I have quite a few conversations with the "common man." I use that phrase for the man or woman who may catch the nightly news but doesn't really follow it, certainly doesn't read political blogs and recognizes only the broadest outlines of current events. Some still support the Iraq war; others not. Many aren't happy with "the way things are going." Yet I suspect that if asked in a poll "Do you think the President is trying to do what he considers best for the country?" they would overwhelmingly answer "Yes."

While you can easily hear the dismissive "they're all crooks and liars," the cynicism doesn't run deep. At heart the public just cannot imagine that their rulers are totally corrupt, much less dangerous. After all, we're all Americans and that just doesn't happen in America.

I understand how they feel. To the extent they pay attention to the news they hear no hint of anything to the contrary. And besides, it's what we were all brought up to believe, and to think otherwise is a bit like abandoning your childhood religion. Wrenching.

So I try to be gentle and maybe point out a thing or two they may not have noticed, but I avoid harangues.

But for journalists I have less patience. I know, I know—they were all subjected to the same jingoistic patriotic cant from their first day of kindergarten as the rest of us. But a certain cynicism should at least be instilled as a part of their professional training. And if that isn't enough, they should just pay attention to the news.

A growing number of them, of course, are themselves quite plainly corrupt—cynically aware of the acts of the Bush administration but lacking "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Bought and paid for.

But the ones who frustrate me the most are those who are aware of the news, aware of the government, but who use one defense mechanism or another1 to shield themselves—and the public—from the truth. For these folks the leaders of the Bush administration were first "misled," then they were "mistaken," then they were "obstinate" and finally they were "deluded."

Back in June I vented my frustration with this nonsense in a post titled "Superfluous beliefs," in which I discussed the ultimate purpose of the invasion of Iraq. It concluded with this—

"We the people" are not after anything but a reasonably quiet and comfortable existence, but our rulers are. They are not after oil; they are after power. Perfect, complete, absolute power. Imperial power. Totalitarian power.

If you imagine that they are about anything else, that they hanker for anything else, that they are motivated by anything else, you are holding a belief about their goals that is superfluous.

I couldn't even get that piece linked by the Leftie sites. But finally a few journalists are coming to their senses. These are journalists, somewhat to the Left, whose writing I generally respect, but who only now seem to be coming to the realization of the darkness about. It is only a whisper, but that is far better than silence.

Matt Taibbi

First, there is columnist Matt Taibbi writing in the New York Press. He attended, almost by accident, the hearing held by some Democrats in the basement of the Capitol on the irregularities in the Ohio vote in the last presidential election. It was nothing less than a scales-falling-from-the-eyes epiphany. (His analysis of why he, along with the rest of the press, ignored the Ohio vote is well worth the read.) He was so stunned by what he learned that he did a two-part column devoted to Ohio. Taibbi doesn't quite "get it"; he still thinks the Neocons are deluded "clowns," an image that downplays the threat they pose. But he's coming damned close.

From his first column—

Here's the thing about Ohio. Until you really look at it, you won't understand its significance, which is this: the techniques used in this particular theft have the capacity to alter elections not by dozens or hundreds or even thousands of votes, but by tens of thousands.

And if we ignore this now, we're putting proven methods for easily ripping off major elections in the hands of the same party that had no qualms whatsoever about lying its way into a war in Iraq. In the hands of a merely corrupt political party, a bad election or two would be no big deal. But these clowns we have in power now imagine themselves to be revolutionaries, and their psychology is a lot like that of the leadership of Enron, pre-meltdown—with each passing day that they get away with it, they become more convinced by a delusion of righteousness.

In his follow-up column he focuses more on the Republican Congress than the administration—

[I]deology is increasingly not the defining characteristic of this Republican party. What distinguishes this party is its cheating. In CAFTA, in defiance of House rules, they hold the floor open for as long as it takes to get their vote. They not only do this, they proudly announce that they're doing this. In the House, they have made a habit out of disallowing Democratic witnesses, shutting off debate, conveniently miscounting votes and committing brazen acts of slander and libel....
....

In recent years it has been fashionable to compare these current Republicans with the Nazis and other totalitarian monsters. I've tended to resist those comparisons, but we've reached a point where it's looking more and more appropriate to describe the neoconservative attitude toward the rule of law as having many things in common with those other revolutionaries. These neocons may not have the authoritarian bent of the German fascists or the Russian communists. They're far more interested in stealing and deregulating than in controlling, censoring and governing. But it is more and more clear that, like these other notorious movements, they view adherence to rules and to the law as a failure of will and a political weakness.

I'm sorry that he can't recognize "the authoritarian bent" of the Neocons, but I have no doubt that he will in time—as will we all. Taibbi ends his column with an exhortation to the media that shows some realism about the Democratic Party—

That is why we in the media need to reexamine the 2004 election. If they really did steal it, we can't just let it slide. Because they'll do it again. And forget about the Democrats being able to do anything about it. They have their own problems.

Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal was a Clinton advisor and knows government up close. He now writes regularly for the Guardian and the bulk of his writing has been to delve into the ways of George Bush. For that reason I once dubbed him a "Bushologist." For my tastes and opinions Blumenthal personalizes this administration around the figure of George Bush far too much. But I suppose it would be easy for a man who worked directly with Bill Clinton to assume that Bush is somehow acting presidential and in charge.

Blumenthal is no radical, but in his article "Above the Law" of August 5 he manages to say this—

[T]he dirty war that damages the difficult work of counter-terrorism continues unabated. It goes on for reasons beyond domestic political consumption. At its heart lies the drive for concentrated executive power above the rule of law.

Joe Conason

Finally Joe Conason, well known and well respected, is coming round. His article of August 8 in the New York Observer reviews the efforts of the Judge Advocates General (JAGs) to warn off the administration from their policies of torture. And Conason praises conservatives such as McCain for trying to slip "standards for the treatment of military detainees" into the Defense Authorization Act.

He concludes—

More broadly, the J.A.G. officers were troubled by the implications for the military and the nation of the high-handed attitude exemplified by the Bush advisors. What kind of country would the United States become if we allowed our military officers to behave like criminals? What kind of country would we become if we accepted the dangerous theory, promoted by the Pentagon civilians, that in wartime a President can issue whatever orders he may choose, regardless of U.S. and international law?

We have yet to confront the full consequences of that theory, as applied in U.S. military detention facilities. At the moment, the Pentagon and the White House are withholding photos and videos that reportedly document abuses even graver than what we’ve already seen, despite a court order demanding their release.

The warnings of the J.A.G. officers were prescient indeed. Someday, when historians consider how this President and his associates sought to overturn American values, traditions and statutes in pursuit of absolute power, they will praise the officers and politicians who resisted those illegitimate maneuvers.

Could you say that a little louder, Joe?

Paul Craig Roberts

The person who has best peered into the heart of the Bush administration and has done so the longest is not a person from the Left but a conservative—a former Asst. Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I was quoting Paul Craig Roberts back in January, and I'd like to repeat some of it, in case you missed it. After hearing Bush's second inaugural address, Roberts had this to say in part—

At home the casualties are the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Republicans explode in anger when a liberal judge creates a constitutional right. But they sit in silence when the US Department of Justice (sic) creates the right for Bush to decide who has constitutional protections and who has not.

Like Robespierre, Bush justifies the state of terror that he has brought to Iraq by his noble aspirations. The effect is to destroy idealism with hypocrisy about violence. When the neoconservatives succeed in draining idealism of its power, will they then declare violence alone to be their goal?

Led by Bush, the Republican Party now stands for detainment without trial and war without end. It is a party destructive of all virtue and a great threat to life and liberty on earth.

Related posts
Bush joins the Jacobins (updated) (1/26/05)
Superfluous beliefs (6/10/05)