dragging out the scapegoats

[Terrance]

glthompson wrote:
> 
> Terrance wrote:
> 
> > Bashing Bush for his language skills is easy, but
> > demonstrating, with solid facts and good argument, that Bush is not a
> > smart man
> > or that his policies are stupid is not so easy.
> >
> > It's easy to call the man a box or rocks. It's not so easy to
> > critique his foreign policy.
> >
> > The devil is in the details, in the facts, not in the marbles in the
> > president's mouth.
> >
> > I still contend that Bush is a very smart man. I don't buy into the TV
> > stereotypes and propaganda from the Left. He's smart.
> >
> 
> Sorry, that would be propaganda from the Right. In case you hadn't noticed,
> the Left doesn't have much role these days in the distribution of propaganda
> (e.g., Fox News, "We report. You decide" indeed, or the newly right-tilting
> "Hire Rush Limbaugh" CNN).

No, it's propaganda from the Left. And if the Left had no voice we
wouldn't be having this debate. I'm not sure why you have provided these
examples, CNN and Fox, unless you are suggesting that the Nation's TV
Networks have moved to the Right. This seems to be the case. However,
the Left is still very vocal and very influential given the
circumstances. 

My complaint is that the Left has peddled the notion that Bush is a
stupid man. Moreover, what the Left continues to argue is that Bush in
not an articulate man and is therefore a stupid man. What  I have argued
is that his difficulties with language are not indicative of a lack of
intelligence and that the Left should step up to the plate and attack
policy and stop trying to convince people that Bush's tongue-tied
statements are proof that he is a stupid person. 


> 
> So long as W.'s handlers could lower expectations during the campaign,
> attention was paid to his malapropisms rather than his proposed policies, a
> pattern which has largely continued. 

That's  interesting analysis, but I'm afraid it doesn't make much sense
to me. 
Maybe you can explain it? Again, I think the lowered expectations and
the attack on his language have been Lefty propaganda. 

  


It may be a good thing to change tax
> policy so that the top 2% pay much much less than before, but no one argued
> the case because so much attention was paid to Al Gore's sighs.

Gore had 8 years under Bill Clinton and was unable to learn how to
communicate with the people. At times during the campaign it wasn't
clear if he was running against Bush or Clinton. The Gore bunch did not
run a very smart campaign. Bush, on the other hand, ran a very smart
campaign.   


> 
> So far as we can tell about Bush's policies, prior to 9/11 they consisted of
> skewing federal policies so as to benefit his supporters and friends, with a
> few symbolic gestures to the Christian right and allies. 

Come on Gary, do you really expect me to fall for this? 
This is more propaganda. Just because we don't agree with Bush's
policies doesn't mean we have to deny that they exist, that all the man
has done is pay back favors to the rich, this is a tired propaganda
line.  


On 9/11 he and all
> of us have been put into different circumstances. Last night's speech was a
> good performance, and I agree that Bush is shrewder than advertised. But I
> would still feel better if a) he hadn't *just* begun to develop an
> appreciation for something beyond unilateral US action, and b)  

This was Clinton's big mistake, wasn't it? 
And Bush is n ot making it. Smart. 

he had shown
> a basis for decisions which reach beyond political calculation.

Are you talking about Bush or Clinton? 
If you are willing to look past the propaganda ("Bush hasn't done
anything but pay off his rich friends...." ) you might be surprised to
discover what Bush has done good and bad.  Bush has policies, they are
changing our world. We may agree or disagree with those policies, but to
claim that he has no policies because he is too stupid to have them, his
stupidity presumed because he has difficulty speaking, is propaganda. 


> 
> Now of all times we have to be suspicious of those beating drums.

We always need to be suspicious of beating drums. This is America. 


> 
> "The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the
> self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public
> figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. 

Agreed. 


The voices licensed to
> follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize
> the public. 

Right. 

Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly'
> attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but
> an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, 

Right, it was not a cowardly act. Cowards don't fly airplanes into
buildings. 
But the Tube and the press pick up a word or a phrase, say, "Bush is not
the sharpest knife in the draw," or "crusade," or "coward" and run with
it. It sells. 

undertaken as a
> consequence of specific American alliances and actions? . . .

Of course, in part, in large part even, and again I find fault, as did
most of the world, with Clinton's unilateral bombings, the acts of
terrorism, the crimes, were replies to American  foreign policy. A no
brainer. But were they consequences? That's a line we should not cross
so quickly. If they were consequences, something that logically or
naturally follows from an action or condition, as in cause and effect,
or a logical conclusion, the acts begin to look less and less like
terrorist attacks, but of course they were terrorist attacks. Putting
the onus on the USA is tantamount to taking the responsibility for these
heinous crimes off the heads of the terrorists. 


> 
> "Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. 

No they are not. 

America is
> not afraid. 

They are not trying to convince us that America is not afraid. Our
leaders are afraid. 
They are not hiding this fact from us. 

Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live
> in infamy and America is now at war.

Is our spirit broken? Isn't this a day that will live in infamy? Isn't
America at war? 
I suspect that our spirit has not really been tested yet, but I think it
will survive. 
This day will live in infamy, I have no doubt about this. I'm not sure
if we are at war, but I think we will be soon. 



 But everything is not O.K. 

That's for damn skippy! 

And this was
> not Pearl Harbor. 

No kidding, it was NYC and Washington. 


We have a robotic President who assures us that America
> still stands tall. 

And he's off to see the wizard to get a brain. 



A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office,
> who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this
> Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand
> united behind President Bush. 

This is disturbing. But I think it is not surprising given the horror of
these attacks, but this too will pass. 



A lot of thinking needs to be done, and
> perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of
> American intelligence and counter-intelligence, aboutr options available to
> American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what
> constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being
> asked to bear much of the burden of reality. . . .

All true. 


> 
> "Let's by all means grieve together. 

Right, we need to grieve together, no sense trying to say, as many Lefty
propagandists are, that the government has stolen our time of grief. 

>But let's not be stupid together. 

Right, and maybe we can start by acknowledging that the people we
disagree with are not 
stupid simply because they don't think and act like we do or how we
would if given the opportunity. 





A few
> shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just
> happened, and what may continue to happen. 'Our country is strong,' we are
> told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who
> doubts that America is strong? But that's not all America has to be."
>         --Susan Sontag, _New Yorker_, Sept. 24 (sorry, it's not on line)

Let me reply with the rhetoric to match Susan Sontag's: 

Yes, and it's obvious to all but the cynics, that America in these dark
days, has not only made claims to its great strength, but has
demonstrated that it is also a tender nation, a kind and generous
nation, a smart and resourceful nation, a  rich and diverse nation, a
nation that is open to the world, a nation of laws, a nation that loves
peace more than revenge, a nation that will not be defeated by cynics or
terrorists, or and propagandists from the Left or the Right.  



> 
> Gary Thompson