The Washington Post has a good editorial up about the October Surprises:
The October surprise: It’s as much a seasonal sure thing in Washington as cherry blossoms and the National Christmas Tree.
When leaves fall and elections loom, the term gets tossed around more than a Manning family football. This October, too, is chockablock with shockers. Already “October surprise” has been applied to: several unflattering new books about the White House, an upwardly revised civilian casualty estimate from the Iraq war, the Mark Foley scandal . . . and October isn’t over yet.
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On his MSNBC show last week, former congressman Joe Scarborough pointed out three recent eye-openers, including “the latest October surprise from New York’s publishing world.” Excited, he cited “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward, which actually went on sale Sept. 30, and “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell” by Karen DeYoung, published on Oct. 10. Both books, by Washington Post reporters, “provided a double-barrel blast at the White House,” Scarborough said.He continued, “But now another book drops within weeks of the midterm elections, claiming the Bush White House played Christians for fools and called them nuts and lunatics behind their backs.”
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In some years the October surprise, like the Great Pumpkin or Godot, is much anticipated but never appears. But in recent years it’s become so predictable, so commonplace, it should be called the October Same-Old Same-Old.
This is the first American election I am following as closely as I am right now: I only started blogging in January of this year. The October surprises routine might be considered just a part of the political game in the US, but I have to admit that I find it all quite – to be honest – appalling. Everybody is attacking everybody and as a result everybody seems – to me – to be committing harakiri. If this is what Americans have to face every couple of years, if this is what – to a large degree – shapes their opinion about politics, I cannot see how Americans can possibly respect their politicians / political leaders, let alone trust them.
If this October month proves anything – it seems to me that ‘anything’ is what a terrible mess American politics really are.
Then again, perhaps that is one of the major reasons for the fascinating nature of American politics.
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