The Fiction Of The Bush Administration

Theater of War: The Greatest Story Ever Sold

It would appear that not only non-fiction writers like George Lakoff, Bob Woodward, Richard Clarke and former senator Bob Graham have a lot to say about the fictions that have been created by George W. Bush and his gang of fascist thugs, but so, too, have media and theater critics.

As a former theater critic, Frank Rich has the perfect credentials for writing an account of the Bush administration, which has done so much to blur the lines between politics and show business.

It would seem that Bush and his gang--who like to criticize the media for being liberal, biased, inaccurate and manipulative--are at least biased, inaccurate and manipulative in their own right (or should we now say "reich"?), having mastered the art of moving their fictionalized message and justifications for the war in Iraq and the so-called "War on Terrorism."

It is not just the liberals, the moderates, the bloggers and the sane people in our nation that are noticing that the entire justification for being in Iraq has been fictionalized, now it includes those whose job it is to critique fiction and theater itself.

And let's face facts. While the issue of terrorism is real, the theater put on by Bush and his gang have blown the threat out of proportion, manipulated the facts to scare the hell out of us, positioned the "story" in such a way as to make us believe that another attack is always looming upon us, and not once have they shown us all the facts... only those facts--or more accurately, statements we are led to believe as facts--that support their version of the story they are selling.

Terrorists have been with us since the beginning of US History. We have had terrorism on our soil long before the events of 9-11. But the size of the massacre on 9-11 shocked us, and scared the hell out of us. But we must put things into perspective, as Professor Mike Kilburn and others did some time ago in pieces written in the North Shore Sunday published for the North Shore areas of Boston.

Show business has always been an essential part of ruling people, and so is the use of fiction, especially when going to war. What would Hitler have been without his vicious fantasies fed to a hungry public through grand spectacles, radio and film? Closer to home, in 1964, to justify American intervention in Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson used news of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin that never took place.

Have we, as American citizens, become so accustomed to being lied to and misled that we now accept it as a matter of fact and inevitable consequence of having politicians lead us? Have we really become that stupid? Are we really that impotent in controlling our own destiny as a free people? We must be because we have not insisted that congress act to correct the wrongs and crimes committed by Bush and his gang of fascist thugs. We have not insisted on impeachment.

What is fascinating about the era of George W. Bush, however, is that the spinmeisters, fake news reporters, photo-op creators, disinformation experts, intelligence manipulators, fictional heroes and public relations men posing as commentators operat[ing] in a world where virtual reality has already threatened to eclipse empirical investigation.

In other words, we are so accustomed to being screwed and lied to that we no longer react to it with outrage or take action. We allow fiction to become our reality because we are unwilling--or so completely apathetic--to put forth the effort to take issue with the misinformation, lies and spin being presented to us as "fact."

Remember that White House aide, quoted by Rich in his introduction, who said that a “judicious study of discernible reality” is “not the way the world really works anymore”? For him, the “reality-based community” of newspapers and broadcasters is old hat, out of touch, even contemptible in “an empire” where “we create our own reality.” This kind of official arrogance is not new, of course, although it is perhaps more common in dictatorships than in democracies.

Does reality have to be discerned? Are we so stupefied by the spinmeisters that we can no longer judge reality? It seems to be the case... and we are allowing it to be so.

What is disturbing is the way it matches so much else going on in the world: postmodern debunking of objective truth, bloggers and talk radio blowhards driving the media, news organizations being taken over by entertainment corporations and the profusion of ever more sophisticated means to doctor reality.

I never want my readers to assume I have the truth. I do not offer the truth. I offer my views on the issues being discussed and presented to us as everyday fare. I support my views with facts, expertise and experience, in hopes that I can persuade my audience to understand my views. If, in the process, my audience agrees with me, then I have done my job as a blogger. If my audience disagrees with me, then once again I have done my job as a blogger. If, however, my audience is so dumb as to take my word as the last word on anything without checking the facts, circumstances and other perspectives, then I have not done my job as a blogger or as a decent human being. My role as a blogger is to make people think, not merely nod their heads in unison with my words. My role as an American is to hold my government accountable in as much as I am able for all of its actions, good, bad or indifferent. My role as a human being is to make the world a better place. But it is the role of the audience of all forms of media to question what is being said, to check out the facts, to seek other perspectives and to challenge that which they find incongruent and/or inconsistent. Hopefully they will do so in an intelligent and meaningful manner, not merely adopt the tactics of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Phyllis Schlafly, Laura Schlesinger, Hannity, O'Reilly, Grace, Coulter, Novak, Malkin, Rivera, Povich, or any number of highly paid (over-paid????) Jerry-Springer-like sensationalists that are more entertainment than legitimate news or commentary.

Rich’s subject is the creation of false reality. “The Greatest Story Ever Sold” is not about policies, or geopolitical analysis. The pros and cons of removing Saddam Hussein by force, the consequences of American military intervention in the Middle East and the threat of Islamist extremism are given scant attention. The author, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, has his liberal views, which are not strikingly original. I happen to agree with him that Karl Rove and George Bush manipulated public fear and wartime patriotism to win elections, and that Dick Cheney and his neocon cheerleaders favored a war in Iraq long before 9/11 “to jump-start a realignment of the Middle East.” Whether Rich is right to say that this has “little or nothing to do with the stateless terrorism of Al Qaeda” is debatable. The neocons may well have believed that an American remake of the Middle East was the best way to tackle terrorism.

There is a consistent theme among authors of all kinds here. Bush and his gang of fascist thugs have created an entirely new genre of writing; defense or criticism of the Bush approach to being president. In the past five weeks I have consumed over 25 books that either rip to shreds the entire basis for the "War on Terrorism" or seek to support everything Bush does. Being a person of intellect, training and education, I have to say that from my perspective the side that rips Bush to shreds is winning on the basis of fact, legal precedent and the Constitution. But the arguments in favor of Bush and his policies are quite entertaining as almost complete fiction... having just enough turth in them to make them sound plausible and credible to someone unwilling to examine more than a one-sided view.

They were almost certainly mistaken. But the point of Rich’s fine polemic is that the Bush administration has consistently lied about the reasons for going to war, about the way it was conducted and about the terrible consequences. Whatever the merits of removing a dictator, waging war under false pretenses is highly damaging to a democracy, especially when one of the ostensible aims is to spread democracy to others. If Rich is correct, which I think he is, the Bush administration has given hypocrisy a bad name.

While I can see the point, it's a damn shame that we have had to rediscover the fact that hypocrisy was bad.

Enjoy the rest of the article and if you get a chance, borrow the book from a library and read it.