"I Know Who I Am, and Who I May
Be, If I Choose"
~~"The Ingenious
Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha" by Miguel Cervantes
by Sheila Samples
"Sir, in regard to --"
"Who're you talkin' to?"
It was just a split second -- a collective
intake of breath -- but reporters genuflecting before George
Bush last April at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte,
North Carolina, got the message. They got it, as Bush
likes to say -- loud and clear. From that point on, it was...
"Mr. President --"
Watching the media herd jostle to gain the attention of the
ill-natured and juvenile "Mr. President," it was
difficult to discern which was more pathetic -- an unprofessional Bush
delighting in forcing a reporter to grovel for access to his
wondrous self, or a professional journalist allowing himself
to be called "Stretch" while eagerly groveling.
The US media long ago abdicated their charter, that of
being vigilant watchdogs over those in power, and of serving as
honest brokers and trustees of the public interest.
Walter Williams, University of Missouri's first Journalism Dean, addressed
this a century ago in his Journalist's Creed wherein he
wrote, http://www.mdn.org/jschool/creed.htm "Acceptance
of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of
this trust."
Unfortunately, Williams did not foresee a need for having a watchdog
over the watchdog. He believed -- as did so many of us who
emerged from Journalism classes wide-eyed and bristling with
determination to fall on our ethical swords to protect the U.S.
Constitution against all comers -- that journalists inherently
had the integrity to police themselves, and any imposed control would
be an insult to the profession...
But while we weren't looking, the watchdogs over those in power
somehow became http://www.natall.com/who-rules-america/ those
in power. To today's media Goliaths, "public
service" is whatever it takes to ramp up ratings and
corporte profits. They apparently have no qualms about circling
their wagons around such a woeful failure as George Bush because
he brings home their bacon -- or he fronts for the guys who do.
To those CEOs who now own the mainstream media, biting the hand
that feeds them would be the ultimate betrayal.
Given his reality-challenged "vision" of ridding
the entire world of evil and riding shotgun for God by
personally delivering the gift of freedom to the few who remain, one
has only to look at the clueless, "look ma -- no hands" Bush to suspect
that making this guy look presidential -- or even remotely sane -- can
be a chore. It's work. Hard work. Really hard worky
work...
The media appear to be dug in too deep to back out
now. Although the hole they're in is scandalously deep and
wide, they have no choice. They must keep digging.
And digging. They're forced to save Bush's backside
in order to save their own, else how will they explain at this
late date their covering up the lies of a man-child who delights in
being an international bully -- who applauds himself for
irrationally "seizing opportunities" to decide the fate
of the entire human race, no matter how much devastation he
leaves in his wake? How else can they defend hiding from the
public a monster-child teetering atop a mountain of body
bags containing the remains of almost 1,300 US citizens -- arrogantly braying he
"would do it all over again" if he had the chance?
The problem is not just with the fawning dogs in the media.
The rest of us are also to blame -- people who choose to
remain silent while hoping someone else will stop the
madness -- the jackasses in Congress who trot out the theory that
backing down, "swallowing their pride" and moving to
the middle will somehow garner them presidential favors. As
Erasmus pointed out in The Praise of Folly, "What is
more courteous than the way two mules scratch each other?"
Americans steadfastly refuse to notice the massacres ordered by a
mad commander-in-chief and carried out by a berserk defense secretary, even
as their fellow citizens are blown to bits in the process, and innocent
men, women and children are gunned down in cold blood as they try
to flee the carnage.
No one even blinked when Fox News military
"analyst," retired Lieutenant General Tom Mc Inerney
recently diagnosed what our mission in Fallajua should be -- "We
must be ruthless, especially in the area of collateral damage,"
he said self-righteously. "We shouldn't be concerned
about collateral damage. All the good civilians are gone.
If we must make Falluja Carthage, then let's make Falluja
Carthage..."
It appears that truth can no longer be discerned by
looking at things as they really are, but only through
hysterical punditry wherein the most shocking and usually the
loudest "opinion" wins. Those few who dare to
speak out against war crimes committed in their name are
accused of being unpatriotic -- of not supporting the
troops, even as their continued silence ensures that more
Americans are injured, maimed and slaughtered each day.
The "troops" are dying because the silence
imposed by "Mr. President" and his attendant media
courtiers condemns them to death.
Bush's pre-puberty vision is one of uberhuman heroes and knights
whose power comes from a higher realm, and it is far more
colorful and exciting for the media to sell than the more mundane
scenario requiring reason and ulitity. If you think
about it, "Mr. President" is little more than a deadly Don
Quixote who, upon seeing a cluster of windmills, cried to his
squire...
"Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we could
have wished; for you see there before you friend Sancho Panza, some
thirty or more lawless giants with whom I mean to do battle. I
shall deprive them of their lives, and with the spoils from this
encounter we shall begin to enrich ourselves; for this is righteous
warfare, and it is a great service to God to remove so accursed a
breed from the face of the earth."
As Cervantes said of his ludicrous hero -- "The
encounters between the ordinary world and Don Quixote are encounters
between the world of reality and that of illusion, between reason and
imagination..." Cervantes explained that Quixote got away
with it because "There is a powerfully imposing quality about
Quixote's insanity; his madness always had method, a commanding
persistence and coherence. He makes us feel a sense of
inevitability beause of the spectacle of remaining so unflinchingly
faithful to his own vision..."
Like Quixoe, it matters not a whit to Bush that he is perceived as crude
and uncouth, or that his actions are condemned by
thinking people throughout the world. What, after all, can
they do to him? As "Mr. President," Bush revels in
being master of the universe -- incapable of making mistakes -- scorning
those who would hold him accountable. He has set himself,
not only above, but outside the law. If Bush is
capable of feeling shame, he is far more capable of shrugging
it off. No problem there.
Unfortunately, there is no corner of the universe beyond
America's borders where Bush is welcome. The US media blacks
out the hundreds, thousands -- tens of thousands -- of enraged
world citizens who turn out en masse, armed with insulting
placards, to protest his setting foot on their soil. Bush
was literally chased out of Ireland in July by cranky citizens and
by rogue Irish journalists who fell off-script to ask him why
he thought he was so unpopular throughout Europe, and his trip to
Canada last month was beset with rumors of his possibly being
indicted for war crimes if he ventured near Ottawa...
Why do they hate him? Bush boasts it's because of his
freedom -- and he's right. Because of his freedom to
destroy homes, cities, entire nations -- his freedom to bring
death and destruction to terrified civilians -- and his freedom to
seize and occupy whomever and whatever he wants -- whenever
he wants.
They hate him because of the mangled wreckage he leaves
in his wake, such as demanding that homes and businesses along a
route he was to travel in Nigeria last year be bulldozed so that
his vision would not be impaired by the plight of the poor.
They hate him because, while Nigerian residents watched in
despair as all they owned was destroyed, he spent 15 minutes in
Uganda staring vacantly at children infected with AIDS, promising
billions of US dollars that, just hours before, his Republican
minions in Congress had voted to seriously curtail...
The silence of the media about the demands their president makes
on other nations is deafening. The boorish audacity of first
demanding to address the European Parliament in the lead-up to the
Iraqi invasion and then refusing to do so unless they
promised him a standing ovation and guaranteed there
would be no protests or heckling was completely ignored by the US
media, as was his recent opting out of addressing the Canadian
Parliament for the same reasons.
Cervantes would be green with envy at the clash between illusion
and reality that played out during Bush's London visit in November,
2003. Although the Queen refused, Bush demanded that
Buckingham Palace be renovated http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/16/nbush16.xml
to include "bomb and airborne assault proofing" as well
as blast and bullet-proof windows and curtains.
Bush arrived with a protection squad of nearly 700 to bolster the
5,000 British boots on the ground, 100 journalists,
a personal chef, a food taster, four cooks, medics and a 15-strong
sniffer dog team. Special agents and snipers were ordered to
"shoot to kill" protesters who got out of line.
The giant windmills in London whirled so threateningly that Bush
and his journalists were in virtual lockdown at Buckingham,
which is probably why there were no "public interest"
articles written about this fiasco. When the Blackhawks
finally whisked them away, the Queen's prized, century-old
rose garden was stomped and shredded beyond repair.
Why do they hate him? Don't even ask...
The silence of the media makes them willing participants in
Bush's ghoulish slapstick-comedy worldwide crusade. Likewise,
Americans who remain silent are enablers who encourage him
to go unhindered, splurging his political capital on a bloody,
open-ended genocidal spree.
Perhaps if we all chant and cheer and applaud Bush loudly
enough -- if we stand, arms aloft http://slate.msn.com/id/2108852
and recite "The Bush Pledge," we won't feel the disgrace and
shame we so richly deserve.
Perhaps we won't hear the scornful hisses of the rest of the
world...
Ain't that right, "Mr. President"?
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma
freelance writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information
Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites.
Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net
