Cheney's one-word reply to a reporter's question serves as a complement to the Bush item#1 above. The query was about why the Administration keeps escalating and plowing on in the Iraq quagmire when poll after poll for several years now has shown that the American people think the war was a bad mistake and want the troops to start coming home as soon as is practicable. Cheney looked at the reporter who inquired as to how the Administration might want to respond to this overwhelming citizen rejection of CheneyBush Iraq policy and said: "So?"
Subtext: What Cheney was saying was that his White House has its own agenda, based upon his absolute certainty that he knows what's best for us all, and most especially best for the elites that support the Administration. Therefore, he is not about to be dissuaded by anything as trivial as public sentiment or democratically-derived opinion, or, for that matter, reality on the ground in Iraq. In effect: "Just get out of our way before you get run over." (Earlier, Cheney, a man of few words, used just two to attack Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the United States Senate: "Fuck you!")
4. THE PRESIDENTIAL "CATAPULT"
Using Karl Rove's Big Lie Technique -- telling whoppers again and again and again, to the point where they get accepted as conventional wisdom -- Bush inadvertenly gave away the store when he described how a large part of his job was to keep repeating the same talking points endlessly in order to "catapult the propaganda."
Willy-nilly, the subtext became the text: Whoops! That phrase just sort of slipped out out of Bush's mouth. You can just see his "brains," mainly Rove and Cheney, gnashing their teeth and pulling out their remaining hair as those words escaped Bush's mouth. The topic was Social Security, but the CheneyBushRove "catapulting" approach is the same regardless of subject: We define reality; you better adjust to it, or else.
5. ASHCROFT & FLEISCHER
Authoritarian rulers not only must keep what they're doing away from public scrutiny -- this Administration has been the most secretive in U.S. history -- but also must frighten away would-be critics from questioning their policies. The aim is to get potential critics to keep silent or, at the least, to moderate their objections.
So here was then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft at a Congressional hearing, responding to criticisms of the Administration's rampaging through the Constitutional protections of due process in its top-secret "war on terror":
"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."
In essence, Ashcroft was accusing anyone raising questions about those extra-legal tactics of giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies: a treasonable offense. In other words, shut your mouth and pay the consequence of having your patriotism impugned, or worse: lose your job, be the target of hate, go to jail.
Then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer continued in the same vein by warning those with access to the media to keep their mouths shut, issuing reminders to all Americans that "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that. There never is."
6. AH, THE "ROMANCE" OF COMBAT
Here's a recent Bush remark that is so out-there that one was tempted to believe it was an Onion parody. Bush told U.S. military and civilian personnel facing death and maiming in Afghanistan:
"I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."
One can be certain there are plenty of GIs in Afghanistan and Iraq today who would love to trade places with George W. so he could finally get some of that wonderful "romantic" experience of being under enemy fire.
The subtext: Bush, whose connected family made sure to keep Dim Son from serving in Vietnam by getting him a soft-cushion commission in the Texas Air National Guard, still exhibits no knowledge of what war is really like and what those young men and women he sends into harm's way have to go through day by day. Many of them serve without enough armored vehicles, without enough body armor, and return home, often to deficient VA medical care, with severe brain or lower-extremity injuries as a result of the lack of the correct armoring,
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
it is a damn crying shame that these guys have not been brought to justice. we are all the worse off for it. there is more than enough evidence to impeach and incarcerate. if these guys get off scott free then the next tinhorn dictator wannnabe will have nothing to fear. there needs to be an accounting. justice must be served.
by
Levon (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 10:17:28 AM
1 comments
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