Rage Against THIS Machine!
Well, since the good man is running for the Senate in Illinois against Barack Obama, it gives me a good excuse to re-play this moment from the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination fight:
Gary Bauer: Alan, a couple of weeks ago, you criticized my good friend John McCain because he expressed some support of or interest in a controversial music group (Nine Inch Nails). In view of that, I was a little surprised this week to see you fall into a mosh pit while a band called the Machine Rages On, or Rage Against the Machine, played. That band is anti-family. It’s pro-cop killer, and it’s pro-terrorist.
It’s the kind of music that the killers at Columbine High School were immersed in.
Shaw: Question.
Bauer: I don’t know, don’t you think you owe an apology to parents and policemen on that one?
Alan Keyes: Actually I don’t, because I was in no–accusing me of having some complicity in that music would be accusing me of, I don’t know, being responsible for the color of my skin.
When you can’t control things, Gary, you’re not morally responsible for them. And I was not morally responsible for the music that was playing as I stepped out of my rally…. And until you told me this fact, I had no idea what that music was–contrary to our friend John McCain, who expressed the view that [Nine Inch Nails] was his favorite rock group….
To do it in a lighthearted way, rather than having it imposed on you by circumstances of which–over which you have no control is something that I think is totally unacceptable. So I think that I would beg to differ with you. I had nothing to do with that music, disclaim any knowledge of it.
Admittedly, I was willing to fall into the mosh pit, but I’ll tell you something. You know why I did that? Because I think that exemplifies the kind of trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign. It’s about time we got back to the understanding that we trust the people of this country to do what’s decent. And when you trust them, they will in fact hold you up, whether it’s in terms of giving help to you when you’re falling down or caring for their own children.
So I thought that, as an emblem of that trust, it was the right thing to do. And anyway, my daughter thought it was a good idea.
Bauer: Well, daughters are extremely important.
Al, let me read a quote from you. You said that one of the most important things is the dignity of the presidency. In fact, you said that it’s important that those of us that aspire to be president not act like guests on “The Jerry Springer Show,” which is incompatible with the dignity of politics.
Now, I’ll concede from your answer you didn’t know about the music. But nobody made you jump in the mosh pit. Do you think that’s consistent with…
Keyes: Oh, that’s very true.
Bauer: … do you think that’s consistent with the dignity of the presidency?
Keyes: Well, I would leave that to the judgment of the American people. I do know that when I got down, one of the folks who was there with one of the news crews looked at me and he said, “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen dive into a mosh pit and come out with his tie straight.”
And I think that . . . do you know the real test of dignity? The real test of dignity is how you carry it through hard times. I think I learned that from my people. We went through slavery, when we didn’t have the outward signs of what others would call dignity, because we understood that dignity comes from within. And that whatever circumstance you are going through, you can carry that dignity with you, and no one can take it away.
So I think you may have a misunderstanding of dignity. It doesn’t come from what you do in a mosh pit. It comes from what you do as a result of the convictions of your heart. And I’ll leave it to the American people to judge the convictions of my heart.
……………
Gary Bauer did have a point there. What’s a man blasting a fellow candidate for praising the music of Nine Inch Nails (like, we all believe John McCain there) doing in a mosh pit for Rage Against the Machine? He can afford integrity — after all, what with a constituency of 2% of the Republican Party (his general average during the campaign.) [ The answer — in case you’re curious: going after the support of Michael Moore. Literally, that was the reason.]
It’s a sign of integrity – problems that just showed up with his run for Illinois Senate. In 2000, he blasted Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate carpet-bag run as an assault on “Federalism” — now, of course, he’s pretty much doing the same thing — moving from Maryland to Illinois.
Joshua Micah Marshall on Alan Keyes V. Barack Obama:
Keyes is something else to watch on the hustings or in a debate. But calling him a master debater is rather like saying Dolly Parton has a dynamite bod or Lou Ferrigno is toned — or, perhaps mostly aptly, that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons is quick on his feet. In other words, impressive in his own way, but also a bit cartoonish and rather less than subtle.
If and when these two guys debate what we’re going to hear are rants from Keyes — both spellbinding and inane — about how tort reform is necessary to bring America back into compliance with natural law, how drug reimportation is incompatible with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and how gun control has been outlawed by God.