1 Boring Old Man

While we’re rarely clear about it in our writings, there are separate threads in our questioning of the Bush Administration – competence, idealology, and integrity. The unwarranted N.S.A. domestic surveillance is an example. It doesn’t work – F.B.I. agents have been chasing rainbows, finding nothing, and in spite of the rhetoric, it’s clear that there’s been no yield for the money spent. As for ideology, the hearings start tomorrow in Congress as to whether this program violates our basic rights under the Constitution [which it does]. The President talks about his rights, not ours. And as for integrity, they claim it was kept secret for National Security. We all know that’s a made-up excuse. They kept it secret because they wanted to do it and realized Congress wouldn’t let them. The war in Iraq contains the same deadly trilogy. It was ill-conceived and poorly administrated – a failure. It was undertaken on false premises with an almost barbaric ideological underpinning. And the lies in the lead-up to the war are a matter of public record.

Why is it important to parse these three different strands in dealing with this Administration and beyond? What difference does it make? They’re all a problem. Short term, that’s correct. Stopping him in his tracks is the most important thing. No question about it. But long term, it’s a different matter. Bush was not elected for his competence. He doesn’t have any, in his past or now – certainly not his future. Bush was certainly not elected for his integrity – never been one of his strong points. He was elected for the ideology he espoused – a mixture of traditional conservativism and an appeal to the frightened morality of the fundamentalist christians. But the ideology he actually represents is much more ominous and dangerously conceived – the political philosophy of the utopian fascists we call neoconservativism.

So, this is yet another thread in this tapestry, and to my way of thinking, it’s the one that actually represents the biggest threat to our future. In the last six months, the whole piece of cloth began to unravel. For those of us opposed to this whole dirty mess, it hasn’t actually been a watershed, but it has been a nice break in the dark clouds of his first term. There’s plenty of opposition to his absurd war. There aren’t enough lawyers in Washington to handle all the investigations and scandals. The pins are beginning to fall – Libby, Abramoff, Delay, etc. The polls are playing our music. We’ve lost a lot – the Supreme Court, Women’s Rights, etc. – but things are potentially moving in our direction.

My concern is that if we’re not careful in parsing our complaints, we’ll be stuck with the same problem over and over. I’ll list them again:

• The Incompetence of the Bush Administration
• Their obvious Lack of Integrity
• Their Ideologies
  • Traditional Conservativism
  • Fundamentalist Christianity
  • Neoconservatism

We may be able to slow them down or even stop them based on their Incompetence and Lack of Integrity. Those are the parts of our message that are beginning to be heard. They’re responsible for the change in the polls. Traditional Conservatism is part of the American dialogue and for another time – a time when we’re dealing with the usual tensions of our society. Fundamentalist Christianity is one of the forces in our society, always has been. I’m not sure it is a "fundamental" problem. It’s their current demogogues that are the problem – frankly, their problem. It’s the Neoconservatives that should really worry us. They’ll never be able to sell their message all by itself. They’ll have to slide it into place by attaching it to something else – as they’ve done with the Bush Administration. But it’s the real long term Cancer in our midst.

So, for me, it’s important to never let the Neoconservatives get too far out of the spotlight. That’s where they’d like to stay. Wolfowitz and Feith have already moved on. Ledeen and the philosophers, Kagan, Perle, etc. live in the shadows. Bolton, Cheney, and Rumsfield are still in place. Gingrich and Jeb Bush are on the horizon, with an army of idealogogues to bring along with them. We have met the enemy, but it is "slithery" and may not be exposed if we’re not careful. If I had my way, every criticism of the Bush Administration would have a direct reference to the neoconservative underpinnings of the issue. It’s more than a flip of the coin – picking what to say. And it’s a mistake to just focus on the obvious weaknesses of BushCo in the foreground, it’s the background that matters most of all…