About 60 years ago, I said to my father, “Old Mr. Senex is showing his age; he sometimes talks quite stupidly.” My father replied, “That isn’t age. He’s always been stupid. He is just losing his ability to conceal it.”
- Robertson Davies, New York Times Book review (May 12, 1991)
The wonderful thing about having George Bush as president is that a commentator can write about the same subject repeatedly and it will always be timely and fresh. That is because when George Bush finds a bad thing to do, he does it repeatedly because he’s too sure of his own good judgment to notice that it’s a bad thing. One of his favorite things is hiding facts to protect myths. One of his favorite myths is that the war in Iraq is going swimmingly. Among one of many ways the myth is perpetuated is by not letting journalists photograph service personnel being brought home in coffins as they arrive at Andrews Air Force Base. Another, we have now learned, is not letting members of the press get near burial services taking place at Arlington National Cemetery.
According to a report in the Washington Post, at the burial of Lt. Col. Billy Hall, the family wanted the press in attendance to record the burial of one of the senior officers to be killed in Iraq and, by reporting on it, to honor Colonel Hall’s patriotism and sacrifice. Mr. Bush’s Pentagon believes Colonel Hall’s sacrifice can be better honored privately, the family’s wishes notwithstanding. Accordingly a yellow rope kept the press 50 yards from the grave site. A photographer complained there could be no pictures of the family without the yellow rope being in the way to which an employee of the cemetery responded: “This is the best shot you’re going to get”. When the reporters complained that the pastor’s eulogy, in which he presumably talked about Colonel Hall’s valor and sacrifice, could not be heard, the Arlington official responded by saying “Mm-hmm.” As a result, all the press could report to commemorate this brave man, father and husband was that it could not report anything. Mr. Bush likes it that way.
Another myth in which George Bush believes, is that in a well-run country politics should always trump science. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report the end of April disclosing that science and ignorance (the latter clothed in garments purchased for it by Mr. Bush and his courtiers) have been in mortal combat during the Bush administration’s tenure and ignorance has proved its worth winning easily in many of the confrontations.
Focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency that has received attention in this as well as other places, the report discloses that in a survey of scientists at the agency, more than half disclosed there had been political interference in scientific decisions during the preceding five years. (George Bush has been president for seven years and presumably the reason for interference during only the last five is that it takes a while for someone like George to figure out those areas in which commonly accepted scientific notions are deficient and should give way to political considerations.)
In the survey fifty five hundred questionnaires were sent out and 1,586 scientists responded. More than half said they had observed political interference in scientific decisions made by the agency. Some said the Office of Management and Budget, interfered for political reasons. As a threshold matter that would seem a singularly inappropriate agency to be interfering in matters scientific until one realizes that if scientific decisions are to be made by the ignorant, it is a singularly appropriate agency to be making those decisions.
The Office of Management and Budget is not alone in thwarting science. According to the Post report, when E.P.A. staff members came to the non-startling conclusion that greenhouse gasses were bad for public health, efforts at creating regulations halted after the White House received its findings. Mr. Bush also caused the agency to weaken its proposed limits on smog-forming ozone, he having apparently concluded ozone is not the problem the scientists believe it to be.
Following publication of the most recent survey, Jonathan Shradar defended his boss, Stephen L. Johnson, E.P.A. Administrator. Mr. Shradar said Mr. Johnson carefully weighs the input of staff in all agency decisions. An example of how Mr. Johnson uses the scale to weigh agency decision can be seen in the decision to deny California the waiver it sought in 2007 to reduce tailpipe emissions by 2016 to 30% instead of to 40% by 2020 as mandated by the December 2007 Energy bill. The staff at the EPA was reportedly in favor of granting the waiver, being possessed of scientific knowledge and unencumbered by political considerations. Placing his thumb on the scientific scale, Mr. Johnson concluded his staff was wrong and denied the waiver. Mr. Shrader told the Post reporter that the findings in the Union’s survey would not change anything. That is very likely true-at least for the next 8 months. Thereafter one can hope that science will once again be recognized as a valid field of study, the findings of which are entitled to at least as much, if not slightly more weight, than the conclusions of politicians led by the Grand Pooba in the White House.
Christopher Brauchli
brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu
For political commentary see my web page http://humanraceandothersports.com
The monopoly media is all too happy to help hide the truth.
They donn’t want to risk their ratings or profit by questioning the President in a time of war.
They don’t want to risk their ratings and profits by reporting on sad stories during dinner time.
They don’t want to make politicians mad since a lot of their profit comes from political advertising.
Hiding the truth is a mutual project between our political leaders and the monopoly media.
Breath taking ignorance thy name is Bush… Now that the faith based coalition of the ignorant has had their little moment maybe we could get back to the twenty-first century. These fools treat scientists as alchemists or witches that bring folly to their flat world view. For the love of god when will this long national nightmare end?
The author’s opening quote is a gem. I’m not sure it applies to Bush any more than the rest of us, though.
As for media, peace coup is right about that industry. It is about attracting viewers with trivia and about not offending either the customers of the sponsors’ products and services or the sponsors themselves. That’s it.
And since TRUTH usually is offensive, you get little of it.
I can’t agree with Mr. Brauchli’s contention that repeating the same old story about George W. Bush is always “fresh,” and Mr. Brauchli obviously didn’t intend this contention to be ironic, since he links to virtually the same story that he wrote in 2006.
Bush and his friends distort the truth about everything, but the only “fresh” thing about this story is the sense of intellectual superiority it imparts to bloggers and columnists and even their readers.
This happy feeling is unfounded.
Mr. Bush and his friends got organized a long time ago, but the geniuses who criticize them are just an unruly mob. Is there a liberal program? Is there a progressive program?
Of course not! Instead, there are a hundred thousand or a million or ten million liberal and progressive programs, enough so that every liberal or progressive blogger and columnist and reader can have his or her very own program, and enjoy a happy feeling of superiority about it, because no matter how fragmentary it may be, it is absolutely guaranteed to be more intelligent than the latest nonsense from the Republicans.
So there’s always a market for columnists like Mr. Brauchli, just like there’s always a market for booze and everything else that imparts a warm and woozy feeling to its consumers.
In the meantime, media concentration continues and even accelerates, while Rupert Murdoch buys the Wall Street Journal and bids for Newsday, and Mr. Bush can afford to laugh at all the tiny voices on the blogs, because his friends can always make a much bigger noise.
You might expect liberal and progressive bloggers and columnists to unite against a concentration of power that guarantees their futility…
You might expect them to stop writing the same “fresh” story over and over and over, and get organized in opposition to the enormous voices of media conglomerates that drown out liberal and progressive voices the way Niagra Falls drowns out a swarm of mosquitos…
What difference does it make what you say, if your voice is always lost in the uproar?
But liberals and progressives keep fiddling the same almost inaudible little tunes, like fiddlers on a subway platform where the trains never stop roaring past… but it isn’t as if those trains can’t be stopped.
They were already stopped for a hundred years.
Laws against media concentration don’t have to be invented…There are hundreds of them still in force, however many the FCC and Republican Congresses and Bill Clinton may have abrogated in the last twenty years.
The remaining laws governing media concentration can be preserved, and stronger laws can be written, but it isn’t really a very sexy issue for bloggers and columnists. Worse yet, it requires a lot of organization and even discipline from liberals and progressives: Stop writing your own particular favorite story over and over, until you make sure that something, anything, on the blogs has a chance to make a difference.
Unless liberal and progressive bloggers and columnists unite their individual voices against the enormous voices of the media conglomerates, every article on Common Dreams and Daily Kos and the Huffington Post and all the other relatively tiny progressive sites will be just another exercise in self-satisfaction and futility.
The war is going well. It is meeting almost every objective that the war criminals set out to achieve. They have control of oil where they didn’t before (that damn Saddam).
Money is being transfered from our pubic tax dollars to the pockets of the few, the rich, the chicken hawks.
The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles ~ Mahatma Gandhi
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm
“Bush Jr.’s Skeleton Closet ”
“George Bush likes to present himself as a straight-talking, regular guy. But it’s an act — regular guys don’t go to Andover Prep, Yale and Harvard Business School, and straight-talking guys don’t pretend to be regular guys after growing up in one of the most privileged homes in world history. Not only was Bush’s dad president, his grandpa was a U.S. Senator and wealthy Wall Street banker, and his mom’s blueblood family owned (among other things) the estate in Maine that Bush still hangs out at.
Now, as Bush’s regular guy act is wearing thin, some of his other deceptions are becoming more obvious….”
His top aides exposed an undercover CIA agent to silence critics
– Lies, deception and coverups to push the war in Iraq
– Convicted of drunk driving. Lied repeatedly to cover up his arrest.
– Lying under oath. Bush & staff stop investigation of contributor’s huge funeral home company.
– Avoided Vietnam and Skipped Out on his National Guard Service
– Texas government corruption: State $$ for campaign funders & business cronies
– Cocaine: felony drug use, vile hypocrisy, and a hushed up arrest?
– His “young and irresponsible” behavior: sex, drugs and (gasp!) rock and roll?
– Thin skinned: censors his critics with police, lawyers, $$$
– Character: Spoiled rich kid living off his family’s name and reputation
– Made millions on insider business deals, for little work
– — Deal #1. Personal Profits from Failing Oil Companies
– — – — Easy Money From Odd Sources
– — – — A Surprise Deal From Bahrain
– — – — Access to the President and National Security Adviser for his foreign business partner
– — Deal #2. Selling Oil Stocks Just Before Iraq Invaded: lucky guess or illegal insider trading?
– — Deal #3. A Big Slice of a Baseball Team
– — – — Hypocrisy: using government coercion to make his private fortune
Amazing how he never got swift boated on just one these…..Dimocrat complicity?????
A note on my previous comment:
I have written virtually the same little essay about a dozen times in the past couple of years, and it makes me feel very smart every time I write it.
pres bush likes to use “THE RALPH REED THEORY”…don’t talk about the negatives
simonhhh, I would say more of media complicity. If a tree falls in the forest…
The propaganda machine only talks about what they want us to know about. George W Bush’s many shortcomings were not up for review, since he was to be the chosen one.
Watch what the media’s doing. Who are they going soft on now? They’re talking up the Democratic catfight, which is helping to alienate each side’s supporters, and ignoring McCain, which considering what he says when he shoots off his mouth is a gift from them.
kathyodat
JACOB FREEZE: True and good points. Of course the course your recommend is a tough one given who owns the major media, but not impossible. Now to organize all those cats…
The sooner that intelligent Americans realize that the leading source of income for the major news media is ADVERTISING, the better.
The sooner that there is an organized effeort to cut the financial legs from under Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, Rush Limbaugh, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Ann Coulter… the sooner we will get REAL NEWS!
The White House and Pentagon can provide favors, gifts of cash and access, and invitations to cocktail parties… but they can’t provide enough income to support ALL of their propaganda outlets.
Let’s declare economic war on the liars and distortion artists!
Nah, beforkids, they are trashing Obama because Hillary is to be the chosen one, and Obamamania was getting out of control. It would look suspicious to say that Hillary won when everyone you know is for Obama.
They must maintain the illusion of democracy to keep us interested.
Actually, provoice, some of this media doesn’t make a profit. The Rev Moon’s Washington Times, Fox News for the first years, Rush Limbaugh, the right wing financial backers kept them going at a loss in order to get the propaganda out.
It’s way worse than you think.
BeForKids May 3rd, 2008 5:59 pm
Absolutely correct…Also MIC AND MEDIA complicity….
The Union of Concerned Scientists (mentioned in the article) has an A-Z list of political interference and outright lies:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-alphabetical.html
Science, when passed through a sieve of polical dogma or religion, ceases to be science. Much of what we hear now are scientific distortions. It gives real science a bad name.
Let’s see, under this Administration, Justice has been politicized, war-making, torture, Constitutional rights, science, education, religion, medicine and drug policy, public health, environmental protection, climate change, food safety, foreign relations, foreign trade, the mass media, agriculture, aviation, housing, banking and investment. I’m sure I’ve missed a few. Please fill in the blanks. There is a clear and obvious theme that connects these dots: big business good, consumer spending good, consumer protections bad. In the words of the decapitated Queen of France: “Let them eat cake!”
Do you get the picture that this government under bushie & co. never intended to act on your behalf, only on their own?
Their motto: “squeeze ‘em dry before the well goes dry!”
Even the Sopranos were occasionally capable of love and compassion.
We’ve carried the myth of the “free market” as far as it can go before it annhilates most life on earth.
I think everyone is giving Bush too much credit for the actions of his administration. I’m throughly convinced that he is just playing President while Cheney and company are the real power. Bush will swagger around the world, delivering messages and making speeches, but I doubt he does any real policy making. He doesn’t strike me as all that bright but likes the ‘prestige’ of being President… and he gets to kill people and cause pain, which appeals to his sadistic side.
Is Bush responsible for his Administrations crimes? Only to the extent that he didn’t stop them… but a mastermind or a real leader, he is not.