History tells us that politics is cyclical in America, and that the Bush cycle may well be in it’s last throes. But the culture in which it thrived still rides hide, waiting to be exploited by another master manipulator from either political party if Americans don’t start to take it back.
- Frank Rich, pg. 225
I just finished reading The Greatest Story Ever Sold…and lemmee tell ya, this book really ought to be required reading for every American, regardless of political affiliation. Frank Rich has done a masterful job of showing what can happen when the party in power and the President wielding that power has no problem at all with lying, prevaricating, and propagandizing if it helps achieve their desired policy goal. When you’re will to stage-manage every aspect of a Presidency (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!), when the lives of American soldiers are mere pawns, and when the truth is fungible…well, this is what you voted for, America.
Ronald Reagan was the first “television President”. He was the first Chief Executive to fully grasp the power of the medium and use it to his advantage. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader has, by surrounding himself with a brilliant sales and marketing staff, taken the lessons of the Reagan Administration to new heights (or depths, depending on your point of view). No longer is staying on message the sole criteria. No, when the medium IS the message, it’s all about marketing. Slogans, talking points, camera angles, backdrops…everything that goes into the creation of an image has become the hallmark of the Bush Administration. The Bush43 years have been by far the most tightly scripted Administration in this nation’s history. NOTHING is left to chance, and rarely is Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader EVER left to his own devices…because we’ve all seen the clusterf—k that ensues when the moron tries to ad lib. It’s the sort of thing that give Administration spinmeisters nightmares.
Rich’s portrayal of the Bush Administration is one that should scare the Hell out of any lucid American. If The Greatest Story Ever Sold doesn’t leave you red-in-the-face furious, your right to vote ought to be permanently revoked. Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, what is acceptable in ANY shape, manner, or form about knowing and openly lying to the American people, cherry-picking intelligence, and demonizing those with the temerity to question Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s veracity?
54-plus-million of y’all voted for a man who couldn’t tell the truth if his life depended on it. The problem is that the lives of thousands of American soldiers depended on it…and look what it got them- a trip home in a flag-draped box.
Two days before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Bush had the audacity to say, “Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it.” His statement recalled Mary McCarthy’s explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: “Every word she writes is a lie, including the ‘and’ and ‘the.’” The insiders’ memoirs of both Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill showed that every measure had been taken to embrace war with Iraq, not avoid it….
- page 218
If we are to willingly commit the lives of our sons and daughters to a war in a foreign land, we deserve to have the facts laid before us honestly and completely. We should be able to demand nothing less than complete and total honesty and openness in this regard…and yet we have tolerated and abetted a President and an Administration that has lied to us every step of the way.
We tolerated and supported the impeachment of a President who committed the “high crime and misdemeanor” of getting his helmet polished in the Oval Office by a zaftig White House intern. Yet Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, who is single-handedly responsible for the lies and deception that have led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 American soldiers and untold thousands of innocent Iraqis, is allowed to continue to occupy the Oval Office.
Have we completely lost our f——-g minds?
In 2006, the GAO said that the Bush Administration has spent $1.6 billion on advertising and public relations just from 2003 through the second quarter of 2005. Even that figure understated the extent of the propaganda. There was no way to quantify the fictionalizing in every corner of the Administration, much of which came to light after the 2004 election.
- page 170
Those of you who voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader frankly ought to be ashamed of yourselves. While you weren’t paying attention, while you were swallowing the KoolAid that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader was serving, this Administration was turning the federal government- OUR government- into a playground for knuckle-dragging, self-righteous religious extremists whose craven self-interest was surpassed only by their astounding indifference when it comes to human life.
I still find myself thinking of the cover of a British newspaper the day after the 2004 election: “How could 54,000,000+ people be so STUPID?” It could happen because that many people were willing to swallow Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s propaganda. They heard exactly what they wanted to hear, and the incovenient truth was pushed aside- because that would have meant actually THINKING. In both 2000 and 2004, voting Republican was certainly a whole lot easier than thinking…and it’s not like Americans did much critical thinking during this time.
We’re in the situation we are because too many Americans refused to look around them and honestly assess what was being done in their name. We’re in this mess because those of you who voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader couldn’t be bothered to THINK. That may be harsh, and it may sound arrogant and judgmental, but I think events have proven me correct.
If you voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, you have blood on your hands…perhaps even your own flesh and blood. When you sit in your living room watching the six o’clock news, pissing and moaning about what’s happening in Iraq, remember that you’re responsible for it. YOU voted for the moron. YOU gave him another four years. YOU ENABLED HIS MURDEROUS, SENSELESS WAR IN IRAQ.
If you do nothing else this holiday season, read The Greatest Story Ever Sold. If it doesn’t infuriate you, if it doesn’t leave you with the desire to do everything within your power to impeach the lying sack of dog excrement in the Oval Office, you really ought to just go ahead and turn in your voter registration card. You clearly don’t deserve to have one…much less use it.
