Vice in the Pursuit of Liberty is No Vice
Here’s a message progressives need tattooed to their foreheads:
Don’t use Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot analogies.
Not because they are inaccurate, unfair, or subject to misinterpretation.
Because these analogies are the breath of life to the Bush administration.
Can Bush compare himself favorably to Washington? Lincoln? TR? FDR? Kennedy?
No. It’s ridiculous.
Can he compare himself favorably to Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot?
Bring ‘em on!
Blame it on circumstance, incompetence, or simple laziness, but George hasn’t joined the first rank of genocidal mass murderers.
So he loves it when some hapless Democrat gives him a chance to look good — stacked up against the worst criminals in world history.
George and Karl Rove are exceedingly grateful that the standard for presidential performance has just been lowered.
Don’t embarrass them by asking hard questions like “Bush: Dirtier than Harding?” or “What are the parallels between Bush domestic policies and the economic stewardship of Herbert Hoover?” Or “George W.: Shorter than LBJ and Dumber than Ronnie?”.
Instead, it’s “Who killed fewer people? Me or that Pol Pot guy?”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the true soft bigotry of lowered expectations.
The Right’s counterattack against the blizzard of bad news engulfing George W. Bush’s Iraq adventure has begun.
Fittingly enough for our free-pass president, it involves the lowering of standards for civilized nation to meaningless levels.
To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, I call it “Vice in the Pursuit of Liberty is No Vice.”
Misleading the public is OK.
Wars of aggression are OK.
Torture is OK.
A generational quagmire in Iraq is OK.
Vice is OK.
Bush is OK.
You don’t have to be smart to be president. Or able. Or honest. Or good.
All you need is a Democrat out there to give you a chance to compare yourself to Adolph Hitler.
Incompetent message-mongering by the Democrats is about the only weapon the Republicans have left.
They’re taunting us. On purpose.
Hence Karl Rove’s crudely inflammatory remark about liberals wanting to give the 9/11 terrorists sympathy, therapy, and a sensual back-rub.
But the concerted Democratic counter-attack indicates that we may be learning.
Maybe there was a blizzard of tickertape and huzzahs at the DNC:
Karl Rove called us traitors! Now it’s our turn to nail that asshole to the analogy cross!
Karl is probably one of the most disliked people in Washington. Now that Bush’s power is slipping, thanks in part to Karl’s mismanagement of the whole Schiavo/Social Security domestic policy clusterfuck, the guys and gals of the press will be happy to take pot-shots at him.
Don’t force them to make the tough choice of wrestling a questionable Nazi analogy before they cut Karl off at the knees. Give ‘em the proper chance and the right tools.
The truth is, Bush’s lethal combination of stupidity, stubbornness, and lame-duck status is spooking the GOP, destroying its lock-step unity, and undercutting the myth of invincibility and implacability that so intimidated the press.
The Bush regime is teetering on the edge of political free-fall, and the stench of fear and desperation is filling the air.
It’s time for counter-attack and rollback.
And Karl looks to me like a weak link — the unpleasant, unsuccessful guy in the wrong place playing the wrong hand with a small pile of chips.
He should be under a rock dispensing political advice, not polluting an official policy post at the White House.
Let’s see if concerted, unrelenting attacks on Karl Rove can crystallize popular distaste with the man, his methods, and his regime enough to put the Bush administration on the defensive.
And don’t call him Goering, Goebbels, or our century’s Joe McCarthy, and give him a chance to climb back into the ring by shadowboxing with an extreme comparison.
Just call Karl what he is: the weak, pasty turd who’s trying to save his own job by tearing the country apart.
Power is lying in the streets of Washington — but I’m afraid the Democrats are too timid to pick it up.
I think the Democrats know what’s good, decent, and proper — but suspect that those virtues have little to do with the realities of gaining and wielding power in the American empire.
Perhaps Americans don’t need to be persuaded of the virtues of the Democrats.
They need to be convinced that we can match and overcome the vices of the Republicans.
We don’t have to measure up to Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. We just have to show that we’re better — which means, in this debased day and age, smarter and meaner — than Karl Rove and George W. Bush.
When the Republican house of cards is teetering, we have to be ready to push it over — and pick up the pieces afterwards.
And say — like Bush and Rove say — Fuck Fairness, Fuck the Cost, and Fuck the Consequences.
When we can say Vice in the Pursuit of Liberty is No Vice, then perhaps our pretensions to national power and leadership will be taken seriously.
Copyright 2005 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
