Friday, May 21, 2004

Dubya is toast on both sides

I'm feeling increasingly optimistic about disposing of Dubya. He really is getting heavy fire from both sides these days, the funny side and the unfunny side.

Of course, the humor-based attack is Michael Moore's primary angle in the Fahrenheit 9/11 movie. Is he just reacting to the BushCo propaganda? Or is he just that politically shrewd? Perhaps both? Of course, it's obvious that Rove has tried to recast Dubya as presidential since 9/11. From the reviews I've seen, it appears the main point of the film is that Dubya is a laughingstock, at least as far as fighting terrorism goes. I'm really looking forward to seeing the film as soon as possible. I'm sure it makes Dubya look stupid, but how stupid? Fire-the-loser stupid?

Don't forget that before 9/11, and especially in the 2000 campaign, Dubya sang a different song. He was supposed to be just a regular guy who just accidentally happened to be the stinking rich son of a president, and who was just lucky to have so many stinking rich friends eager to invest in his campaigns. I think the case for Dubya as a cunning and vicious fool is quite strong, but I keep remembering that a lot of people thought that's some flavor of what they were voting for in 2000. However, they either thought the fool would hire smart assistants (like Rumsfailed?), or they were persuaded by the crazy rightwing propaganda that Gore was some sort of dangerous monster. (Too bad the American presidency is no longer suitable for nice guys like Gore or Jimmy Carter.) Is Dubya the fool he originally pretended to be? The new and improved presidential fool? And what will the voters want in November?

Meanwhile, the anti-humor attack is mostly blowback from Iraq. Now we have a movie aspect there, too, with new films of the prisoner abuse. Honor and integrity? Sure thing, coming right up--as soon as BushCo can find some gaps in the unending streams of lies. Restore America's dignity? Is that anything like the human dignity we took from the Iraqi prisoners? Iraq is almost certainly the biggest and most impressive failure of all of Dubya's miserable failures. There are just so many ways to slice the failure in Iraq... American deaths? Loss of all international influence except for the old gun in your face method? Extreme abuse of power to the point of systematic war crimes? All that money flushed away? (Except that BushCo got kickbacks, so they don't regard that part as wasted.) Building a "new and improved" Al Qaeda? Dead Iraqis? Oh, I keep forgetting. Dead Iraqis don't count. They're just untermenschen.

Actually, I think BushCo's failure in education policy is also a strong contender as the most miserable failure, but it may take decades for that damage to become fully apparent, and even longer to assess it. Every other BushCo policy has failed, too, except maybe the environmental policy. Trick question! BushCo doesn't even have any environmental policy, so those failures have to re-filed in other categories.

You'd think that someone should be held accountable. Punish someone significant like Rumsfailed? Perish the thought. (Saddam doesn't count--the reason he's been punished is only because he quit the team.) It reminds me of some comedian's joke about Dubya admitting that there was a security failure on 9/11 and punishing someone, even if he had to retroactively fire someone from the Truman administration. Guess it depends on what you remember. Most people remember Truman for "The Buck Stops Here", but BushCo only remembers the bit about "Never apologize."

So let's see what the voter's remember in November.

No comments:

Followers

About Me

My photo
As a blogger from before there were blogs, I've concluded what I write is of little interest to the reading public. My current approach is to treat these blogs as notes, with the maturity indicated by the version number. If reader comments show interest, I will probably add some flesh to the skeletons...