Take Back Those Ears

People often ask why George W. Bush's ears are shaped that way. It's because evil men have been whispering into them for the past eight years. Of course, those whispers don't go much of anywhere; they mostly echo around in what is clearly an unoccupied head. But the flattery has done its work, and "W" has been a willing, if clueless, tool of the Powers That Be ever since Day One of his administration. His achievements on their behalf are too numerous to mention, but pride of place must go to the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, and the benign neglect that led up to the current economic crisis. Compared to these disasters, the Carter administration is starting to look like nothing more than a bucolic weekend in the woods.

At this point, when Obama and Co. are already running things in all but name, it's clear that Bush has been "dropped" by his handlers, who are already packing up and preparing to depart the sacred precincts of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (Has anyone heard a thing from Dick Cheney lately, for instance? Smart guy that he is, he's already skipped town to avoid the rush.) Proof that Bush is, at long last, a free agent is that he has embarked on a kind of magical mystery tour in an attempt to secure his own redemption. This reached a high point yesterday with a speech to an audience no one had ever heard of, namely the Saban Forum, which seems to be a thinly-disguised Zionist/Neocon outfit. As is typical with men who aspire to the heights of power and are rudely brought down, they always go back to the family circle for solace, and this environment qualifies as "family" for George Bush. When everyone else hates and despises you, you go back to the people you worked for most assiduously, and who benefited the most from your efforts. And so it is in this case.

At any rate, Bush, in this forum and others, has been trotting out many of his most dubious acts as president as "achievements", and in his descriptions he has robbed the late-night talk-show hosts of any opportunity for further satire. The invasion of Iraq has not yet succeeded, but it was necessary. Saddam didn't have WMD but we thought he did -- or said we did (evil men again) -- so that was enough. And so on. The bottom line is, we meant well, we were sincere, and therefore what we did was right. So his legacy is rightness, in the face of all evidence to the contrary... and even that is only true in his own deluded mind. Most of the other Iraq warmongers have long since put away the "righness" argument in favor of something a bit more cynical: "It happened, it's happening, and if you don't like it, tough shit." Implication: We like it, and since we're in charge, that settles it.

The true test -- the first true test, let's say -- of Obama will be whether, and how rapidly, he rips the lid off this whole sorry business and simply says, "I'm bringing the troops home, and you people are under arrest for treason." Yeah, I know -- funny, ha ha. But this would only be a minimum requirement in any attempt to finally bring some justice to the situation. Other requirements would include full reparations for the damage caused to Iraq, compensation to the victims and their families, restoration of the homes and property of Christians who have been ethnically cleansed from Iraq since the invasion, and -- on the domestic side -- full compensation for war veterans (and war dead) and their families, and the arrest and incarceration of hundreds, if not thousands, of war industry officials and operatives, starting with Halliburton and KBR. This would be truly revolutionary -- but it's not going to happen because Obama is no revolutionary. He will do nothing that displeases the Powers That Be, and that includes seeking justice for the misdeeds done in the name of 9-11. Instead, it will be the usual pap about "moving on", and "putting it behind us", and so on -- which will enrage his more radical supporters, but they've been duped before and we know they can take it.

But in the meantime, George Bush has already entered the dim, gray world of the political living dead, in the footsteps of Richard Nixon but without even Nixon's classically tragic aura and none of his intelligence, doomed to wander the earth for the rest of his days trying to explain (mostly to himself) the unexplainable, and making rationalizations and excuses which he sees as justifications. In his own eyes, he is not even a martyr; he was _right_, and his critics are wrong, and that's all that matters. The notion that a person with this capacity for self-delusion has been president for eight years is deeply troubling... until one realizes that (1) this is a universal trait among politicians; and (2) he may have been president, but he was never really in charge. The people who have been really running things all this time are not self-deluded in the slightest. They knew exactly what they were doing, and have in fact succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. So they will go into that still night unsung, except within their inner circle, while "W" will ride off into the sunset on his own, full of aw-shucks self-confidence, but in truth completely oblivious. And, if even a small portion of justice is served, this image will be the one history eventually settles on to symbolize his presidency.