"If You Can't Beat Em, Join 'Em" -Even if you've always been superior??

"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect." ~Adlai Stevenson

Though the former Democratic candidate for president twice over (he lost both times to Eisenhower) offered this glowing panegyric a mere 50 years ago, the Utopian America he describes sadly seems eons away here in 2007. Paradoxically, an observer would probably be inclined to believe that the country now is better off than five decades prior, given the stentorian progress in social justice for minorities, incalculable advances in technology, and a general sense of egalitarianism that pervades society presently. However, despite the aforementioned, the last seven years under the maliciously inept governance of the Bush Administration has systematically, albeit not completely, invalidated and neutralized the burnished view points, offered by Stevenson and his ilk, once espoused freely in this country.

Where do I start? (By the way, I hate rhetorical questions like that in essays, but I am feeling lazy and I'm frankly having a hard time focusing because of the apocalyptic incident of yesterday..... the pizza throwing imbroglio in the stands of Fenway Park) First of all, there are now 47 million people bereft of health care, even as HMO's and the czar's of health care companies receive sickening compensation. (increasingly, middle class professionals comprise this sect of the population). New Orleans, a beacon of the vitality, determination and cooperation of the American spirit destroyed equally by a cataclysmic hurricane and the anemic response that followed. The introduction of "pre-emptive" warfare in Iraq, a doctrine which has served to simultaneously eviscerate American military might (and resulting, influence) in volatile regions across the globe and serve as the greatest recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda to utilize against the United States since Courtney Love.

Be those things as they may, this blog is not a polemic about the litany of problems confronting American as a result of almost comically bad leadership (if only George W. Bush was not a real person, and was only a character played by Will Ferrell) No, on the other hand, this entry is devoted to analyzing the rhetoric the Bush Administration has employed to legitimate their counter-productive policies, language that has also served, occasionally, to mobilize their base and to pacify and ostracize their opponents on the left side of the aisle.

As Paul Krugman recently pointed out in an insightful column in the Times, the electorate generally opposes Republican policies on issues like health care, the war in Iraq and environmental conditions by a margin of nearly 2 to 1. However, as Krugman explicitly details, the GOP has nevertheless done astonishingly well in national elections. The pressing question thus arises: How does the right continue to accrue more love at the ballot box from the very voters who profess to disagree with their agenda?

Obviously, there is no singular reason for this seemingly contradictory phenomenon. Some of it can be attributed to a phlegmatic and leaderless Democratic Party. Undoubtedly, election victories for the GOP have some relation to the country's mood following 9/11. Also, the Rovian "get out the base" voting strategy has undoubtedly assisted in securing key swing states, particularly in presidential elections (Florida in 2000 and Ohio 2004) Ultimately, Krugman believes that the Republicans magnify and exaggerate very minor problems (e.g. Clinton's secretary entering the White House without a badge on the weekend nearly bringing Newt Gingrich to tears of rage on the House floor) as a means to obfuscate the larger scale issues, with the assumption being they would be slaughtered if they stuck to the difficult quandaries befuddling the country at a given moment. To a large extent, this strategy has worked beautifully. After all, how many times has the RNC been able to energize the far right base with preposterous slander about gay marriage along the lines of "what's next, men can marry their collie?" As disturbing as that rhetoric may be, it produces results. Krugman hits this notion right on the head, however he misses out on one key aspect of the Bush rhetorical arsenal, the facet which is, in fact, the most ignominious and disingenuous.

Let's be honest: George W. Bush is a man of few words, or at least, I should say, few intelligible words. He enjoys his policy analyses succinct and punchy. On Iraq: "Cut and Run" On Social Security: "Health Savings Accounts" On the Democrats: " Defeatocrats" On the War on Terror: "We are fighting them there so we don't have them here" On the questionable conduct of his Vice President: " In Texas, shooting your friend multiple times in the face, then subsequently refusing him medical attention for a number of hours, is a sign of friendship." You get the idea. Mostly, these pithy (/Bill O'Reilly) slogans have proven to be mostly fodder for the late night talk shows, especially after their ridiculousness and the essentially trivial nature of the solecisms became apparent.

However, the Bush Administration has recently utilized a rhetorical tactic that cannot be dismissed as non sequitur with the same ease as before. Recently, in defending their unpopular positions on the war in Iraq, and on environmental issues, Bush Administration officials have basically rebuffed their myriad critics by stating that "since (third world/developing nation) doesn't abide by the protocol, well then we (the United States) don't have to either" Taken literally, this line of argument comes across as petulant and simple minded. It's akin to my brother protesting about washing the dishes because I never had to. Additionally, and on a much deeper level, the judgement that the United States is not superior to a developing country is implicit in this comparison. For a party like the GOP, who espouses fervent pro-American "values" rhetoric when discussing immigration policy and trade affairs, to essentially render the United States as tantamount to fledgling nations in the Far East, is emblematic of how desperate these partisan hacks will go to justify their inexplicable actions. In a way, it's the most sobering indication of just how much the United States has descended, both in the view of other nations around the globe, and in the view of its own inhabitants, during the disastrous seven years since Bush defeated Gore in 2000.

For example, as detailed in an April 2nd article in the Times, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA (mind you, this organization has been effectively neutered by the Bush Administration) has the power to regulate harmful greenhouse gases. Aside from the lobbyists in Detroit, the most incredulous reaction to the ruling came from Bush administration officials. Now, rationally, even a layperson like yours truly knows that even the most ardent global warming skeptics are struggling for methods to rationalize their buffoonery. True to form, the skeptics in the Bush Administration, having run out of any rebuttal that could even be tangentially based in peer reviewed science, issues their standard rejoinder that "since China or India do not follow climate change treaties like Kyoto, the United States therefore must continually evaluate it's own position."

Apparently, despite the fact that Republicans blither on ad nauseum about how "we are the greatest country in the world" during heated immigration hearings, we are tantamount to India and China on environmental policy. The former is a nation which, according to The Australian, has a child malnutrition rate of 47 percent. Similarly, China, though it boasts a booming economy (one which is assisted exponentially by exploitation of a cheap labor market), the government of Hu Jintao nevertheless remains as stifling and authoritarian as ever. If you don't believe me, ask those members of Falun Gong who got the Abu Ghraib treatment simply for congregating in public space. Are these two developing, yet still deeply flawed nations, really our contemporaries vis a vis human rights, transparency and governmental accountability?

According to Bush Administration officials, we are at least next of kin, if not in equivalent echelons within the world milieu. Good thing this policy is new, otherwise the U.S. Government might have enslaved African-Americans until the late 1980's, with the justification being that South Africa still was under apartheid rule. Historically, imagine how societal equality would have been mitigated if women were not afforded the right to vote in the early 20th century since universal suffrage had not yet been bestowed to females in the Middle East. Obviously, those examples are somewhat hyperbolic, but they are not as ridiculous as one might think, if you stay in the parameters of the Administrations argument.

Reducing the United States to the same moral and ethical universe as countries that neglect basic rights for their populace, and thereby attempting to shirt responsibility on the impending climate disaster if urgent steps are not taken with celerity, is hypocritical, unfounded and puzzling. However, to the surprise of few, the caterwauls about ignoring Kyoto since "others do" is not the first instance of this line of argument since Bush ascended to the presidency in 2000.

In 2005, the Administration also proffered this excuse to vitiate the protests of critics, from both sides of the aisle, about their heinous treatment of detainees both at the Guantanamo site in Cuba and at Abu Ghraib. Basically, the argument of Mr. Bush, and his coterie of sycophants in the Senate like McConnell, Cornyn, DeMint, et al, was that, among other flimsy reasons, torturing enemy combatants was acceptable because, if U.S. servicemen and women were to be captured by said enemy, they would be subject to similar deplorable treatment at the hands of their captors. While the latter part of their conceit is likely true, since when do we possess equivocal standards of despicable, barbaric and uncivilized regimes and/or ideologies like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? Is that really how far this country has plummeted since George W. Bush took office. Call me naive, but I always believed that the United States considered it a bastion of morality, fairness and magnanimity, even when it came to dealing with sworn enemies of the state. Most importantly, this facet of American doctrine always seemed to exist irrespective of the actions of other foreign actors, nation-state or otherwise. George W. Bush, like he has done with many fundamental precepts of the Constitution, has decided to disregard the standards of treatment of prisoners that have been universally ratified since the founding of the Republic more than 230 years ago.

I happened to be interning for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) when the brouhaha completely blew up, and the situation devolved into a standoff between the Administration, who favored torture, and former servicemen who now served in the Senate like McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who were staunchly opposed. I'll never forget the day I observed, from only a few feet away, a press conference McCain held in the hallway adjacent to his office in the Russell Building. As the throng of media continued to haggle the Senator about his brouhaha with the President on the torture issue, I could sense his frustration mounting. Finally, the incessant harangues rose to a crescendo and the Senator simply burst out something to the effect that: "We are the United States. We have never tortured before, and we wouldn't begin now. That is completely against our national identity."

In that moment, McCain, who is known more for his acerbic wit than his poetic eloquence, perfectly summed up the sentiments of those allayed against the President on this matter. Sadly, given that most Americans are patriotic, and therefore hold their country in high esteem, McCain's poignant defense of U.S. policy that stipulates abstaining from the disgusting act of torture needn't be said, especially to the Commander in Chief. It wasn't long ago that, save a few covert operations from CIA, a public endorsement of torture by the highest ranking official in the government would be unthinkable. Please, don't hasten to paint me one that views the past with rose colored glasses. Hardly. But, the change from 2000 to 2007 has been so dramatic and all-encompassing, that the darkened days of the past appear in a lighter hue. As McCain found out, unfortunately, as with most matters of common sense and ethics, this President has to be spoken to in the plainest possible terms, as if he has the intellect and moral quotient of a pre-pubescent boy.

Ultimately, their ridiculous, counter productive line of argument was discredited and maligned when it came down to making decisions on the treatment of detainees, and hopefully, environmental regulation. Despite that victory however, those who disdain the rhetoric still have an up hill battle forthcoming. The idea that American values can be cast aside, in light of the actions of another nation state, could have a pervasive and extremely detrimental effect on the country as whole in the future. George W. Bush and his cohorts, in an attempt to obfuscate the deleterious impact their policies levy upon most Americans, have been relegated to utilizing this demeaning assumption about the American polity. The collective malaise they have instilled into the mindset of the country's inhabitants could take decades to eradicate. By stating, as often as anyone is listening, that America's obligations are not to uphold the Constitution daily, but rather only when it's congruent with the policies of another nation, George W. Bush and those in his administration have been proven dually as ultimate hypocrites and enemies of the American way of life.

Consider if you will, this quote:
"The US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal."

The odd syntax of this rhetoric non withstanding, the charges levied upon the U.S. Government are probably as salient as they could possibly be as we continue through 2007. During the past 7 years, the Bush government truly has committed numerous unjust and illegal acts. From the Draconian practice known as "extraordinary rendition", which led to the false imprisonment of a Canadian national of Syrian descent for more than two years, to the insipid, invasive domestic wire trapping program, the Bush Administration has largely ignored the time honored ideals of justice, privacy and due process entwined in the Constitution. Oh, by the way, the sage who offered this prophetic assessment of America? Osama Bin Laden. Any time a maniacal zealot, in a rhetorical flourish, burnishes charges about a country, one tends to ignore the ramblings. However, given the recent scandals dominating the news, it's difficult to not lend at least some credence to OBL's dictum.

On January 20th, 2009, George W. Bush and his cabal will physically vacate the White House, and not a moment too soon. Thus, the important question remains: will their blatant disregard of the Constitution linger during the new administration? 7 years is not enough to override all of the progress endemic to this country since the founding of the republic. However, if this disease of irresponsibility and deceit persists, will we one day really be similar to China and India?