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Journalist questions Bush

Editor and writer Hendrik Hertzberg of the The New Yorker magazine entertained a packed crowd in the Memorial Union Great Hall as he predicted the next four years under the current presidential administration Tuesday night.

Hertzberg has also served as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and as editor of The New Republic.

Hertzberg spoke of his book, “Politics: Observations & Arguments, 1966-2004,” which was published in July.

Responding to questions regulated by University of Wisconsin economics professor Donald Nichols, Hertzberg explained why Democratic nominee John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election.

“The No. 1 reason [George W. Bush won] was terrorism and 9/11,” Hertzberg said. “Also, the attacks on Kerry and his failure to respond quickly and harshly.”

Hertzberg said the Bush campaign persuaded Americans that Bush alone could keep them safe from terrorism. As an example, he pointed to the Republican Convention and the several attacks on Democrats and terrorists.

Conservatism is not the political majority, according to Hertzberg, and most people did not agree with Bush’s views on health care, the environment or the economy but voted for him anyway.

UW junior Sadie Stratton, who attended the lecture, said she agreed with Hertzberg’s perspective.

“For some reason people thought they were safer with Bush,” Stratton said. “The Democrats should have spoken up more aggressively and listed all the reasons why that was not true.”

Hertzberg predicted the Senate will return to a Democratic majority in four to six years, but he does not expect the House of Representatives to reverse for more than a decade because of “Republican gerrymandering.”

Hertzberg added the U.S government is “undemocratic” because 90 percent of the country is disenfranchised when it comes to the House of Representatives. If the House and Senate were more proportional to the size of the state represented, Hertzberg said he believes people would be more motivated to vote. The three-house system fails as well because it is too complicated, Hertzberg added.

“I believe that the hydraulics of our government do not create a government,” Hertzberg said. “We have three houses that blame each other and need approval from all three. Is it any wonder that it is hard to get things done?”

In response to recent attempts to privatize Social Security, Hertzberg said it was a “dishonest campaign on part of the White House with falsities too big to force down the throats of the American people.”

According to Hertzberg, the Social Security system works, and Republicans need to prove that it does not work before changing anything. Democrats need to focus on defeating private accounts, he added.

Hertzberg proposed lightheartedly that instead of the payroll tax, the government should tax things they would like to discourage, such as non-renewable resources. He said it would be “the best environmental plan we could ask for.”

Nichols opposed the idea, adding he did not believe there were enough non-renewable resources available to tax.

Debra Singer, a grant writer from California, said she liked Hertzberg’s idea.

“Why are we taxing people for behaviors we like when we could be taxing behaviors that we don’t like?” Singer asked.

Hertzberg referred to polls showing that the more Bush campaigns for the privatization of Social Security, the less popular it becomes.

“It is a little hard to see how Bush’s Social Security plan can win,” Hertzberg said.