WTF Is It Now?!?

"Finally, sir, have you no shame?"

George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, flew into Baghdad International Airport under cover of darkness, accompanied only by his usual retinue of mainstream press syncophants, to spend two hours mouthing platitudes and getting his picture taken in the company of 600 hand-picked military personnel.

As the only well-fed people in newly "liberated" Iraq tucked into their turkey and dressing, Bush treated the assemblage to a soundbite-friendly speech rich in flag-waving rhetoric and practical vagaries. Speaking in short, broad generalities, Bush told the soldiers, "You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country," and "You are defending the American people from danger and we are grateful."

It is doubtful that Bush is perceptive enough to note the ironies implicit in both his presence and his pronouncements, though surely Karl Rove and his fellow cogs in the White House spin machine got a chuckle out of every nuance. While speaking for purposes of ostensibly expressing gratitude – isn't that what the holiday is all about in the first place? – Bush's words served instead both to perpetuate illusions and to inculcate fear. The President's repetitive mantra of "terror," "danger," freedom" and the like – the familiar buzzwords guaranteed to fulment unreasoning emotions in the hearts of all good Fox-viewing Americans – seemingly found its origins on Madison Avenue rather than Pennsylvania Avenue.

It was a propaganda coup of the first order, replete with adoring camera angles and wildly cheering multitudes, all conducted under a shroud of Stalinist press secrecy. Indeed, the administration and its media admirers seem to regard its very deceit of the public and the press a point of pride. Lost in the torrent of excited blither from small-screen news anchors and pundits was a fairly basic question: Why was the chief executive of the United States, an ostensibly democratic nation, skulking into Baghdad when we'd been told he was in Crawford, Texas? Why were we lied to?

Read more of David B. Livingstone's piece here.