Thursday, March 23, 2006
Tougher Crowd
Having had some success defending his policies with double-talk in front of hand-picked audiences of supporters, President Bush thought he'd try them out on more skeptical ears this week, with predictable results. Well, predictable to everyone but him, probably.
In case you've missed any of his recent speeches (lucky you), they revolve around the carefully worded contention that, prior to 9/11, "we" believed that "oceans protected us". If you make the effort to sort through his speechwriters' reasoning you'll find that this is their justification for everything: the invasion of Iraq, the Patriot Act, warrantless-wiretapping -- everything.
Unfortunately for Mr. Bush it's not true. No one in the government -- not even Mr. Bush himself -- believed that "oceans protected us" before 9/11.
Thus, the problem: he needs Americans to think it's true, but he can't come right out and say it because it isn't true. (This happens to President Bush a lot.)
His solution, as usual, is rhetorical. He fragments sentences, mixes verb tenses, and contextualizes this "belief" in distant time periods, like this:
The reason for this nonsense is that absent the idea that "everything changed" on 9/11 -- which it didn't -- the President has no rationale whatsoever for the unprecedented abuses of power that have passed for policy under his administration.
He himself can't possibly have believed as late as September, 11, 2001 that "oceans protected" us. At least we hope not.
Which leads us to propose the following question -- which someone should ask him:
"Mr. President, on numerous occasions you've said that we learned on 9/11 that 'oceans no longer protect us'. Was it in fact on September, 11, 2001 that you yourself realized this?"
Hint: He'd have to say, "No".
In case you've missed any of his recent speeches (lucky you), they revolve around the carefully worded contention that, prior to 9/11, "we" believed that "oceans protected us". If you make the effort to sort through his speechwriters' reasoning you'll find that this is their justification for everything: the invasion of Iraq, the Patriot Act, warrantless-wiretapping -- everything.
Unfortunately for Mr. Bush it's not true. No one in the government -- not even Mr. Bush himself -- believed that "oceans protected us" before 9/11.
Thus, the problem: he needs Americans to think it's true, but he can't come right out and say it because it isn't true. (This happens to President Bush a lot.)
His solution, as usual, is rhetorical. He fragments sentences, mixes verb tenses, and contextualizes this "belief" in distant time periods, like this:
- "...a lot of us grew up thinking that oceans would protect us..."
- "...when I was going to college, I never dreamed that the United States of America could be attacked."
The reason for this nonsense is that absent the idea that "everything changed" on 9/11 -- which it didn't -- the President has no rationale whatsoever for the unprecedented abuses of power that have passed for policy under his administration.
He himself can't possibly have believed as late as September, 11, 2001 that "oceans protected" us. At least we hope not.
Which leads us to propose the following question -- which someone should ask him:
"Mr. President, on numerous occasions you've said that we learned on 9/11 that 'oceans no longer protect us'. Was it in fact on September, 11, 2001 that you yourself realized this?"
Hint: He'd have to say, "No".
