Bush Is Toast

First, this week's award for the most amusing interpretation of international news as an expression of American pop-culture goes to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Commenting on America's rapidly deteriorating standing in the world in the wake of the latest developments in Iraq, Friedman wrote , "I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today... It's no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving."

It's not unusual to see Friedman writing critically of the Bush administration, though Friedman goes out of his way to provide a fresh and global perspective on the issues facing us. He has recently spent time in India exploring the controversies around the issues of outsourcing American tech-support jobs to call centers in Bangalore, and came away with the realization that "people who work for you are much less inclined to want to blow you up," or something to that effect. At least he managed to convey that there is more than one side to that particular issue.

But I am beginning to see cracks in the usual foundations of support for Bush and his attempts to "change the world" by making it safe for Democracy, Barbie Dolls, Big Macs and Halliburton. Even stalwart, right-leaning outlets like the Wall Street Journal, while still supporting the basic thrust of the administration's policies are beginning to take exception to the way those policies are being implemented.

Last week, the Journal ran an op-ed story under the headline, A Politically Weak President that said, among other things, "a clear plurality of Americans believe America is headed in the wrong direction, lack confidence on the economy and Iraq and believe the country can do better than George W. Bush in the White House."

I think that's the first time that the Journal has even hinted that Bush may be in the final months of his presidency, and while the journal has yet to actually come out and endorse "regime change" in Washington, the article does suggest some ways that John Kerry can assure that outcome, which we'll get to shortly.

If it should come to pass that Bush is "redefeated", then we may have a hapless soldier, Private First Class Linndie England to thank for that outcome. Private England, is the charming young woman we have all seen by now pictured at the business end of a leash, at the other end of which is one of the poor Iraqi citizens we are supposedly trying to "liberate" by incarcerating them in Saddam Hussein's most notorious prison and torture house. Boy, there's a woman who's got some problems with men -- a perfect example of American ideals to send abroad. Nice work, Linndie. And if Bush goes down.... thank you.

When the Neo-Con Christian Warriors couldn't find the Weapons of Mass Destruction they assured us were such a hazard to the U.S. and the rest of the world, the justification for invading Iraq quickly shifted to assertions that the "world is better off without Saddam Hussein..." But after seeing the pictures from Abu Ghraib, you can hardly find fault with the Iraqis for feeling otherwise.

Saddam Hussein might indeed have been a brutal tyrant, but at least he had the good sense not to take pictures of his inhumanity and broadcast them all over the world. At last, the world can see that Bush and his subordinates lack even that much sense - and even their most stalwart supporters are finally beginning to question the judgement that brought us Linndie the Liberator.

And before anybody (certainly not among my modest readership...) rushes to invoke the "few bad apples" defense of Lynndie and her superiors, bear this in mind from an edtiorial in Saturday's New York Times about the Defense Secretary's testimony before Congress on Friday: "Mr. Rumsfeld...badly missed the point by talking endlessly about a few bad apples in one military unit. The despicable acts shown in those famous photos ... were uniquely outrageous and inexcusable criminal acts. But behind them lies a detention system that treats all prisoners as terrorists regardless of their supposed offenses, and makes brutal interrogations all too common."

And today, that previous stalwart bastion of Bush support, the Wall Street Journal, echoes those sentiments in their lead story today, saying "Even before the war in Iraq ended a year ago (editors comment: "huh?"), and well before U.S. officials have generally acknowledged it, the Red Cross began periodically lodging complaints about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners in allied custody."

So, it does appear that cracks of common sense are beginning to form in the foundation of support for Bush's delusions of grandeur disguised as making-the-world-safe-for-democracy. But just because the support is beginning to crack doesn't mean that John Kerry is going to have a cake walk getting elected. To the contrary, the man is going to have to hone his message to a fine point before he is going to be able to wedge it into those cracks and widen them.

That op-ed piece from the journal that I quoted earlier does a good job of identifying the dilemma that Kerry must still faces: "The Bush operatives have zeroed in on their opponent's core weakness -- he's an opportunistic waffler. But the Kerry camp has yet to precisely target the core Bush weakness. The Massachusetts senator has to convey a much better sense of where he wants to take the country, convincing voters he is a sure and decisive leader. "

So, Senator Kerry, in case your listening: you can begin by getting out of the gutter with Bush and Karl Rove about who was where and who did what 30 years ago, when Bush was (or was not) in the National Guard and you were pulling men out of the river in Vietnam. Instead of getting into a pissing contest with TeeVee commentators like ABC's Charles Gibson, I wish that just once, you'd would stop and say, "let's stop arguing about what happened 30 years ago and talk about what this president has done in just the last three years...." and then ream Bush a new one, because that record is new, fresh, and indisputable. We may no be able to figure out exactly where Bush was in 1973 or 74, but the stench of what he's done since showing up in Washington inescapable.

So, let us just imagine for a moment that the world -- or, more importantly, the American electorate -- is finally coming to its senses, and that Bush is more vulnerable now than he has been since the year began. Let's imagine that Kerry rises to the task, and begins making enough moderate and clear-cut sense that he poses a viable alternative to those of us who think that America should have more friends than Monica and Chandler, Ross and Rachel, Joey and Phoebe.

Maybe it's true. Maybe Bush is Toast. We can only hope. But we must also remember what happens when you try to butter burned toast... the crumbs and ashes have a tendency to create quite a mess. That mess will still be with us even if we do achieve "regime change" in November. And it will be up to whoever gets elected to deal with the crumbs.

That's my opinion, and it should be yours.

--PS

Comments

[Sharon Cobb]

Once again you nailed the heart of the issues with your"Bush is Toast" story. It's a must read for all.
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Sharon Cobb