptions nuclear non-proliferation by allowing India to purchase more nuclear equipment and escape vital inspections. This creates a situation where nations see other nations obtaining nuclear technology and they feel both fear and slight making them want them more.

Without theatrical imagery, Cirincione warned us to expect the administration (for whom Kirk now carries water as House Majority Whip) to push and attempt to scare us into the neo-con model used to get us into Iraq. Just before they are ready to attack, they will keep saying that Iran is nearing a "point of no return", he said.

Kirk is not waiting for any “point of no return”. He’s already there, hoping to bring us there, and his solution is to start a gasoline embargo of Iran. Iran seems to be unable to refine it’s own oil into gasoline and has to import it. Kirk says that this is a strategy short of war because with all his theatrics, he still doesn’t think he can sell the Illinois Tenth on another Iraq-style war. However, Kirk forgot to mention another truth. A military embargo on an international waterway can be considered an act of war. So, just like our little owl did on October 8, 2002, Kirk is recommending war for his leader, George W. Bush, and likely, for his own reelection prospects. What of the scenerio more likely than Iranian nuclear missiles, where the Palastinians continue terrorist attacks causing the Israelis to retaliate, and the anger and self justification between the two grows and hate festers moving both sides to be armed to the tooth? Kirk doesn't tell that story because he thinks it's just fine. It helps him make his argument for re-election and extort his campaign contributions from the people he just scared.

I disagree with Mark Kirk on the role of the American Jewish community in the district’s political process. Kirk thinks he should bait them with horror stories and inferences without real facts, and then sell them on his war plan like he sold the Iraq war plan to the country in October 2002. Kirk wants to use the district’s Jewish community as part of his re-election plan without much regard to the reality of the situation and honest debate of the potential consequences. It may work with some, but I think the vast majority of the district’s Jewish community won’t buy it. They, like everyone else in the district, need and want to hear all the facts and debate smart and realistic solutions to realistic problems. I give them far more credit than Mark Kirk does.

What did I ask Mark Kirk? How did he answer? Did he allow follow up questions? Are you kidding? Was he honest? Are you kidding? Find out more tomorrow.