His infamous call to the insurgents to “Bring it on!” early in the conflict, as if it were he and not the soldiers he’d sent into battle who would carry the brunt of the fight, is one indication of this President’s deep lack of self-awareness.
This same profound estrangement from the reality of his role in his falsely righteous dramas was displayed back when the hunt for Osama bin Ladin was still on. On this occasion, the President stood before microphones on the White House lawn mocking bin Ladin for cowardice in sending other men off to face death while he remained protected in some hidden cave. This from the most protected man in the world, who’d just sent his countrymen’s sons and daughters to fight his war!
How many of the lies this president enacts before the world are lies he tells himself?
The best liars are those who believe their own lies.
With Bush, as in human affairs generally, it is hard to know where to draw the line between “really doesn’t know” and “doesn’t want to know.” Bush’s Brain author James Moore says about the Bush-Rove partnership:
“The President is oblivious, and chooses to stay oblivious, to the things that Karl does, and the contradictions about morality that Karl does. The whole concept, and it works in all of his campaigns, is the candidate or the officeholder takes the high road -- talks policy, talks moral clarity, and honor, and principle -- while the operative does all the dirty work down in the ditch, and splashes the mud, and spreads the scurrilous smears and rumors and whisper campaigns that have the desired political effect to keep the candidate elected.”
Right now in America the buck stops with a man who talks about restoring integrity to the Oval Office while the “architect” he hires is a specialist in perpetrating moral fraud.
He’s someone who talks about how we’re fighting for “Freedom,” but arranges political events from which people wearing T-shirts favoring his opponent are excluded, and has his Pentagon use the “Patriot Act” to treat peaceful protesters against his policies as a “threat.“
He parades his devotion to a culture of life, but sows the seeds of death at home, around the world, and in the biosphere.
He talks about “compassion” but can mock the pleas for mercy he rejected from the woman –born again, like himself—whom he’d put to death in Texas.
He promised to be a uniter, not a divider, but has used divisiveness as his primary political tactic.
He arranges photo ops with his friendly arm around some black child or another, but fights hardest for policies that further weaken the disadvantaged.
He campaigned saying that the United States should be a “humble” nation, but is now reviled around the world as an arrogant bully.
In this dangerous period of the moral lie, regrettably, this list of discrepancy between the saying and the doing could be expanded almost indefinitely.
The Need to Spread the Moral Truth
It is through such moral hypocrisy that evil could gain a foothold in a democratic society like America. These rulers could not shoot their way into the White House. They had to sell themselves to a willing public.
And so it is that the takeover of America by evil forces has been achieved by such outstanding dramatists of the moral lie as these two. But unless the false righteousness of these moral liars can be exposed, this can be but the first stage.
For when evil is combined with power, it can spread its ways, destroying the structures of good order that stand in its way. So we see these forces now tearing apart the foundations of our democracy—degrading the discourse on which democratic deliberation depends, dismantling the protections against the abuse of power, polarizing Americans into warring groups.
So if evil can advance far enough through the moral lie it can gradually remove the mask. Behind this presidency, there are forces with no ingratiating smiles, forces ready to show their true faces should the time come when power has no need for such pretense.
This same profound estrangement from the reality of his role in his falsely righteous dramas was displayed back when the hunt for Osama bin Ladin was still on. On this occasion, the President stood before microphones on the White House lawn mocking bin Ladin for cowardice in sending other men off to face death while he remained protected in some hidden cave. This from the most protected man in the world, who’d just sent his countrymen’s sons and daughters to fight his war!
How many of the lies this president enacts before the world are lies he tells himself?
The best liars are those who believe their own lies.
“The President is oblivious, and chooses to stay oblivious, to the things that Karl does, and the contradictions about morality that Karl does. The whole concept, and it works in all of his campaigns, is the candidate or the officeholder takes the high road -- talks policy, talks moral clarity, and honor, and principle -- while the operative does all the dirty work down in the ditch, and splashes the mud, and spreads the scurrilous smears and rumors and whisper campaigns that have the desired political effect to keep the candidate elected.”
Right now in America the buck stops with a man who talks about restoring integrity to the Oval Office while the “architect” he hires is a specialist in perpetrating moral fraud.
He’s someone who talks about how we’re fighting for “Freedom,” but arranges political events from which people wearing T-shirts favoring his opponent are excluded, and has his Pentagon use the “Patriot Act” to treat peaceful protesters against his policies as a “threat.“
He parades his devotion to a culture of life, but sows the seeds of death at home, around the world, and in the biosphere.
He talks about “compassion” but can mock the pleas for mercy he rejected from the woman –born again, like himself—whom he’d put to death in Texas.
He promised to be a uniter, not a divider, but has used divisiveness as his primary political tactic.
He arranges photo ops with his friendly arm around some black child or another, but fights hardest for policies that further weaken the disadvantaged.
He campaigned saying that the United States should be a “humble” nation, but is now reviled around the world as an arrogant bully.
In this dangerous period of the moral lie, regrettably, this list of discrepancy between the saying and the doing could be expanded almost indefinitely.
The Need to Spread the Moral Truth
It is through such moral hypocrisy that evil could gain a foothold in a democratic society like America. These rulers could not shoot their way into the White House. They had to sell themselves to a willing public.
And so it is that the takeover of America by evil forces has been achieved by such outstanding dramatists of the moral lie as these two. But unless the false righteousness of these moral liars can be exposed, this can be but the first stage.
For when evil is combined with power, it can spread its ways, destroying the structures of good order that stand in its way. So we see these forces now tearing apart the foundations of our democracy—degrading the discourse on which democratic deliberation depends, dismantling the protections against the abuse of power, polarizing Americans into warring groups.
So if evil can advance far enough through the moral lie it can gradually remove the mask. Behind this presidency, there are forces with no ingratiating smiles, forces ready to show their true faces should the time come when power has no need for such pretense.
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