BY JOY-ANN REID
I admit I didn't watch
the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union
Message. Even a political junkie can take only so much.
But I did hear a rebuttal of Bush's remarks, courtesy of the 2020
Democrats, a group of 20-something activists whose co-founder I
interviewed last August. At that time, the group had fielded about
400 ''vision'' statements from politicians and young voters on where
Democrats hoped to see the party, and the country, headed by the
year 2020. The group had received responses from just one
congressman and a single presidential candidate: Howard Dean.
Fast forward to January 2004. According to a 2020 source, John
Kerry and John Edwards have submitted ''visions,'' and Wesley
Clark's position paper is on the way. The group's ranks have swelled
to about 1,500 core members, mostly college students, and the group
has bagged a conference call for members attending ''house parties''
across the country (and streamed online by the group Music for
America) with comedian Al Franken.
Franken blasted Bush's laundry list of fresh spending, steroid
references and marriage initiatives (''What happened to Mars?''
Franken demanded). He scoffed at Bush's roll-call of Iraq coalition
members, which seemed comically reminiscent of Dean's histrionic
rundown of states slated for the ``perfect storm.''
''We've got Denmark,'' said Franken. ``They've sent a medical
team. Bulgaria and Slovakia are letting us use their airspace . . .
Oh, and we've got Micronesia and Palau, which has no military.''
Fresh off his fourth USO tour, which took him to Iraq, Kuwait,
Afghanistan and Uzbekistan (yes, we have troops there, too), Franken
chided the administration for cutting veterans' benefits. He also
took on Bush's WMD walk-back, saying, ``Last year, we heard about
all those weapons of mass destruction we knew (Iraq) had, but now
all we've got is `dozens of weapons of mass destructionrelated
program activities.' Some of those activities, I understand, are
coloring books.''
Like Bush, Franken acknowledged the changes in the country after
the 2001 terror attacks, saying, ``After 9/11, this president had a
united country and a united world. He had a chance to lead us in a
spirit of mutual purpose, and he blew it.''
To Franken, the most ''Orwellian line'' of Bush's speech was:
''For diplomacy to be effective, our word must be credible. And now
no one can doubt the word of America.'' His response: 'We lied about
Iraq, and now we're losing the rest of the world . . . except El
Salvador. They're giving us `political support.' ''
The 2020s listened attentively, and laughed at all the funny
parts. When the Q&A came, a guy on the call asked, ``When Bush
said children were being left behind by not being able to read in
the third grade, do you think he was speaking from experience?
Franken's response: ``I'll do the jokes.''
That call illustrated the new state of our political union.
Technology has brought media, celebrities and ordinary people
together in the strongest surge of collective, innovative political
activity that I've seen. People across the country are shooting TV
ads and streaming them over the Internet, setting up blogs and
joining organizations -- such as 2020, Moveon.org, Hip Hop Team Vote
and Americans Coming Together -- to affect the 2004 presidential
election.
The question is whether old-school candidates can harness their
impact in November.
Joy-Ann Reid is an online news editor and freelance
writer.
