Dick Cheney, who without serving a single day in the military has risen to such distinction as to be labeled the “vice president for torture” by former CIA chief Stansfield Turner, blasted Democrats for practicing “revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety.” “We’re not going to sit by,” he added, “and let them rewrite history.” No, Siree. Cheney gave that job to the Lincoln Group, a government contractor hired to plant stories in Iraqi newspapers. Donald Rumsfeld, looking for a glimmer of sunshine under all those dead Marines, noted that with Saddam finally out of the way, “the country has a free media.” “They could have hundred-plus papers. There’s 72 radio stations… 44 television stations.” While I’ll concede there appears to be a plenitude of media, it’s far from free. The Pentagon admitted paying the Lincoln Group $100 million for their cooked-up journalism. With 71% of Americans feeling the Vice President is dishonest and unethical, and 80% of Iraqis demanding our immediate withdrawal, Lincoln Spokesperson Laurie Adler defended her company: “We counter the lies, intimidation and pure evil of terror with tales of gingerbread houses and fairy dust.”
It’s not enough, obviously, to merely shift the Iraqi perception of the occupation; if the administration is to keep the petroleum and defense industries firmly attached to the public teat, it must also subvert our own national dialogue. Enter Duke University political scientist Peter Feaver. Analyzing the President’s steadily declining poll numbers (65 percent now oppose the war), Feaver challenged the conventional wisdom that disfavor inexorably flows from mounting casualties and offered a competing theory: The public will accept significant fatalities if they believed the war was a worthy cause that would, with a high degree of likelihood, yield a successful outcome.
In case his 35-page “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” booklet failed to make the Amazon best sellers list, President Bush delivered the audio version at the U.S. Naval Academy. Conscripted attendees mostly slept throughout the oration with heads tilted and mouths agape. The Commander-in-Chief, despite his 15 invocations of “victory,” failed to rouse a single midshipman. So for those in the audience who missed the message, what the White House is saying is that the U.S. is winning the war because we say we are winning the war. Unfortunately for our troops on the ground, the insurgents remain stubbornly unconvinced. Only days after W’s speech, 19 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush and 10 Americans died in a roadside explosion. Shortly thereafter a suicide bomber took out 36 Iraqi policemen.
Back in the early stages of the quagmire, Secretary Rumsfeld quipped that we are creating terrorists faster that we can capture or kill them. Now the inverse is true: Iraqi security forces are dying faster than we can train and deploy them. Which is problematic because, according to the President, “Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Our coalition partners, on the other hand, aren’t inclined to wait around. The Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Poland and even the U.K. have already initiated plans to “cut and run.” Proudly, El Salvador, with its contingent of 380 troops, is staying the course. However, once the Bush administration finally renews a grant of Temporary Protected Status for 250,000 Salvadoran maids and dishwashers who would otherwise be deported, all bets are off.
As a failsafe, Mr. Bush appeared at a John Deere factory to trumpet his domestic achievements. Never mind that our middling economic growth is the bastard child of record budget and trade deficits, George remains Hell-bent on extending his tax cuts: “These cuts are making a real difference to American families… [moreover], we cut taxes on dividends and capital gains to encourage job-creating investment.” Alas, due to an unforeseen clerical snafu, corporate America never got the memo. Ford disclosed it will shit-can 30,000 employees (earlier, more optimistic estimates were pegged at 5,000) in a downsizing trend that is reaching well beyond America’s smokestack industries. Big Pharma is doling out the pink slips as well. Pfizer announced cutbacks earlier this year and now its Merck’s turn. The erstwhile Vioxx manufacturer will shutter five production facilities and jettison 7,000 workers. Even Eli Lilly, whose sales are actually improving, is trimming payroll. And always just before the holidays.
You might expect Christmas cheer to be in short supply in Sacramento, what with the Governator’s ballot measures crashing down in flames. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s all eggnog and mistletoe as the Schwarzeneggers reprise their old-world yuletide traditions. After the tree and all the decorations comes the Austrian custom of husband and wife buying themselves matching gifts. Last year it was his and her Hummers, the year before, sable earmuffs. This year, California’s first couple wanted to do something over the top — and they have. This season Arnold and Maria will unwrap a set of Gray Davis homos. Lest there be any rumors about his orientation, the Governor will go Sapphic and take Susan Kennedy, former executive director of the California Democratic Party, for his chief of staff while the Mrs. gets gay activist and ex-Davis cabinet secretary Daniel Zingale.
Kennedy, an abortion rights advocate and former member of Davis’ cabinet, earned no kudos from California Republican Assembly President Mike Spence: “She embodies everything I have spent my life opposing. [Her appointment] obviously raises more problems and concerns.” While Spence can be dismissed as one of these born-again bigots — Who Would Jesus Hate? — Kennedy, and for that matter Zingale, deserve (given that plating is passé) to be peed on. Not on the basis of their sexual proclivities, but for boot licking the despot who callously vetoed AB 849, the state legislature’s (and the nation’s first) bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Of note, in 1999 Kennedy had a commitment ceremony with partner Vicki Marti in Hawaii. Perhaps if old Sue had any balls, she could be married in California as well.
Leave a Reply