-Caveat Lector-
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BUZZFLASH REPORT Monday December 16, 2002 at 2:48:10 AM
"Big Hug": A "Bush Dyslexicon" Update,
By Mark Crispin Miller
A BUZZFLASH SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY
By
Mark Crispin Miller
Author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" and America's Foremost Expert on the Unique Dialect of
the Man Occupying the White House
Big Hug
"There's only one person who is responsible for making that decision [to go to war],
and
that's me. And there's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives
and the kids on the death of their loved ones. Others hug, but having committed the
troops,
I've got an additional responsibility to hug, and that's me, and I know what it's
like." --GWB
to Barbara Walters, ABC "20/20," 12/13/02.
This recent statement of our president may be the most outrageous thing he's ever said
(in
public). Its grammar and its syntax are okay, and yet it is so imbecilic, morally,
that it could
blow your mind, if not your lunch.
Here Bush, in his current effort to pretend he's undecided on the coming war, was
trying to
demonstrate "compassion" -- specifically, to show that he does care about the welfare
of
our troops. (The Iraqis are another matter.) No, he is not cavalier about the
consequences,
for Americans, of another war against Iraq. (One could think otherwise, if one might
happen to have learned that all of the protective gear our soldiers will be using in
Iraq --
the gas masks and body suits, the vaccines and anti-chemical alarms -- is faulty, and
yet
Bush, just like the major media, has failed even to mention it, much less try to
rectify it.)
No, as he makes this grave decision to send men and women to their deaths, Bush is not
indifferent to the pain that it will cause their families (the way he was when having
all those
men and women executed in the state of Texas). No, Bush does take this whole thing
very,
very seriously. He really does. No kidding.
That half-hearted stab at looking like "he cares" recalled the many efforts of his dad
to
come across as "agonizing" during the long build-up to Operation Desert Storm. Bush I
was
always very taken with what he might call "the Agony Thing" --that Christ-like scene of
major presidential angst before the storm. "Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in
times
of trial and the Civil War and all that stuff," as he put it a year after Desert
Storm. That
heroic ordeal was always on his mind.
A few months before he sent the Army down to kidnap Gen. Noriega, Bush, escorting Diane
Sawyer through the White House for a special "tour" on ABC, likewise marveled at the
thought of Lincoln agonizing-being "tested by fire," as he put it. And all throughout
the
months of Desert Shield, when his administration was pretending that there might not
be a
war (and the media went along with it), his propagandists kept insisting that the
president
was all racked up about this super-tough decision. But every time we caught a glimpse
of
him, he looked like he was feeling pretty salty. (Toward the end, in fact, Bush's "eyes
looked scary," Prince Bandar told Bob Woodward. "For months, Bandar had seen both the
public and private anger building, resulting in an eerie accumulation of willfulness.")
While it appealed to that president's colossal vanity, moreover, that tormented pose
of his
helped strengthen the illusion that the war might not come after all. (Sound
familiar?) As
Bush was repetitiously depicted, by Marlin Fitzwater, as torn apart and losing sleep,
so
were we told, over and over, that his team was desperately pursuing every diplomatic
possibility in order to give peace a chance. (As a matter of fact, the White House was
very
busily subverting every diplomatic overture then being made, in good faith, by other
nations.) The whole charade helped build suspense, so as to keep the audience, both
here
and in Iraq, completely terrorized, and then to make the final victory seem that much
more
divine. (The US "victory" was not as marvelous as advertised, but that's another
matter.)
There is a trace of the Bush operation's stunning cynicism in a bit from Dan Quayle's
diary
for Jan. 10, 1991 -- the day of the much-hyped last "negotiation" between James Baker
and
Tariq Aziz. Many soldiers in the Gulf, and their families back at home, believed that
sit-
down was in earnest-but the White House knew it was a sham, as Quayle made clear in
private: "Baker- Aziz meeting. Went as planned. Baker failed."
At the time, of course, you had to watch Bush carefully to see that he was really into
it, so
good a job did Marlin Fitzwater (and the reporters) do at making him seem sort of
Lincolnesque. Bush the First got very good at weeping out in public, right on cue-just
like
Nixon getting teary-eyed over Checkers-whenever the subject of our dead and wounded
soldiers might come up. This despite his much-belabored WASP reserve, which many
members of the press have dutifully remarked as if it always made crude politicking
kind of
hard for him. The Bushes are in general quite good at feigning tears-they are, after
all, "the
first family of frauds," as Noelle Bush has allegedly, bitterly referred to them. Even
her
remorseless father, Jeb, got to blubbering on camera over her predicament (although he
couldn't find the time to sit beside her at her court drug hearing, because he was out
campaigning with his brother).
But while the Bushes tend to be not all that bad at faking grief and gravity, when
necessary,
the Bush now occupying the Oval Office simply cannot pull it off-as the above quotation
makes so clear that you would have to be a sociopath yourself not to perceive it.
Trying to
sound as if he cares, he sounded only like a monstrous egomaniac, this "Big He" being
the
exclusive focus of his would-be cri de coeur: "There is only one person ... and that's
me ....
and there's only one person .... I've got an additional responsibility." Trying here
to sound
like a protective parent, Bush could only tell us who was boss-as usual, this being
the first
American president to say, consistently, not "we" but "I," not "this administration,"
but "my
administration," and so on.
Not only does the president believe himself to be "the only person" who decides to
take this
nation into war-a view at odds with what our Constitution has to say-but he's claimed
as
well to be "the only ... person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the
kids on the death of their loved ones." Does Bush actually believe that he's "the only
person" who can comfort the bereaved? ("Others hug," he added quickly, but too late.)
Whether or not he does, the remark betrays a blinkered view of what it's like in time
of
war, when many folks lose "loved ones" every day-far too many for a president to hug
with
safety.
That Bush thinks he can pull it off suggests that he envisions a great "war" that's
really just
like 9/11, a big (but not too big) one-shot catastrophe, after which the President and
Mrs.
Bush can meet up for a teary photo-op with the survivors. But he has soldiers fighting
now
all over the globe, where-thanks mainly to the policies of his cabal-the USA is more
unpopular than ever; and his Secretary of "Defense" has casually expressed the need for
some 1.5 million troops to fight this "war on terrorism." And then there's the
long-planned
occupation of Iraq (and, perhaps, Saudi Arabia). It all adds up to a vast, protracted
conflagration, of the kind that's bound to leave the people none too interested in
getting
touchy-feely with the man who sent their kinfolk off to die for no apparent reason.
Instead
of posturing as our Comforter-in- Chief, this president should think a little bit
about how
people came to feel about his predecessors, LBJ and Nixon. When Bush has long since
made that Big Decision, it's probable that most Americans will want a hug from him
about
as much as the Iraqi people want one from Saddam Hussein.
But it is finally not the statement's lethal lack of foresight that is galling but its
wholly cynical
paternalism. Bush thinks, evidently, that one public hug from him will make it all
okay for
people who, because of his "decision," will have lost their husbands, brothers, sons
and
fathers --or, in some cases, we might add, their daughters, mothers, wives and
sisters. For
them, as far as he's concerned, the gesture is enough. Although he tries (and tries)
to talk
the talk of what he calls "compassion," Bush never walks the walk, because he simply
doesn't care, and doesn't want to spend the money. This is, after all, a president who
recently slashed spending on the needs of veterans. Hugging a few victims on TV costs
nothing, on the other hand, and can even pay off handsomely in ratings points, as we
have
seen since 9/11. And yet such easy and self-serving theater is, he tells us, "an
additional
responsibility." "I know what it's like," he said grimly, as if sitting there a minute
looking
solemn were as difficult for him as what a mourner, or a soldier, must go through."
Although it tells us more than we might want to know about him, the statement tells us
even more about these witless and immoral times. Can anyone imagine Clinton coming out
with it, or Reagan, or even Bush's father? In fact, no other of our presidents---no
other
leader in the world, perhaps---could get away with saying such a thing, and this one
shouldn't, either.
A BUZZFLASH SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY
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