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Bus Pass >> Of Owls And Uranium When I was a college student, my classmates couldn't expel a lungful of air without articulating the phrase "Spotted Owl". Now, granted, I was an Environmental Science major at the aggressively liberal Evergreen State College, which is situated within chainsaw-earshot of the Olympic Peninsula, epicenter of the whole "Spotted Owl" brouhaha. So it's perhaps unsurprising that we all had Strix occidentalis on the brain. But at the time, 1992, it seemed like the Spotted Owl was a topic of conversation throughout the US, with everyone insisting that it be either assiduously protected or roasted on a spit and served with caramelized onions. The Spotted Owl occupied the center stage of the logging debate largely because environmentalists had thrust it there. Convinced that they could never sell the public on the idea that old-growth forests were complex ecosystems worthy of protection for a multitude of environmental, economic and aesthetic reasons, they instead opted to pin their hopes on a cute, fluffy, big-eyed bird. Funny how pseudocyphellaria -- an endangered lichen so unloved it lacked even a common name -- never wound up on a Sierra Club leaflet. Eventually, Spotted Owls came back to bite environmentalists in the ass (figuratively speaking only, alas). Having reduced old-growth advocacy to the well-being of a single species, environmentalists were aghast when reports began to trickle in suggesting that the owls might be able to survive in second-growth stands as well. Many of my classmates denounced such findings as scurrilous propaganda invented by a cabal of timber-company fiction writers. Naturally, these were the same people who hailed every study favoring their cause as a paragon of Pure, Unadulterated Science. As Spotted-Owls-in-second-growth findings became more prevalent and credible, environmentalists found themselves in a tricky position. After all, if studies had shown that good old pseudocyphellaria was able to live in second-growth, no one would have given a tinker's damn because no one had built their house of cards on a bed of lichens. But with their poster child at risk, the environmental movement found itself having to laboriously retrace its steps. Suddenly the Spotted Owl was never the point in the first place, oh no. It was just a symbol, you see, for the larger issue of saving the old growth. But by then the public considered the Spotted Owl synonymous with anti-logging activists, and may well have concluded that if the owl didn't need the old growth then maybe the US didn't either. All groups fall prey to Spotted Owl Syndrome from time to time, but lefties seem especially susceptible. Frustrated by the Republican stranglehold on political power, Democrats and left-leaning bloggers dogpiled Lott after he uttered an ethically ambiguous accolade at Strom Thurman's birthday bash. Rather than use the occasion as a springboard to address the many very real cases of institutionalized racism inherent in our political system, Lott's detractors opted instead to simply hound him from office. Republicans came out stronger, conservatives were lauded for their strong stance against racism, and Democrats won a completely symbolic and useless "victory". All of which brings me to the current "uranium from Africa" hullabaloo, a debacle that has all the earmarks of a liberal self-petard-hoisting: overzealous zeroing-in on a single aspect of a complex issue -- not even an aspect, really, but, as in the aforementioned Lott-ery, a specific string of words -- accompanied by a great show of feigned outrage. It has long been known that the Saddam / Niger / yellowcake allegations were all but groundless, but it's only now that the story is getting traction that the Democrats are loudly declaring themselves shocked -- shocked! I hope the folks at the Democratic National Committee HQ aren't high-fiving each other over keeping this story in the headlines, because, truth be told, it's not critics of the White House that are giving this thing legs but the Keystone-Cop-esqe bumbling of the White House itself. Sooner or later the White House is going to figure out that the optimal strategy for Uraniumgate damage control is abbreviated STFU, at which point the issue will evaporate. Unfortunately, many of the Democratic presidential candidates have already hitched their wagons to the yellowcake star, and may find themselves floundering when it winks out of existence. I wish I could vehemently object to that characterization, but in many ways I think they are right. After all, while forever accusing Republicans of pandering to the ignorant, of dumbing everything down for mass consumption, of assuming that the public can't handle anything more complex than a soundbite, lefties blithely do the exact same thing and, worse, do it poorly. They start by assuming a nation largely populated by uneducated rubes, and conclude that they have no choice but to go all reductio ad absurdum to make their case. That's why they tie the entire old-growth logging debate to a single critter that may or may not depend on the forests in question; I understand that in an era of superficial media coverage, politicians must rely on symbols and shorthand to get their messages across, but Democrats seem especially prone to confusing their own metaphors with the broader issue they are supposed to represent. The uranium reference in the State of the Union address is interesting insofar as it's symbolic of the larger campaign of deceit and distortion that was used to justify the Iraqi Invasion, and that is what the "opposition party" should be talking about. If the Democrats are truly the "Party Of The People" as they like to boast -- and if they hope to recapture the White House in 2004 -- they should respect the people enough to speak frankly about these matters, instead of getting investing huge amounts of time, resources and energy into oversimplifications that serve mainly to insult the public's intelligence. Otherwise they might as well change their mascot to the Spotted Owl and call it a day.
I'm even passing this along to my ultra-conservating father. Amusing, well written, intelligent, and most of all - painfully accurate. Wren someone has a different opinion you shouldn't get soar. It's a good day for unintentional jokes, with Nathan noting a fowl stench emanating from the spotted owl debate, and Matthew 'vehemously' siding temporarily with the followers of Bush. Posted by: 10 Eva on July 26, 2003 11:22 AM Ahem: I see Lora's pointed all that out a wee bit more subtly. I'm like that kid who, while everyone else has already been snickering since class began, announces in a loud whisper that it's pretty funny that the teacher's zipper is down. I had assumed Matthew was only doing this blog lark for laughs, and then he goes and writes this post - I thought it was brilliant! What, like some hospital intern was going to shoot them or something? Posted by: 13 K on July 26, 2003 05:05 PM As someone who has tried wholeheartedly to get back into politics but has become completely embittered by the Dems resorting to reactionary tactics instead of being pro or even ag-gressive in anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this post. But I must admit that what I enjoyed most was your casual use of what must be the greatest contemporary proverbs I have ever read: "don't build your house of cards on a bed of lichen" and "don't hitch your wagon to the yellowcake star" Years from now, lifetime Sierra Club members will be repeating these to their grandkids. Posted by: 14 nova on July 27, 2003 04:03 AM As a former Republican, I must say that it's commentary like Matthew's that help me understand and welcome views outside the ones I was brought up with and have held onto until recently. Posted by: Philip on July 28, 2003 04:04 AM I can't tell from a lot of these comments whether the folks agree or disagree with your post - even the comments that refer to it. Philip's comment about "Willie Horton" would seem to contradict what you are saying - that Poppy was able to beat Dukakis with a single, simple issue. I want to be libertarian when it comes to people and the media - ...
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