Learning from George & Martha: The Art of Slip-Sliding
By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis PapersLike most folks, I hate getting caught out and having to admit my errors. But, after observing the current political and legal scene, I've figured out how in the future to avoid paying a penalty for any misdeeds I may commit.
What got me thinking about this was listening to George Bush and Martha Stewart. Martha told reporters outside the courthouse -- after her sentencing for lying to federal investigators -- that she felt terrible for the 200 employees in her company who had to be laid off "because of the situation." Yep, it was "the situation" who told those lies and brought the wrath of federal investigators down on those employees' heads, and jobs. Martha, you see, had nothing to do with it. She, too, must have been sucked in by "the situation." The political version of this avoidance technique, popularized by Bush and his cohorts, involves the use of passive verbs. "Mistakes were made," for example. Yes, indeedy, there were dreadful "mistakes" that were "made" -- including thousands of deaths and maimings in Iraq -- but no human made them. Apparently, mistakes pop out of the ether, from behind bushes, up from manhole covers when you least expect them. They grab you by the throat and demand to be made. Bush insures that he never gets close to a mistake. He knows how ruinous they can be to a career. So he just never goes there. If "mistakes were made," they were carried out by others, never him. He's perfect, you see, because he and God converse regularly, and God tells him what to do. (Just the other day, he expressed the belief again: "God speaks through me.") http://lancasteronline.com/pages/news/local/4/7565}And, since God is perfect, whatever happens can not be a mistake. And since Bush is God's messenger, he is absolved of any responsibility. Always somebody else to blame, either lowly "rotten apples" or the Ultimate Apple-Tree Maker.
RESPONSIBLE BUT NOT ACCOUNTABLE
At least Tony Blair, also blasted by a high-level
commission investigating pre-war intelligence failures, assumed
"responsibility" for all the "mistakes" that
were "made."
But neither Blair, nor Bush, nor Stewart -- even if
they accept "responsibility" or utter the "mistakes
were made" mantra -- ever, EVER, get anywhere close to
"accountability."
In the old days, long ago in a galaxy far away,
those held "responsible" for "mistakes made"
were forced to endure some sort of penalty for their lies or
maladministration or lack of proper
supervision of underlings or whatever euphemism was used to
paper over their misdeeds. In short, someone was made accountable;
those responsible resigned or were censured or disciplined or were
fired or otherwise dealt with.
In the Bush Administration, nobody ever assumes
responsibility, or, if they do utter that "R" word (such
as Rumsfeld with regard to the torture scandal on his watch), that's
the end of it. No accountability.
Here, we've got more than 1000 young coalition men
and women dying for the lies and deceptions and "cooked"
intelligence that took the country into war -- and more than 16,000
U.S. wounded, and more than that number of Iraqi civilians killed --
and nobody has been fired by Bush for their shoddy work. Just those
nasty "mistake" gremlins popping up again. Indeed, several
officials most responsible for the Iraq debacle have received
promotions.
The only conclusion one can draw is that the
"mistakes were made" line and the asumption of
"responsibility" mantra devoid of accountability are
regarded by celebrities and high officials as simply
public-relations spin. They do it to protect their underlying
policies and reputations, and simply carry on the same disastrous
behavior, using the same incompetent officials, and hope nobody will
notice or call them to account.
<b>IMPEACHMENT BY BALLOT<-b>
But successful use of the "mistakes were
made" dodge will work for some people and not for others.
Because the Bushistas control the Congress, courts, White House and
most of the mass-media, Dubya gets a free ride. If Bill Clinton had
behaved in similar fashion, he would have been back in the
impeachment dock in a minute, called all sorts of names
("liar," "deceiver," "playing fast &
loose with the lives of our soldiers," "blood on your
hands," "traitor" and so on).
The long and short of our current situation is that
the Republican-controlled Congress is not about to impeach Bush and
Cheney -- at least not before the election. If Bush, by hook or by
crook, is back in the White House in January, but the Dems have
taken over the Congress -- a circumstance that once looked totally
impossible but now is at least conceivable -- impeachment and
criminal investigations might well occur.
So if the GOP will not initiate impeachment
proceedings against members of the BushCheney team before the voting
begins, it is left to the people, you and me, to remove these
extremists via the ballot box. Which means every day from now until
November 2, less than four months away, must be dedicated to
increasing the anti-Bush momentum.
>EROSION IN THE CONSERVATIVE BASE
Since the liberal Democratic base is, and has been
for quite a while, pretty well united in its determination to effect
"regime-change" in November, one expects momentum-build
there. But where one is seeing more and more movement these days is
within the ranks of traditional Republicans, and even conservative
Democrats.
I've been traveling around the country a good deal
this year and last, talking to folks in the South, in the West,
Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Wherever I go, I have found
numerous Republicans who say they cannot and will not vote again for
Bush. These are conservatives Republicans -- in the "old"
sense of the word: small government, suspicious of government
intrusion in their lives, reluctant to go to war except when
attacked, allergic to deficit spending, etc. -- who are appalled at
the extremist policies and behaviors of those in control of their
party.
The Bushies are not "conservative," they
assert, but greedy, power-hungry radicals who have taken us to a war
of choice, have greatly over-expanded the size and role of
government, are running roughshod over the Constitution's
restrictions on central government power, and ruining the long-term
economy of the country by running up trillions in debt.
Some have said they'll vote for the Democratic
candidate; many lifelong Republicans can't bring themselves to do
that, but have vowed they simply will not participate on Election
Day, thus depriving Bush of their votes and, ipso facto, making it
easier for Kerry to win.
We get many letters of similar intent here at The
Crisis Papers from disaffected Republicans, conservatives and
moderates. Similar expressions can be found more and more each day
in newspapers in Kansas and Idaho and Texas and elswhere in the
heartland. The
center is not holding for the Bushistas and so, to compensate, Rove
must spend time and money shoring up the more fundamentalist, rabid,
social-conservative base. This prevents Bush from tacking to the
center in search of independent voters. In order to seduce those
independents, the radical right and neo-con GOP leaders must be
hidden at the convention, while more moderate speakers such as
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giulianni are showcased.
NOTABLES ARE ABANDONING SINKING SHIP
What is even more significant in terms of news
value are those highly-placed, influential Republicans who have
abandoned Bush&Co. When William F. Buckley, the founding editor
of National Review, the bible of rockhard conservatism, can denounce
Bush's Iraq adventure and competence in print, you know a turning
point has been reached on the right.
So many diplomats, retired generals, corporate
leaders, ex-officials in the Reagan and Bush1 administrations
likewise have gone public in recent weeks with their reservations
about Bush&Co. It's clear these elite Republicans believe that
their financial and political interests are jeopardized by the
radical, bumbling crew currently in charge, and that they, and the
country as a whole, will be better served by getting those guys out
of the White House, even if it means putting a more centrist
candidate like Kerry into power.
Karl Rove and his minions are not stupid. They see
what is happening across the country, the steady erosion of fed-up
conservatives from the Bush camp, the loss of public support for the
war, the lackluster job situation, the poll numbers showing Kerry
slowly pulling ahead in one toss-up state after another. They know
their time in power could be limited, and that criminal indictments
may well follow their defeat.
SLIME-TIME BIG TIME
They are unable to convince voters that more of the
same is the way to go; the jobs situation is still pretty desperate
for millions of folks, and despite the "hand off" of
"sovereignty" to the Iraqis, the situation is a disaster
there, and the lies and deceptions that got us there are more
evident each day. So, unable to run on their record (and have you
noticed that they have not said a word about initiatives and
programs they'd mount in a second term?), they're doing what they've
always done -- digging into their bag of dirty tricks, big time:
* Supporting Nader's independent bid, for example
-- with time and operatives and lots of money -- knowing that he'll
take votes from the Democrats.
* Catching immigrants and new citizens (many of
whom are minorities who normally vote overwhelmingly for Democrat
candidates) before they register to vote; in Florida recently,
hundreds emerging from just having taken their oath of citizenship
were signed up by helpful citizens (GOP operatives), who gave them
voter-registration papers to sign, with the party affiliation
already checked as Republican. ( www.news4jax.com/politics/3495828/detail.html
).
* Or sliming the Dem candidates with the worst kind
of demagoguery. In a test-run, in one state,
the GOP campaign is distributing bumper stickers asserting
that Kerry is bin Laden's candidate. (Drawing links between Osama
and Senator Max Cleland worked for them in Georgia in 2002, so why
not try it again on a national campaign?)
* If and when the expected al-Qaida attack occurs
in the U.S. before the November election, Rove, taking his cues from
9/11, is gearing up to use that horror against the Democrats -- who
will have been demonized in the period before that expected attack
as "soft on terrorism." (Which may explain why Kerry is
taking great care to cover his ass with regard to support for the
original war resolution and the overall "war on
terrorism.")
* If, just prior to the election, or maybe on
Election Day itself, the polls indicate Bush is facing an
overwhelming defeat, Bush&Co. can "postpone" the
balloting -- either
across the entire country or in, say, the West -- due
to a terrorist attack or "credible threats" of an
impending terrorist attack; the rationalization would be to
"protect the right of the citizens to vote." Already,
Ridge and Ashcroft are moving forward to set up the mechanisms that
would permit this to happen "legally."
NEEDED: ONE ROARING AVALANCHE
All of the above scenarios provide further reasons
why Bush&Co. must be swept away by an enormous avalanche of
Kerry votes on November 2nd. Unless there is a huge Kerry landslide,
there would be too many possibilities for electoral mischief --
including fiddling with computer-voting results in those states that
do not insist on voter-verified ballots that can be rechecked.
So those of us dedicated to a restoration of our
democratic republic's best values, and to Constitutional protections
of due process of law, must make sacrifices to help that landslide
happen in November.
That means giving money, that means donating our
time to walk precincts and stuff envelopes and make phone calls,
that means educating our neighbors and friends with the implications
of a Bush second term, that means getting involved directly at the
grass roots party level, that means organizing, organizing,
organizing.
Friends, if we don't do it now, we may not have
another chance for decades, or ever, to take our government back
from the extremist forces currently in control of the levers of
power. If we want more responsible leadership in the White House,
let's look at our own house and see what we all can do. It takes
many villages to save a country.
By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers
