George W. Bush: Master of Illusion

If the Bush administration can't get anything else right, they
definitely know how to stage a photo op. George W. Bush's surprise
Thanksgiving Day visit to the troops at Baghdad airport was as cleverly
contrived a piece of political theater as White House imagineers have
dreamed up since since his "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier
landing back in May. It's likely to have exactly the same effect.

But let's hold that thought for a moment. For me, the president's
well-choreo-graphed stunt served as a quick Rorschach test. Was I, or
was I not, a Bush-hater? See, for months now, right-thinking pundits who
respond to the Republican National Committee's party line have been
wringing their hands over a supposed epidemic of unreasoning hatred
shown Bush by his detractors.

Ironically, the first to advance the theme was Byron York, a
columnist who got his start writing for, get this, The American
Spectator--home of the infamous "Arkansas Project," a $2.4 million
project to defame President Clinton funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, the
Scrooge McDuck of the American right. To my knowledge, York played no
role in the secretive scheme, but the idea of any Spectator alum playing
Miss Manners is pretty funny.

"Remember 'The Clinton Chronicles,'" York asked "the 1994 video
that attempted to implicate Bill Clinton in all sorts of 'unsolved'
deaths? Remember the 'Clinton Body Count' lists? Remember the stories of
the president's connections to drug running?"

Sure do. In fact, I remember American Spectator articles devoted
to the prepos-terous idea that Bill Clinton ran a cocaine-smuggling ring
through a rural airport in Mena, Arkansas. I also recall "Arkansas
Project" operatives making clumsy efforts to investigate the private
lives of journalists deemed "Clinton apologists." I don't recall York or
many "mainstream" pundits getting too upset about it either.

But I digress. York's article proved that if you scour the
internet, it's possible to locate sites like Bushbodycount.com or
Presidentmoron.com devoted to denouncing President Bush as everything up
to and including a Nazi.

More remarkable was the number of mainstream pundits who took the
bait. It was hardly shocking to see the Washington Post's George Will,
who once called Bill Clinton a rapist on the thinnest possible evidence,
join the chorus. Nor to observe Charles Krauthammer, once a practicing
psychiatrist, allege that "Democrats are seized with a loathing for
President Bush...that is near pathological." Their game is to label all
criticism of our court-appointed leader crazy.

When New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof joined the chorus,
however, Bob Somerby of dailyhowler.com brought him up short. Conceding
that it's "utterly hypocritical" for conservatives who savaged Clinton
"to complain about liberal incivility," Kristoff had nevertheless
detected disturbing anger in reader e-mails. "Liberals," he lamented
"have now become as intemperate as conservatives."

Somerby reminded Kristoff of a few home truths: "It wasn't
everyday people, writing e-mails, who pushed those murder lists against
Clinton. It was well-known public figures who peddled those lists, and
they were invited to do so on national TV. Similarly, it wasn't a random
bunch of e-mailers who kept trying to prove that Clinton killed [Vince]
Foster. It was major Republicans--can you say 'Ken Starr?'--who engaged
in this endless political porn. As they did so, 'good guy' pundits hid
beneath desks, too scared to condemn their behavior.

"Are today's liberals as bad as those cons? Unless you simply
enjoy propaganda, the answer quite plainly is 'no.' Have you seen Bush
murder lists on TV? Have you seen a major 'religious figure' [i.e. Jerry
Falwell] selling tapes which call Bush a serial killer?...In short, have
you seen anything like the wave of insanity that typified the
Clinton-Gore years?"

Anyway, back to Bush's Thanksgiving day appearance. What were my
feelings? Immediately, exactly the kind of sentimental patriotic warmth
the stunt was designed to evoke. As Molly Ivins and all my Austin
friends say, George W. Bush is hard to dislike on a purely personal
level.

Next, mild irritation at the fawning of the TV talking-heads. OK,
it was a nice gesture. But Lincoln, FDR, Churchill? Give me a break.
Bush's late night airport visit took a lot of effort, but no particular
courage--no more, at any rate, than did Hillary Clinton's daylight visit
the next morning. After that, I felt chagrin that a retinue of
hand-picked journalists would agree to secret participation in a
transparently political stunt. Finally, realization that should events
in Iraq continue to spiral sickeningly out of control, all the warm
fuzzies in the world won't save Bush from the consequences of his
ill-conceived policies.