As our image goes down the drain, Bush parties

May 6, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST

Shocking and Awful


By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON
Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were swanning around in black tie at the White House Correspondents' dinner on Saturday night, mingling with le hack Washington and a speckling of shiny imports, like John Kerry's former Tinseltown gal-pal Morgan Fairchild, Ben Affleck, a Victoria's Secret model who was not Gisele and several "Apprentice" alumni who were not Omarosa.

The Pentagon potentates seemed unburdened by the spreading storm kicked up by the torture pictures shown on "60 Minutes II" and about to appear in The New Yorker — the latest example of a dysfunctional and twisted occupation warped by arrogance over experience, ideology over common sense.

When a beaming Mr. Wolfowitz stopped at my table to greet an admiring Republican, I wanted to snap, "Get back to your desk, Mr. Myopia from Utopia!" Shouldn't these woolly headed warriors burn the midnight Iraqi oil — long enough for Wolfie to learn the body count for dead American troops and for Rummy to read Gen. Antonio Taguba's whole report on "horrific abuses" at Abu Ghraib?

Sure, the secretary of defense has had two months to read the report, but as he complained to Matt Lauer, it's awfully thick: "When I'm asked a question as to whether I've read the entire report, I answer honestly that I have not. It is a mountain of paper and investigative material." Goodness gracious, where is Evelyn Wood now that we need her?

Can't the hawks who dragged us into this hideous unholy war at least pay attention to a crisis of American credibility that's exposing Iraq and the world to more dangers every day? For the defense chief and the president to party two nights in a row, Friday at Rummy's house and Saturday at the Washington Hilton, is, to borrow a Rummy line, "unhelpful in a fundamental way."

President Bush also seemed in a buoyant mood on Saturday. But he might think about getting just a tad more involved so he doesn't have to first see on TV, as he clicks around between innings, the pictures sparking a huge worldwide, American-reputation-shattering military scandal. And so he doesn't keep nattering about how we had to go to war to close Iraq's torture chambers, when they are "really not shut down so much as under new management," as Jon Stewart drily put it.

Most Republicans seemed in a "party on, Garth" mood, less concerned with Humpty Dumpty Iraq or Unjolly Green Giant John Kerry than with the unfairness of a world where Jeb Bush would probably not be able to succeed his brother. "By 2008," a wistful Republican fund-raiser said, "there'll probably be Bush fatigue."

It seems nothing can make hard-core hawks criticize the war (even the request for $25 billion more). Rush Limbaugh compared the prison torture to "a college fraternity prank," like a Skull and Bones initiation.

Michael Eisner evidently also feels the Bush dynasty will survive because he is balking at distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that criticizes President Bush's 9/11 actions and ties with the Saudis, probably out of fear that Jeb will come after his Disney World tax breaks.

Senator Kerry jumped on the president yesterday for saying nothing about Crown Prince Abdullah's "outrageous anti-Semitic comments" that terrorists in Saudi Arabia get funds from "Zionists." The prince's remarks — and arrests of reformers — show that, far from transforming the Mideast into democracies that flower with love of America and Israel, the bumbling neo-cons have unleashed a rash of racism, revenge and hate.

Colin Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, tells GQ magazine that Wolfie is "a utopian" like Lenin: "You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it."

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse, The Associated Press reports from London that "U.S. soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman last year placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey."

And Douglas Feith, the defense under secretary who was in charge of Iraqi postwar planning and the secret unit that furnished prêt-à-porter intelligence to back up Dick Cheney's doomsday scenarios, told conservatives that the administration might set up an office to plan postwar operations for future wars.

Well, on the one hand, it would be refreshing to have a postwar plan. On the other: future wars???

[Uli]

They say we lost Vietnam in the media not on the battlefield. Did these people ever learn anything about anything? Did they go to school somewhere?

[Root Doctor]

According to Bob Woodward, Tommy Franks characterized Feith as "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

[Gentle Giant]

The Last American Nero.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

According to Bob Woodward, Tommy Franks characterized Feith as "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

I think these days there are several Bushist boneheads clambering to be given that distinction.

[tippy]

Dead men walking...

[lynn]

Unfortunately you have millions of votes that are dumber than dirt and millions more that believe to the bone in what these guys are doing.

[Paul B]

Unfortunately you have millions of votes that are dumber than dirt and millions more that believe to the bone in what these guys are doing.

A few of those millions are right here on this board....

[tippy]

Lynn and Paul B, if that's true, then we truly are a savage nation. My belief is that Bush's supporters are still digesting (i.e., choking on) the implications--the same as everybody else really. It's not often that the entire world is simultaneously focused on irrefutably devastating photographic evidence such as this. Usually we only hear about these events later when it doesn't have anywhere near this kind of immediate impact.

[graypencil]

Originally Posted by tippy

Lynn and Paul B, if that's true, then we truly are a savage nation. My belief is that Bush's supporters are still digesting (i.e., choking on) the implications--the same as everybody else really. It's not often that the entire world is simultaneously focused on irrefutably devastating photographic evidence such as this. Usually we only hear about these events later when it doesn't have anywhere near this kind of immediate impact.

Unfortunately, I fear Lynn and Paul B are closer to the unfortunate reality ..the "Bush Supporters " seem immune to visual evidence, let alone any ability to think for themselves ..

they prefer to march in lockstep behind the current neo fascist gauleiters and their / born again/holy crusader /dry drunk /intellectually incomprehending/pugnacious/appointed /faux cowboy leader ..

these neo con lemmings don't even recognize the cliff they're walking
inexoribly ahead of all of us ...

[Ron Thorne]

Sadly, I've never had much confidence in the intelligence of the American electorate. People such as those posting on this thread always have been and always will be in the minority in this country. You don't have to take my word for it, either. A quick glance at a newspaper... a blurb on radio or television is all it takes to confirm this theory.

Having said that, I hope that for once, my long-held theory goes out the window in November.

[pollo loco]

I hope you are wrong, Ron. However, I think you have it pegged correctly. There is no doubt in my mind that we're living in a fascist country, and the folks who got us here simply believe we have a free, democratic society.
pl

[lynn]

I guess it's free for them that got us here, they are not having to answer for their actions.

My whole department is filled with Bush people and I have been asked to not discuss politics. I work for a TV station in Las Vegas. This is one redneck town.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by lynn

Unfortunately you have millions of votes that are dumber than dirt and millions more that believe to the bone in what these guys are doing.

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Sadly, I've never had much confidence in the intelligence of the American electorate.

You geniuses truly misoverestimate yourselves.

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by lynn

Unfortunately you have millions of votes that are dumber than dirt and millions more that believe to the bone in what these guys are doing.

The arrogance of this is incredible. You'd think these brainiacs would have something more substantial to read than MoDo.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Captain Hate

The arrogance of this is incredible. .

why, wonderful? how many toolboxes do you think there are in the country?

A Bush lock-stepper speaks disparagingly of arrogance? Now I've heard everything!

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by Uli

why, wonderful? how many toolboxes do you think there are in the country?

Beats me; I'll defer to you on that.

Toolboxes are one thing; calling large numbers of people dumber than dirt is another. Maybe the toolboxes want to bring back literacy tests for voting privileges? Played well in the south.

[graypencil]

Monte and Cap'n Hates posts provide substantial corroboration for what Ron was mentioning earlier ..

lock step ..over the precipice ...

[Captain Hate]

The sky is falling.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Captain Hate

Beats me; I'll defer to you on that.

Toolboxes are one thing; calling large numbers of people dumber than dirt is another. Maybe the toolboxes want to bring back literacy tests for voting privileges? Played well in the south.

I don't think that the suggestion was being made that the days when so-called "literacy" tests were used to disenfrancize people, mostly blacks, were used should return. Nobody wants that.

The situation is much more grave than that, grave as that was. The situation is that people who could educate themselves about politics choose not to do so. They prefer to be manipulated by a miriad of slick propagandist TV photo-ops by the President, choreographed appearances and others conducting press conferences which are little more than dances around the truth.
So, sadly, whatever government is in power is the government a complacent, easily lied-to public deserves.
The time is gone when everything was OK and we could just live our lives, secure in the knowledge that the country was being run properly, by people who were mindful of it's place in the global family.

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by patricia

I don't think that the suggestion was being made that the days when so-called "literacy" tests were used to disenfrancize people, mostly blacks, were used should return. Nobody wants that.

The situation is much more grave than that, grave as that was. The situation is that people who could educate themselves about politics choose not to do so. They prefer to be manipulated by a miriad of slick propagandist TV photo-ops by the President, choreographed appearances and others conducting press conferences which are little more than dances around the truth.
So, sadly, whatever government is in power is the government a complacent, easily lied-to public deserves.
The time is gone when everything was OK and we could just live our lives, secure in the knowledge that the country was being run properly, by people who were mindful of it's place in the global family.

I'll respond to you before I exit this stupid thread for the night because you at least keep the discussion at a fairly civil level. You shouldn't make the mistaken assumption that just because people don't agree with you that they're uneducated about the process. I've said it before; failure to acknowledge that your political opponent honestly believes that he/she is advocating a course of action that will benefit the majority of people is to not enter a discussion with an objective mindset. The "discussions" here don't even come close to that.

Image has always been a part of the political process. Why do you think that FDR took such great pains to hide the fact that he was crippled? Why did anybody care that Nixon had a 5 o'clock shadow in his debate with Kennedy?

I've always said that this country deserves whoever is in power, no matter if I like them or otherwise. Love it or shove it.

[Ron Thorne]

I'm neither a Chicken Little nor Chicken Hawk type, and have never considered my opinions to be objective. That's why they're called opinions.

Goodnight, Nabob.
Goodnight, Mr. Hate.

Sleep tight. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow.

[Captain Hate]

Likewise, Ron.