The House That 'Mission Accomplished' Built
If I had to choose one phrase that sums up the Bush presidency, it would be 'Mission Accomplished'--the symbol of an administration that failed miserably at everything, then insisted that every blunder was a shining achievement. The result is a nation in tatters, a world on fire, a citizenry demoralized and afraid, and a President surrealistically unfazed by it all.
Everybody remembers May 1, 2003, when President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared victory in Iraq. Now, after 8-years of deadly and destructive blunders, Bush has issued a 50-page, 15.6 megabyte, color, glossy '100 Accomplishments' booklet about himself.
Bush's 'accomplishments' book is the most vulgar, dishonest parting gift ever bequeathed to the American public. There is not one sector of domestic or foreign life that improved during Bush' tenure, while many have been literally and figuratively destroyed. Our foreign policy is in flames, our economy is in the tank, and our government is trapped in a string of useless controversies fueled by right-wing media conglomerates.
In a recent interview about the 'Mission Accomplished' banner, the Bush administration even went to far as to spin the iconic spin. According to Dan Bartlett, the decision to put 'Mission Accomplished' behind Bush on the USS Lincoln was made by the Commander-in-Chief:
Bartlett said the fact that the president didn't "throw us under the bus" for the choice, despite the fact that he didn't have anything to do with the banner, illustrates "why he endears so much loyalty from people like myself and others who had worked for him." (link)
Just to make sure we are all following along with Bartlett's dizzying argument: He is spinning the failure of the spin to spin the spin of the failure of the Iraq invasion. Not surprisingly, the end result of all that spin is Bartlett's pitch for what Bush accomplished in this whole 'Mission Accomplished' affair. Even in the failures within failures, Bush's loyalty to those who failed on his behalf is offered up as evidence of his 'accomplishment.'
After transforming the 'Mission Accomplished' fiasco into evidence of Bush's character achievements, Bartlett then went on to describe Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina as one of the administration's great accomplishments.
The problem with Bush's kind of politics can be summed up in one word: cynicism.
Bush's style of leadership was not something limited to him as a person. His presidency legitimized a whole cynical generation of government workers. Beyond Bartlett, Bush employed and inspired tens of thousands of people at all levels of government to embrace and act on the same basic view of public service. These people believe that no matter how bad a policy and no matter how many lives were desetroyed by a decision, their first priority is to spin the failure into 'accomplishment' in the name of loyalty to chief.
The result is something akin to a 'Mission Accomplished' generation.
When Bush leaves office on Tuesday, he will spend the rest of his life maintaining that all of his failures were in fact accomplishments (tarnished only by a hostile press), and hordes of Bush loyalists and their family members will join him in that Twilight Zone of cynicism and denial.
Laura Bush, Dana Perino, Dan Bartlet, Condi Rice: these are just the public faces of the house that 'Mission Accomplished' built. The rest of the 'Mission Accomplished' generation will fan out across the nation, believing deep in their hearts and forevermore that no leader was more perfect, more humble, and more "decisiver" for the country than George W. Bush.
Just as Reagan's loyalists built him into a myth of epic proportions, Bush's loyalists will likely to the same. Ten years from now, there will be a distasteful number of schools, streets, and airports named after the President who destroyed countless lives by deposing a dictator that members of his own administration had installed decades earlier, and who watched from an airplane window while poor people died in the streets of New Orleans.
What a strange ride the future holds for these people. Mission Accomplished, sweet prince. Mission accomplished.
(cross posted from Frameshop)
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And They All Lived Happily Ever After.
The End
Bush and Clinton are a reflection of us, the baby boomers. First, we elected the hippy. Suave, intelligent, educated and inherently cool. The hardhats attacked the hippy, tried to impeach him rather than cut his hair with a buck knife. The hardhats rallied after attacking the hippie and put one of their own in. The hardhat pres. was undereducated, bumbling, incoherent, playfully unattached to the public,adverse to human concerns and certainly not cool(a cheerleader vs. a Rhodes Scholar). Now, our generation has replayed our past and we, like our representative presidents, now wander off to our ends as the new generation replays their childhood lives with their voices and votes. C'mon, Pepsi Generation, shut up and watch progress, for better or worse, pave us under like so many old hippie communes or hard hat union halls. We, and ours, are of the living past. Hippies and unions, both gone.
Feldman thinks we will have people naming stuff for Bush the way things are named for Reagan. I think it's more likely Bush will get the treatment Nixon got.
mission accomplished no new terrorist attacks even with the entire media machine the aclu and every other agency for the betterment of anywhere but here rallying against the us goverment i wonder if osama bin laden had any restraint in his attacks on americans but of course beheading is nicer than waterboarding.
An incoherent comment worthy of an incoherent leader.
Well, if "no new terrorist attacks" means no new attacks inside the United States, then sure.
Except that there were "no new attacks" from February 1993 to the end of Clinton's second term, too. In which case, Clinton still edges out Bush for the No New Attacks Prize.
the media seemed to support 98% of what Bush wanted without any real question. so make up whatever you want friend but that is not what happened. Only after 2005 or so could any opposition safely show its head.
WELL-EARNED DISRESPECT ... for BUSH & Co.
Why is it that if a normal person steals a loaf of bread, knocks over a mail box, or kills a chicken in a bird fight, they can get JAIL TIME ? But on the other hand, the Bush Administration can effectively steal billions from the American Treasury, knock-over an entire country (your choice, Iraq or U.S.!), kill thousands and thousands of innocent people, and they get VACATION TIME ?!!
HAVE WE NOT A BETTER EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD, THAN INDIFFERENCE ???
FingerSaluteToBush.org seeks to RAISE PUBLIC, LEGISLATIVE, AND JUSTICE DEPT AWARENESS in order to promote eventual accountability of the Bush Administration.
To participate, all you need to do is take a photo while you LIFT A FINGER to Bush. You've done it before on so many occasions for so many other trivial occurrences - why not do it for when it really counts - FOR MASS MURDER !!!
Nationally broadcasted radio hosts Dr. Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and Stephanie Miller have all given their "thumbs up" to the Great Finger Salute. Help spread word of this response-appropriate and increasingly well-received initiative.
Thank you for forwarding this message for much needed action !
wp
Wonderful summary. Yes, "cynical" is the key to the whole politicized Bush administration and it's faith-based loyalists.
But did I miss a reference to Karl Rove, the most bitter yet successful Minister of Cynicism among the Bushies?
I think the Bush supporters fall into two categories: the cynical and the duped.
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