Bush's Speech
Bush today spoke to the press, following his wildly uninspiring press conference two days ago. His topic: Iraq as the central front for the War on Terror. If this sounds like familiar territory, it is: this topic is and has been the central narrative throughline of this Administration since mid 2002.
Think Progress says that his speech is about Fear Mongering [once again]; Atrios claims that TP may be on to something, but really, this is about letting Arbusto enact his most comfortable Presidential duty: making ideological speeches.
I think that both of these are contained in the speech, but Atrios taps into something important: the scene has shifted beneath the President's feet. Iraq is percieved to be something of a misstep, something we're caught in and need to find solutions to divest ourselves from it. There is lots of argument on to what those solutions may be, but it's relatively widely seen, now, as being a harmful event for America's continued participation.
But what's really going on in this speech is The Administration's fluster at their lack of control. While they used to be able to constrain the debate of American policy to a managable framework. ie- If you talk about Iraq enough, that's all there is to talk about. Repurpose every conversation as one which centers on Iraq and the war on terror. Even with criticism of Iraq, even with peace protesters, talking about Iraq is the central goal: it is the managable political realm. While Iraq spins out of control of The Administration, how we've spoken about it never really has. This central aspect of the debate is vital to The Administration. It gives the power to control the debate, and from here they can branch into numerous other political realms.
But while we've seen Iraq spiral out of the control of The Administration, we've also now seen the problem of this style of policy. We've seen that by this central forced focus, our Government lacks any capability to govern: in the wakes of two devastating Hurricanes, we've witnessed the very worst of current, Republican-led social negligence.
We've seen the tentacles of law grasp the leaders of our government in slimy corruption cases: DeLay is the first indictment, but insiders such as White House staffer Safavian and lobbyist Abramoff illustrate the corrosion of the lobby-side of the problem; SEC investigations into Bill Frist show the self-interested side. And the ongoing and potentially indicting Plame Affair investigation may show us more than we wished we had known about our current corrupt government.
All of this was occuring under the guise of government under The Bush Administration. These failures occured from the inside out while Bush watched and neglected to manage them. Like rot or gangrene, like termites clawing through the old wood of the Bush White House. So this speech was not about taking care of the eating-of-the-inside of the White House and his Administration: It was about trying to convince Americans that the paint chips and the falling porch on the White House could be painted over; that the toxic mold inside, the asbestos insulation, the corroded and chewed-through support beams in the roof, were inconsequential. That the House was still strong, not weakend by his 5 short years of residency. And that his neglicence of them does not, in fact, constitute complicency.
Of course he was trying to convince us of this in the most corrupt of ways: by pointing out a window behind which a billboard of an Ideological need for Iraq and the War on Terror had been erected in 2002. He likes that billboard, that view out the back window of the Oval Office, even though even it has become wilted, shredded, faded, weathered and torn. He still thinks it's the best sight, the best selling point for The Bush White House.
Think Progress says that his speech is about Fear Mongering [once again]; Atrios claims that TP may be on to something, but really, this is about letting Arbusto enact his most comfortable Presidential duty: making ideological speeches.
I think that both of these are contained in the speech, but Atrios taps into something important: the scene has shifted beneath the President's feet. Iraq is percieved to be something of a misstep, something we're caught in and need to find solutions to divest ourselves from it. There is lots of argument on to what those solutions may be, but it's relatively widely seen, now, as being a harmful event for America's continued participation.
But what's really going on in this speech is The Administration's fluster at their lack of control. While they used to be able to constrain the debate of American policy to a managable framework. ie- If you talk about Iraq enough, that's all there is to talk about. Repurpose every conversation as one which centers on Iraq and the war on terror. Even with criticism of Iraq, even with peace protesters, talking about Iraq is the central goal: it is the managable political realm. While Iraq spins out of control of The Administration, how we've spoken about it never really has. This central aspect of the debate is vital to The Administration. It gives the power to control the debate, and from here they can branch into numerous other political realms.
But while we've seen Iraq spiral out of the control of The Administration, we've also now seen the problem of this style of policy. We've seen that by this central forced focus, our Government lacks any capability to govern: in the wakes of two devastating Hurricanes, we've witnessed the very worst of current, Republican-led social negligence.
We've seen the tentacles of law grasp the leaders of our government in slimy corruption cases: DeLay is the first indictment, but insiders such as White House staffer Safavian and lobbyist Abramoff illustrate the corrosion of the lobby-side of the problem; SEC investigations into Bill Frist show the self-interested side. And the ongoing and potentially indicting Plame Affair investigation may show us more than we wished we had known about our current corrupt government.
All of this was occuring under the guise of government under The Bush Administration. These failures occured from the inside out while Bush watched and neglected to manage them. Like rot or gangrene, like termites clawing through the old wood of the Bush White House. So this speech was not about taking care of the eating-of-the-inside of the White House and his Administration: It was about trying to convince Americans that the paint chips and the falling porch on the White House could be painted over; that the toxic mold inside, the asbestos insulation, the corroded and chewed-through support beams in the roof, were inconsequential. That the House was still strong, not weakend by his 5 short years of residency. And that his neglicence of them does not, in fact, constitute complicency.
Of course he was trying to convince us of this in the most corrupt of ways: by pointing out a window behind which a billboard of an Ideological need for Iraq and the War on Terror had been erected in 2002. He likes that billboard, that view out the back window of the Oval Office, even though even it has become wilted, shredded, faded, weathered and torn. He still thinks it's the best sight, the best selling point for The Bush White House.
posted by General Stan at 10:50 AM
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