It's week number four of my rock-band-as-a-blog project. This week's song is called "The Experts" and was recorded with a guest appearance by a severe case of strep throat which is very audible on the recording.
In the run up to war, this president marginalized the IAEA, UN weapons inspectors, General Shinseki, etc. to push the case for war and managed to sell the idea to the public that his vision was more valuable than their expertise. Four years later, between the beginning of the troop surge and the Petraeus-Crocker report, he urged Americans to this time listen to the experts on the ground.
Bush's anti-intellectual streak is no secret - remember when Bob Woodward told him that some people were upset that we hadn't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and he said "You travel in elite circles", as though there were just a few people starting down their opera glasses at him? This administration has done a fantastic job at casting experts whose findings are at odds with it into this lot, occasionally pulling one out when it needs one to prove a point. That's what this song is about. Enjoy.
Max and the Marginalized write and record one song per week and post every Thursday. Archives are here.
The Experts
For the experts who couldn't get their points across
Now that all the books they've written ever since you wrote them off
Are all in paperback
Sold at cost, twelve dollars off
And the questions that went spinning through the wash
Up against your intuitions, no I don't see how we lost
Can you figure that, I'm at a loss, so cart me off
Forever banished from the television screen
To the lecture halls of Boston and the New Yorker magazine
Where no one will ever see, stuck between, see what I mean
Make up your mind, kid - what have we got?
Elitist nonsense or the best things that we've ever thought
They crossed the wires and somehow I forgot
Should we listen to the experts or should we not?
For the guesswork that we heard that we could trust
All dressed up as conviction, wishful thinking sold as guts
Look where it's gotten us, we're nonplussed, in disgust
So thaw out the new contestants, present their beckons unopposed
Saying "Listen to them closely, much more than the ones you've chosen
To get rid of us if you must"
Oh yes we must
So study up kid, on what you're taught
You too can be cast aside and lumped in with the rest of the lot
With a bowtie and a snicker, they'll call you back to fix the plot
'Cause it wasn't quite as simple as they thought
I forgot
Should we listen to the experts or should we not?
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