http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04272004/commenta/commenta.asp

Maureen Dowd

It's their reality. We just live and die in it.
    In Bushworld, our troops go to war and get killed, but you never
see the bodies coming home.
    In Bushworld, flag-draped remains of the fallen are important to
revere and show the nation, but only in political ads hawking the
president's leadership against terror.
    In Bushworld, we can create an exciting Iraqi democracy as long as
it doesn't control its own military, pass any laws or have any power.
    In Bushworld, we can win over Fallujah by bulldozing it.
    In Bushworld, it was worth going to war so Iraqis could express
their feelings ("Down With America!") without having their tongues cut
out, although we cannot yet allow them to express intemperate feelings
in newspapers ("Down With America!") without shutting them down.
    In Bushworld, it's fine to take $700 million that Congress
provided for the war in Afghanistan and 9-11 recovery and divert it to
the war in Iraq that you are insisting you are not planning.
    In Bushworld, you don't consult your father, the expert in being
president during a war with Iraq, but you do talk to your Higher
Father, who can't talk back to warn you to get an exit strategy or
chide you for using Him for political purposes.
    In Bushworld, it's OK to run for re-election as the avenger of
9-11, even as you make secret deals with the Arab kingdom where most
of the 9-11 hijackers came from.
    In Bushworld, you get to strut around like a tough military guy
and paint your rival as a chicken hawk, even though he's the one who
won medals in combat and was praised by his superior officers for
fulfilling all his obligations.
    In Bushworld, it makes sense to press for transparency in Mr. and
Mrs. Rival while cultivating your own opacity.
    In Bushworld, you can reign as the antiterror president even after
hearing an intelligence report about al-Qaida's plans to attack
America and then stepping outside to clear brush.
    In Bushworld, those who dissemble about the troops and money it
will take to get Iraq on its feet are patriots, while those who are
honest are patronizingly marginalized.
    In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in
Iraq, even as they increasingly merge the two in America.
    In Bushworld, you can claim to be the environmental president on
Earth Day while being the industry president every other day.
    In Bushworld, you brag about how well Afghanistan is going, even
though soldiers like Pat Tillman are still dying and the Taliban are
running freely around the border areas, hiding Osama and delaying
elections.
    In Bushworld, imperfect intelligence is good enough to knock over
Iraq. But even better evidence that North Korea is building the
weapons that Saddam could only dream about is hidden away.
    In Bushworld, the CIA says it can't find out whether there are WMD
in Iraq unless we invade on the grounds that there are WMD.
    In Bushworld, there's no irony that so many who did so much to
avoid the Vietnam draft have now strained the military so much that
lawmakers are talking about bringing back the draft.
    In Bushworld, we're making progress in the war on terror by
fighting a war that creates terrorists.
    In Bushworld, you don't need to bother asking your vice president
and top Defense Department officials whether you should go to war in
Iraq, because they've already maneuvered you into going to war.
    In Bushworld, it's perfectly natural for the president and vice
president to appear before the 9-11 commission like the Olsen twins.
    In Bushworld, you expound on remaking the Middle East and
spreading pro-American sentiments even as you expand anti-American
sentiments by ineptly occupying Iraq and unstintingly backing Ariel
Sharon on West Bank settlements.
    In Bushworld, we went to war to give Iraq a democratic process,
yet we disdain the democratic process that causes allies to pull out
troops.
    In Bushworld, you pride yourself on the fact that your
administration does not leak to the press, while you flood the
best-known journalist in Washington with inside information.
    In Bushworld, you list Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack as
recommended reading on your campaign Web site, even though it makes
you seem divorced from reality. That is, unless you live in Bushworld.

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http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-19-2004/0002177941&EDATE=

Maureen Dowd, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
New York Times columnist, has agreed to partner with G.P. Putnam's
Sons for
her first foray into the book publishing world.  Her debut, entitled
BUSHWORLD, is a powerful look at the current administration.  Neil
Nyren,
Senior Vice President, Publisher and Editor in Chief of G.P. Putnam's
Sons,
has acquired world and audio rights from literary agent Esther Newberg
of ICM
and it will be published in hardcover by Putnam in August 2004.  Its
release
is timed to coincide with the upcoming Democratic and Republican
conventions
and the home stretch of the run for the Oval Office.  The Berkley
paperback
edition will be published in 2005.
    Mr. Nyren commented, "Like a great deal of America, I've been an
enormous
fan of Maureen Dowd's work for many years. It's a genuine pleasure to
be able
to work with her on her first book -- and an extraordinary book, at
that."
    For eighteen years, Dowd has written about Washington and America
in a
voice that is caustic, funny, passionate, outraged and eloquent.
Nothing has
engaged her so powerfully, however, as the deeds of the George W. Bush
administration.  Now, in BUSHWORLD, Dowd draws upon her celebrated
work to
probe the world of Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove and
company.
It is destined to be one of the most remarkable works of the year - a
must
read for anyone interested in American politics and the Presidency.

xponent
Incoming Maru
rob


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