The State of Delusion

The State of Delusion

by ROBERT ZIMMER, JR.
Thursday, January 22, 2004
LOS ANGELES, CA.

Oh, my. Where to begin? President Bush’s state of the union was certainly a speech of many firsts. It is the first time I can ever remember (I’m willing to be corrected here) a president actually being booed by members of Congress. It’s the first time the leader of a nation, whose constitution guarantees equal protection under the law, has advocated the aggressive restriction of civil rights – before an audience of millions. Also brand new were budget deficits of $500 billion a year being portrayed as a strong, healthy economy. Of note as well: never before has steroid use amongst professional athletes been deemed a topic worthy of inclusion in a speech that traditionally addresses issues of universal concern to the American people.

RELATED LINKS...

E-mail Robert Zimmer, Jr.

The speech reeks of what we now know to be the modus operandi of the Bush Administration: The talk is all compassion and sunshine; the walk is on an extremist right-wing path. The culture of fear replaces debate. Debate itself is labeled unpatriotic. Politically inconvenient facts are covered in a blizzard of lies and omissions. What is particularly and newly alarming, however, is the daring chutzpah of letting the shiny façade down to reveal the truly ugly colors of the Wizard, as was done in the astonishingly hateful passage about gay marriage. We’ll get to that in a second.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to be a uniter, not a divider. He has succeeded only in further dividing a country already badly split over a bitterly contested election. If he has united anyone, it has been the Republicans in support of him and Democrats in loathing him. This is irresponsible, scorched-earth politics. The Democrats aren’t particularly rude. It’s disgraceful that any president should inspire such disrespect as to garner boos on national television. But Bush has earned it, sad to say. The contemptible arrogance with which he has interacted with Congress earned the defection of Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont from the Republican party, the eternal loathing of Senator Ted Kennedy, whom he totally back-stabbed on the Every, er, No Child Left Behind deal (Kennedy’s eye rolls during the speech were priceless)… and then of course there are Bush’s foreign contemporaries.

In another laughable display of hubris, the president rattled off a list of insignificant countries who have made statistically negligible troop contributions to the “Coalition” in Iraq, as if somehow the fearsome 25 troops from Papua, New Guinea can make up for the fact that every single major ally from Gulf War I, save for Great Britain, gave the U.S. the collective middle finger after Colin Powell was ordered to deliver a snow job to the United Nations. There was no mention of the fact that absolutely zero weapons of mass destruction have been found, no meaningful link to Al Qaeda, no evidence of an imminent threat to the world. The president is very, very lucky that the despicable Saddam Hussein availed himself to the U.S., because other than the capture of this tyrant, the occupation of Iraq has been an unmitigated, poorly planned, unimaginably expensive debacle. Just two days before the State of the Union address, a car carrying one thousand pounds of explosives blew up directly outside the entrance to the so-called Coalition headquarters in Baghdad, killing “only” 20 souls. Had it not been for the numerous gigantic concrete blast shields surrounding the HQ complex, it would have blown the ineffective Coalition chief, L. Paul Bremer, to bureaucratic bits. (The concrete blast shield industry, in fact, is extremely lucrative in Iraq, with several being produced every day.) The “liberators” of Iraq removed a dictator reviled by his people, yet paradoxically must govern from behind blast shields while the citizens riot outside and plot the senseless deaths of the next 500 U.S. troops. This is not Mission Accomplished.

These sad facts are cloaked in a sickening and manipulative use of the American flag. President Bush asks us to say “Thank you” to any soldier we may pass on the streets, even as he says “Fuck you” by doubling the tour of duty of soldiers in Iraq, cutting their pay and benefits, and housing them in barracks barely fit for animals, while the bureaucrats of the Provisional Authority work and sleep in Saddam’s former palaces. The sickening USA PATRIOT act could not have been more manipulatively named, nor more insulting to the true fundamental values of our country. Yet troops are dying every day for what, so our government can detain people without charges or the right to counsel?

Another in Bush’s arsenal of “weapons of mass distraction” (thank-you to Al Sharpton) is the Republican Fear Factor. The president noted that September 11 was 28 months ago, that “it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting -- and false.” On the surface, this sounds like an honest, responsible assessment of our current homeland security situation. In truth, it is code for “Don’t switch horses in midstream, or they’ll hit the Sears Tower next.” People dislike change when they are frightened, so it is in the best interests of the Bush Administration to perpetuate fear as often as possible. Hence the hyped-up testosterone language, military braggadocio, and the warnings that “killers” and “evil” are lurking around every corner. I mean, honestly – what is this, Friday the 13th: Al Qaeda? For God’s sake, Mr. President, if you are going to blow patriotic smoke up the armed services’ ass, at least put them to responsible use, not on fools’ errands motivated by cynical fear-mongering. Or will it just be more “Let them eat yellow cake” ?

Bush’s health care proposals are merely a recycling of exhausted, failed Republican ideas involving tax credits. His proposal, for example, to allow families to save tax-free for health care expenses is ludicrous. How many of the 43 million Americans without health insurance are in a position to save any money, tax-free or not? And even if they did, the amount they could save would amount to pissing in the rain in the face of staggering insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. The irony of all this silliness was reflected in the camera cutaways to the kiss-my-ass smiling face of Hillary Rodham Clinton, knowing full well that this issue could have -- and should have -- been dealt with ten years ago had it not been for the selfish, recalcitrant Republicans in Congress.

And now the true piece de resistance in the speech, the epitome of political cynicism triumphing over policy and human decency: Bush’s breathtaking attack on gays. First, our great uniter skewered President Clinton by noting he had signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996, neglecting of course to provide the context that Clinton did so only under extreme duress, refusing to even hold a signing ceremony, knowing full well that a veto would trigger an immediate and humiliating Congressional override which would indefinitely derail the rest of the Clinton Administration’s positive agenda. Next, Bush labeled the courts that overturned sodomy laws, and ordered states to provide equal protection to gays, as being packed with “activist judges” who ignore “the will of the people and their elected representatives.” This is astoundingly disrespectful, disingenuous (considering one of the courts in question was in Texas and one was the Supreme Court itself), and most horrifically, completely contemptuous of the Equal Protection clauses in the Constitution, all of which have repeatedly been fortified and upheld by courts of all levels. Furthermore, this hateful segment of the speech was a manipulative political ploy to suck up to the far right wing of the Republican party, particularly the evangelicals, who have made some unhappy noises of late about the administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. Sickeningly, however, this despicable trick does not merely resonate on the virtual chessboard of Washington politics. On the local levels, in communities either on the cusp of tolerance or simply still intolerant, this section of Bush’s speech is a nothing less than a green light for gay bashing, both philosophical and literal. It is a staggering piece of irresponsibility, and a perfect case in point about how the administration’s political needs always come at the expense of positive policy – and thus the expense of the average American. It stinks of Bush’s political Mr. Burns twins, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, and even Vice President Dick Cheney, whose own daughter is a lesbian, is not above cannibalizing human beings for political gain.

I think a line was crossed Tuesday night. It used to be that Presidents declared war on real enemies – the Nazis, or the Japanese; on poverty, or hunger. This speech was the first time a President has declared war on his own people. The attempt to turn back the clock on civil rights, the use of political scare tactics to further divide an already suffering nation, the mortgaging of our children’s future by record deficit spending – this is the legacy of the Bush Administration thus far. As long as it remains in power, the state of the union is threatened.

Liberals are generally too polite to fight back when pushed. They debate rationally in coffee shops or frown at unpleasant stories heard on NPR while they drive their Volvos home from work. Now, more than ever, is the time for the left (and the center) to stop apologizing for being right. (Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s and Sen. Tom Daschle’s Democratic response to Bush’s speech were flaccid, dull, and mostly pathetic. At least Bush gets the blood flowing!) Sometimes, when the school bully has kicked you down too many times, you have to say enough is enough. The bully, readers – and this is truly a sad moment in our history – is the Bush Administration.

Fight back.

ROBERT ZIMMER, Jr., IS A FILM AND TELEVISION WRITER-PRODUCER WHO RESIDES IN AUSTIN, TEXAS AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

Send your comments to Coffee Shop Times editorial observer Robert Zimmer, Jr.