Why the Right 'Aint

The President today tried to patch his sagging image by agreeing to a tete-a-tete with Tim Russert in the Oval Office. The media, dominated by centrist to neo-conservative ideologists, breathlessly spoke in whispers of how "bold" and "gutsy" such a move was.

The President can stand comfortably in any venue and the press will continue to do everything in its' power to avoid a discussion of real problems and genuine lapses in honesty and diplomacy. Russert, with a handful of acceptable queries, asked the question of the nonexistent WMDs at least half a dozen times. Our commando in chief actually grinned at the mention of casualties of war, concerns regarding his credibility at home and abroad and the dearth of seized weapons which his own CIA chief insisted in his memo would not be available until 2007 to 2009.

Undeterred by the facts or his own prior statements, Bush defended his hypocrisy and blatant obfuscations by reminding Russert that "we don't have all the facts". Often he admonished Russert to "take a step back and remember" as if the events and statements of recent history were misrepresented by the press. Apparently, Bushies will offer the same sort of defense for the President's contradictory statements and actions in the same way an abusive parent might deny the childhood memories of his or her victims as flawed when confronted.

Russert proved finally for this American that representing truth or trying to get to the heart of matters is not his agenda. In his defense, this current news cycle has devoted the scope of its' coverage of the 2004 campaign for president as horse race rather than debate of ideological and substantive positions regarding domestic and foreign policy concerns. The "race" for the executive branch is just that, with coiffed and focus-group approved commentators announcing polling data every few days, analyzing who and where each candidate might win, place or show with not a scintilla of focus on policy papers, stated initiatives or even basic ideological differences between the candidates.

If, indeed, Southerners will not vote for anyone who doesn't speak in a drawl, then I say let's allow the Rebs to secede from the Union once and for all and be done with it. If a man of character cannot be considered presidential without the benefit of a speech impediment, then I say begone and good riddance! The stupidity of such an attitude is only eclipsed by the ignorance of actually giving it credence every single Sunday morning for two years.

Russert not only threw softballs at the president, he did not even touch upon what many consider the most egregious workings of this administration. The president did not have to answer criticisms from many quarters that the military was spread dangerously thin, that our troops needed greater numbers to fight the insurgents rather than hemorrhage a casualty every day. Nor did the president did not have to answer why he was allowing his Vice president to collect a paycheck from Halliburton while in office. (Isn't that the mother of all conflicts of interest?) Nor was Bush called to account for the overages and graft Halliburton has wrung from the administration while in Iraq, the inflated cost of everything from gasoline to food and water supplies. Russert might have asked him why Halliburton was still allowed to fulfill the contract that was handed to them without any competing bids to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure.

Russert did not ask why Paul O'Neil, in his recent memoir, came away from his tour of duty in the executive branch with the idea that prior to 9/11 the Iraqi invasion was a fait d'accompli. No questions were posed regarding the intent of the administration when it announced it was a "certainty" that WMDs were present and that Iraq was an "imminent" threat.

Much was made during the previous administration over the debate of what the word "is" meant. Articles of Impeachment were voted upon. Censure rained down on the Head of State for publicly declaring something to be true that in fact was not.

Now we find our nation confronting a president who, in the presence of the entire Congress, speaking to the American people, spoke of "certainties" and "imminent threats" that were, looking back, guesstimates and eventual threats.

The president showed his true colors when asked about the sacrifices that more than 3000 injured and maimed troops and over 500 fatally wounded young men and women have made in this administration's name. He smiled and said that some casualties were necessary in the fight for freedom. The irony of this mess is that the Taliban have all but been forgotten, Bin Laden is still active in the region and our precious troops have all but abandoned Al Quaida to focus instead on Baghdad. To what end? To forward Bush's wacky agenda of preemptive nation building in one of the few regions of the Middle East that was not overrun by clerics and that was -for all of its' faults- secular in nature. Now, quite plausibly, the theocrats in the region are in danger of pulling the wheels off of Halliburton's shiny new applecart.

Bush's speaking style has improved. He now seems to understand the purpose of semicolons, commas and periods. Whereas. Before he used to emphasize, the wrong phrase; in the wrong place; rendering his speeches. Incoherent. Apparently W has spent some time reading Dale Carnegie and his delivery is much smoother.

Too bad he could only repeat the same seven talking points for the better part of an hour, without really getting honest with the American people about getting the graft out of his administration, taking control of the Department of Defense and showing a greater regard for the lives of our entirely volunteer army. Faced with direct quotes from his campaign in 2000, quotes from his Sate of the Union and UN speeches, Bush chuckled and tried to cloak his decisions under the mantle of national security, as though the wink and nod were enough to grant him perpetual dispensation for his administration's gaffes, misrepresentations and profiteering.

The only way for the Republican Party to navigate this very narrow strait is to allow W. to hang himself. The best course would be to distance themselves from him, painting him as a cowboy, a loose cannon, the very image most of the world already shares. In the 80s, Reagan was able to make much of "tax-and-spend" liberal icon; in this new millennium the "gouge and spend" republican may be the newest whipping boy. And with good reason. He is rapidly becoming an iconoclast, quickly losing credibility, nearly bereft of foreign allies.

"Trust me" is no longer a phrase that will resonate anywhere except the mythical Southern States where an "aw shucks" makes all the detrius and hypocrisy unimportant. To that end, expect long and frequent vacations in Crawford, 'cause Middle America knows a phony when it sees one.


The Curmudgeon