http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/14/roberts_luncheon/index.html
Glenn Greenwald - Salon
Wednesday March 14, 2007 08:33 EST
The president receives "lessons" from his neoconservative tutors
On February 28, George Bush hosted what he called "a literary
luncheon" to honor "historian" Andrew Roberts. Accounts of that
luncheon -- which describe the "lessons" the guests taught the
President (and they call them "lessons") -- really provide an amazing
glimpse into the Bush mindset and his relationship with
neoconservatives.
Roberts recently wrote the right-wing historical revisionism tract
entitled History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. The
book, as Roberts himself described it in an interview with Front Page
Magazine, "does not consider British imperialism to have been a Bad
Thing, argues that the Versailles Treaty was not harsh enough on
Germany, [and] defends the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and
Nagasaki . . . . " A central theme is that "Intellectuals of the Left
bear a heavy responsibility for the cruelties and savagery of the
20th century," and Roberts' world-view is filled with banalities like
this:
I fear, in the light of Congress's recent nonbinding (and utterly
self-contradictory) resolution opposing the surge, the gross bias of
much of the Left-Liberal media, and the present poll ratings of Sen
Hillary Clinton, that the US will lose the will to fight the War
against Terror in any manner that might hold out the hope of ultimate
victory.
So one can see why Roberts was chosen to be honored as the
President's new favorite historian, and why his "history" book, which
affirms George Bush's imperial worldview in every way, has become one
of the President's favorites.
The White House invited a tiny cast (total: 15 guests) of standard
neoconservatives and other Bush followers to the luncheon, including
Norman Podhoretz (father-in-law of White House convict Eliot Abrams),
Gertrude Himmelfarb (wife of Irving Kristol and mother of Bill), Mona
Charen, Kate O'Beirne, Wall St. Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul
Gigot, etc. etc. The Weekly Standard's Irwin Stelzer was also invited
and wrote about the luncheon in the most glowing terms.
Stelzer's account provides truly illuminating insight into what
neoconservatives have been filling the President's head with for
years now, and demonstrates how they have managed to keep him firmly
on board with their agenda. The most critical priority is to convince
the President to continue to ignore the will of the American people
and to maintain full-fledged loyalty to the neoconservative agenda,
no matter how unpopular it becomes.
To do this, they have convinced the President that he has tapped into
a much higher authority than the American people -- namely,
God-mandated, objective morality -- and as long as he adheres to that
(which is achieved by continuing his militaristic policies in the
Middle East, whereby he is fighting Evil and defending Good), God and
history will vindicate him:
On one subject the president needed no lessons from Roberts or anyone
else in the room: how to handle pressure. "I just don't feel any," he
says with the calm conviction of a man who believes the constituency
to which he must ultimately answer is the Divine Presence. Don't
misunderstand: God didn't tell him to put troops in harm's way in
Iraq; belief in Him only goes so far as to inform the president that
there is good and evil. It is then his job to figure out how to
promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that
his policies are doing just that.
Or, as luncheon attendee Michael Novak of the American Enterprise
Institute recalled (also in The Weekly Standard) the President
saying: "I want to have my conscience clear with Him. Then it doesn't
matter so much what others think." (Novak also revealingly marveled
that "The President was not at all intimidated by his fifteen or so
guests" even though the guests included Podhoretz, Himmelfarb and
"Irwin Stelzer himself" -- in Novak's world, one expects the
President to be intimidated to be in the presence of such powerful
neoconservative luminaries, not the other way around).
Stelzer recounts what he calls the multiple "lessons" they taught
Bush at this luncheon. One of the key lessons is Roberts' view that
the U.S. should be most concerned with its relationships with the
other "English-speaking countries in the world," and not worry nearly
as much about all those countries where they speak in foreign tongues
("Lesson Four: Cling to the alliance of the English-speaking
peoples").
But that "lesson" led Bush to bewilderingly wonder why there was such
rising anti-Americanism all over the world, even in English-speaking
countries such as England ("'Is it due simply to my personality?' he
wondered, half-seriously. 'Is it confined to intellectuals?' asked a
guest"). Anti-Americanism, the neoconservatives instructed Bush, is
something he should just ignore. As long as he continues to follow
neoconservatism, that is all that matters:
The combined Roberts-Stelzer response: The causes of rampant
anti-Americanism do indeed include dislike of Bush. But there are
others: the war in Iraq; anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian sentiment,
laced with some covert anti-Semitism; and resentment of American
power. Roberts urged the president not to concern himself with these
anti-American feelings, since in a unipolar world the lone superpower
cannot be loved. His advice: "Get your policies right and history
will prove a kind muse."
Nothing matters -- not the disapproval of the American people of the
President's actions nor rising anti-Americanism around the world. He
should simply ignore all of that and continue to obey the mandates of
neoconservatism because that is what is Good and his God will be
pleased.
Other lessons that Bush was taught that day: "First: Do not set a
deadline for withdrawal. That led to the slaughter of 700,000 to 1
million people in India, with the killing beginning one minute after
the midnight deadline." They also told the President to ignore the
fact that other powerful countries and even empires that tried to
dominate the world have all collapsed. Those incidents are irrelevant
and teach us nothing because -- unlike the Glorious Leader today --
those people simply lacked the Will to Power. Thus:
Second lesson: Will trumps wealth. The Romans, the tsars, and other
rich world powers fell to poorer ones because they lacked the will to
fight and survive. Whereas World War II was almost over before
Americans saw the first picture of a dead soldier, today the steady
drumbeat of media pessimism and television coverage are sapping the
West's will.
They also instructed the President to continue his policies of
indefinite imprisonment without charges: "Third lesson: Don't
hesitate to intern our enemies for long, indefinite periods of time.
That policy worked in Ireland and during World War II. Release should
only follow victory." "Victory," of course is decades away -- it's a
Permanent War -- so the "lesson" they are teaching is to imprison
people forever with no charges and not to worry about all those whiny
French complaints that doing so is un-American. American values are
no competition for the imperatives of neoconservative glory.
The lessons continued. "Appeasement," of course, is the Ultimate
Evil, the Great French Sin. Hence: "Fifth lesson: We are fighting an
enemy that cannot be appeased; were that possible, the French would
already have done it--a Roberts quip that elicited a loud chuckle
from the president."
Finally, the neoconservatives left Bush with the overarching
instruction -- namely, the only thing that he should concern himself
with, the only thing that really matters, is Iran. Forget every other
issue -- the welfare of the American people, every other region
around the world -- except the one that matters most:
The closing note was a more serious one. Roberts said that history
would judge the president on whether he had prevented the
nuclearization of the Middle East. If Iran gets the bomb, Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, and other countries will follow. "That is why I am so
pleased to be sitting here rather than in your chair, Mr. President."
There was no response, other than a serious frown and a nod.
The President, concluded Stelzer with great satisfaction, "worries
less about his 'legacy' than about his standing with the Almighty."
And as a result of this luncheon, the President's standing with the
Almighty in the neoconservative circle was as secure as ever. Another
luncheon is likely planned soon, since Stelzer also noted that "Bush
has circulated copies of Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy to
his staff, and recommended Mark Steyn's America Alone."
Irving Kristol (Himmelfarb's husband) has written in the past about
the need to exploit religious and moral concepts in order to
manipulate the masses, and his intellectual North Star, Leo Strauss,
has advocated -- as Strauss scholar Shadia Drury documented -- that
"those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the
people in the stupor for which they are supremely fit" -- a view
Kristol has endorsed. One can see that dynamic powerfully at work in
the interaction between these neoconservatives and the President.
They have seized upon the President's evangelical fervor and equated
his "calling" to wage war for Good in the world with the
neoconservative agenda of endless wars in the Middle East.
And the more unpopular the President becomes as a result, the more of
a failure these policies are, the more strongly they tell him to
ignore all of that, that none of it matters, that his God and history
will conclude that he did The Right Thing, provided that he continues
steadfastly to pursue their agenda. And the President believes that.
That is why nothing will stop him in pursuing the path he created
years ago when, in January, 2002, he became convinced to name not
only Iraq, but also Iran, as standing members of the "Axis of Evil"
(even though our relations with Iran were rapidly improving at the
time) and cited the 9/11 attacks in order to all but vow war on those
countries, despite their having nothing to do with those attacks. The
President's "lessons" at the feet of neoconservatives continue, and
he is as faithful a student as ever.
UPDATE: Writing in Salon about this same luncheon, Sidney Blumenthal
reported (Libby and the White House book club):
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/03/08/scooter_libby/index.html
The subject of Winston Churchill inspired Bush's self-reflection. The
president confided to Roberts that he believes he has an advantage
over Churchill, a reliable source with access to the conversation
told me. He has faith in God, Bush explained, but Churchill, an
agnostic, did not. Because he believes in God, it is easier for him
to make decisions and stick to them than it was for Churchill. Bush
said he doesn't worry, or feel alone, or care if he is unpopular. He
has God.
We have long known that Bush Is Churchill (along with all the
chest-besting neoconservatives who cheer on wars), but now we learn
(from Bush) that he has become convinced that he is stronger than
Churchill because Bush "has God" and Churchill didn't.
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