"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
The line from Kundera's novel about the rewriting of history in Czechloslavakia is a reminder that it is important to remember the broader scope of this election and focus on Daschle's first run for Congress in 1978 and for the Senate in 1986, when he ran as a conservative. The latter was Daschle's last competitive election and his positions then tell us a lot about how far he has drifted since. To allow Daschle to airbrush this history away with $15 million in TV advertising and not to scrutinize his overall record is a mistake. It's why the Argus Leader should be writing big retrospective pieces on his career, like they've done to former Republican Senators.
UPDATE: on the importance of history and historical memory and politics, see this about Kerry and the history of Vietnam war, which Kerry has made the centerpiece of his campaign.
Comments