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American Mugabe
By David
Michael Green
Most Americans really don’t
understand their president.
And, no, I’m not even talking
about the thirty percent or so who still give him a positive
approval rating. I’m not sure those folks understand anything.
Among the remaining seventy
percent, however, I would estimate that the vast bulk still have
not fully apprehended what we’re dealing with here. Because
what we’re dealing with is nothing short of an American Mugabe.
Even among the vast majority who
disapprove of Bush’s performance as president, the typical
sentiments expressed toward him are exactly that – essentially
characterized by a disapproval of his performance. It’s easy to
see Bush as inept, unintelligent, stubborn, lazy and dogmatic,
because he is certainly all those things, and he should
therefore be seen in that accurate light.
But this view of Bush is also,
paradoxically, highly inaccurate, because it is so radically
incomplete. It is as if one were to observe a vicious dog once
only, while it was at rest. Since it is true that the animal
sometimes rests, the perception of it as a (sometimes) peaceful
creature would in one sense be quite accurate. But, by virtue
of what was omitted, that perception would also be
simultaneously woefully incomplete, and therefore woefully
inaccurate.
Bush is an arrogant and
incapable buffoon, ridiculously puffed up with his rigidly held
assurance of his own greatness by definition (as in, “I know I’m
doing the right thing – and God agrees when I talk to him – so
therefore I am, any and all evidence to the contrary.”) Most
Americans now see that, even if they were embarrassingly slow to
get there (and they were).
But what is more distressing is
that the crimes of this president run infinitely deeper than
this, to the point where, ironically, his more mundane failures
actually serve as something of an alibi and a cover for what
‘surges’ powerfully below.
Failure, laziness, arrogance –
these are crimes of character and ability. And while most
Americans wouldn’t want a casual acquaintance – let alone a
president – to possess those qualities, they still don’t come
anywhere near to defining the essence of George W. Bush, because
they ignore the question of motive. To see only these aspects
of Bush, however unflattering they truly are, is to see the dog
at rest. There is much, much more to observe.
But Americans are
well-positioned to not make those observations, for at least
three powerful reasons.
The first is our training. We
are raised to revere our presidents, generally. Americans have
no equivalent to the British Queen or the German president as
head of state. There is no symbolic position here that sits
above politics and embodies the hopes and aspirations of the
nation. All of that, along with the more tangible governing
powers of a chief executive, are invested in our president, and
while we may often disagree with the president, or disparage his
moral failings, most of us are quite unprepared to imagine that
his motives are other than pure.
Very few of us could conceive of
a president who was unpatriotic or, worse yet, a traitor, unless
faced with massive empirical evidence which was undeniable.
(And which many of the thirty percent would, in fact,
nevertheless still continue to deny – provided, of course, that
the president in question continued to mutter the proper
religious shibboleths, and bought-off the right members of our
pathetic Pantheon of Piety.)
The second reason that we are
unable to fully perceive the true nature of George W. Bush is
because Karl Rove has picked up from where the default starting
place of this presumptive presidential reverence leaves off and
pumped us to the gills with a full-court press Madison Avenue
mega-campaign, extolling the fabricated virtues of this
particular president. Every other reference, in every single
speech, is to 9/11. Every photo-op has soldiers and flags in
the background. (Though maimed troops are carefully excluded.
But thanks for your service, guys. Really!)
If you didn’t know better (which
is precisely the intent), you’d think that George Bush was a
tough combat veteran (he’s not) who flew headlong into danger on
9/11 without regard for his personal safety (he didn’t), in
order to begin his undaunted mission to guarantee America’s
security (he isn’t). You’re also meant to believe that he
bravely went to Iraq to fight terrorism over there rather than
here at home. Never mind that there wasn’t any there before,
and that our own intelligence agencies have concluded that we
have created the world’s most efficient terrorist factory by our
invasion of the country.
In fact, the only reason Dear
Leader himself ever went to Iraq was to get his picture taken
holding a plastic turkey, before getting the hell out of there
as fast as he could. It would not surprise me in the slightest
to learn that the man holding the plastic turkey was a plastic
presidential stand-in as well. Don’t forget that this is a
president who ran from Vietnam to the Texas Air National Guard,
ran from 9/11 to Nebraska, and had to have his presidential
debate responses radioed in to him. Like Strawberry Fields,
when it comes to this guy, nothing is real. Forever. Rove has
this faux hero pumped full to the brim with patriotism
enhancement drugs, the political equivalent of Barry Bonds.
As if all that doesn’t make it
hard enough, there is a third reason we don’t think of Bush as
anything more than inept, foolish and arrogant, and that is
because many of us just can’t go there. When very young
Americans experience their initial political socialization,
their first awareness is of the president. And, as we know from
research findings, that apprehension is of a daddy figure who
will keep us safe and protected.
In much the same way, therefore,
that a father molesting his child represents the deepest
possible violation of the trust that the vulnerable invest in
their supposed protector, few Americans are psychologically
prepared to imagine their president as something far, far worse
than a fool. That scary possibility cuts deep, right to the
existential core, and too many of us have too many layers of
psychological Kevlar protecting that vulnerable center to ever
penetrate. Cave, hic dragones.
That possibility is a lot more
easily contemplated, however, when considering somebody else’s
president. So let us strip away these obstructions to visual
clarity, let us begin with a fresh piece of paper, and let us
recast this presidency on the basis of its record. And let’s do
so without biasing suppositions of any sort influencing our
vision, much as we might were we to observe the leader of a
foreign state of whom, and of which, we know little.
Say, Zimbabwe, for example.
Imagine that you knew nothing
about the president of Zimbabwe, but that you were informed that
he liked to steal elections.
Imagine that you also learned
that he was destroying civil liberties in his country, jailing
people without charge, without legal counsel, without habeas
corpus rights. And spying on tens of thousands of citizens
without warrants.
Imagine that you found out that
this Zimbabwean president was torturing and even murdering
innocent captives in illegal prisons.
What if, additionally, you found
out that he was kidnaping foreigners and dumping them in secret
jails elsewhere, so that they could be tortured even more
egregiously?
Suppose you also learned that
this president refused to fight for his homeland when he was a
young man, but was now fabricating from whole cloth
justifications for sending his countrymen off to war.
And that he talked all day long
about what great heroes these soldiers were, and how anyone who
criticized his policies was not supporting the troops, while
simultaneously failing to provide sufficient armor and equipment
to protect them.
But that he was nevertheless
doling out heaping scoops of the public treasury (and borrowing
more) to well-connected mercenary and construction companies who
do nothing and are paid exorbitantly via no-bid contracts.
What if you heard that this
president staffed his administration with cronies who would do
anything he asked of them, but nothing for the people?
Imagine that these cronies stole
everything in the country that wasn’t bolted down, and gave it
to the president’s already über-wealthy supporters.
What if this president
rearranged the tax structure so that in the future the middle
class would have to pay today’s and tomorrow’s taxes for the
wealthy, plus interest?
What if he told the most
outrageous lies about the environmental destruction he was
supporting, in order to protect the profits of massively rich
oil companies?
What if he was too lazy to do
anything about the warnings he received prior to his country
being attacked, and instead remained on vacation for a solid
month?
What if he remained on vacation
again, when one of his country’s greatest cities drowned, and
was left to struggle on its own thereafter?
Suppose his policies made
Zimbabwe one of the most reviled countries of the world.
What if those policies
encouraged the international proliferation of terrorism and
weapons of mass destruction?
Imagine all of these things, and
then ask yourself: What would you call someone with a record
like that?
No matter where he lived, you’d
call him a predatory kleptocrat. And a traitor.
If this president lived in
Zimbabwe, you’d call him Robert Mugabe.
But he doesn’t. He lives here.
So call him American Mugabe.
And what is more, he knows it,
too. Americans may be fooled (by him), but this president knew
exactly what he came to Washington to do, and exactly what would
happen if he got caught at his pillaging of the commonweal.
Anyone who thinks the latest
scandal concerning the firing of the US Attorneys is some random
anomaly of some sort hasn’t been paying attention. It is
perfectly of a piece with everything this administration has
done since coming to office.
Before they had even located the
men’s room of their new office suites, they had already
withdrawn the United States from the International Criminal
Court treaty. Not content with that, they then began hammering
vulnerable countries throughout the world to exempt Americans
within their borders from jurisdiction of the Court, using
extortion racket techniques any two-bit thug from Brooklyn would
find painfully familiar.
Next, Bush unilaterally changed
the traditional rules for the handling of presidential papers,
issuing an executive order giving himself complete control of
his papers, and those of every other president, for as long as
he wants.
Then this junta proceeded to
conduct the affairs of their administration with probably more
secrecy than any presidency in American history, making the
regime in North Korea look like a battered information-leaking
sieve by comparison.
Since then they’ve loaded up the
courts with right-wing Borkians whose main qualification for
office is a fawning adoration of unlimited executive power (as
long as Bush is the executive, of course). Does anyone
seriously question that that was Harriet Miers’ only real
‘qualification’ earning her a Supreme Court nomination?
Now they’re firing US Attorneys
who aren’t quite Bushist enough, and replacing them with any
unqualified hack who can be found, provided they possess
unshakable loyalty to the Dauphin.
Hmmm. Anybody seeing a pattern
here?
If Americans could get beyond
their training, beyond Rove’s marketing campaign, and beyond the
psychological horrors of first degree cognitive dissonance, what
they’d see is a president who – like Mugabe in Zimbabwe – came
to town to fill his pockets, and just as fast as he could.
And they’d see a president who
knew precisely what he was doing, and as such took every
conceivable precaution to make sure his tracks were covered, and
that no criminal justice institution could touch him.
But justice might just find him,
after all.
I don’t think the American
public is in any mood now to make him Senator for Life, with
full immunity privileges, like Chile did to buy out Pinochet.
And I don’t think the next president – even a Republican (yeah,
right) – is going to be much inclined to throw a pardon in the
direction of this radioactive sinking ship of a larcenous former
president, this Enron of the Oval Office.
Watch out. With any luck,
American Mugabe might just become American Milosevic.
David
Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra
University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers'
reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net),
but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to
respond. More of his work can be found at his website,
www.regressiveantidote.net.
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