Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs

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Wed, 14 Dec 2005 03:05:51 -0500

[AggressiveProgressives] Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs

 

 

 

http://www.mytown.ca/mcreynolds/

 

 

David McReynolds

LEFT LETTERS

 

14 December 2005

 

Newsweek and the Silence of the Lambs

 

 

Newsweek's current issue, December 19th, now on the stands, has a

cover showing George Bush in a bubble with the heading: " Bush's World

- The Isolated President: Can He Change? " For months Doug Thompson's

blog - Capitol Hill Blue - has been circulating on the internet, with

many of us more curious about Thompson than about Bush. Thompson's

charges were outrageous - reports of a President who wandered the

White House yelling at his aides, accusing those around him of

betraying him - surely Thompson was on a private rant of his own.

(Thompson is not a left winger - if anything, he is a libertarian, so

his reports carry more sting than something written by a liberal).

 

Now, with this long article by Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe, running

for ten pages (with a terrific follow-up column on the " Imperial

Presidency " by Fareed Zakaria), it is clear that Capitol Hill Blue was

reporting the reality. What is most interesting about the article is

not what is in it, but what is not in it. Where other articles

discussing past Presidents - Clinton, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan - would

have been able to quote " named sources " , what we have here is almost

entirely anonymous. Take this example: " A White House aide, who like

virtually all White House officials (in this story and in general)

refused to be identified for fear of antagonize the President... " or

" White House officials, as well as one of his closest friends (also

speaking anonymously so as not to complicate relations with the

President ).... "

 

The problem extends beyond the White House itself, to the military:

" According to senior Pentagon officials who did not want to be

identified discussing private meetings " , to the Republicans in

Congress, " One House Republican, who asked not to be identified for

fear of offending the White House . . . " and even to those entirely

outside the US, " A foreign diplomat who declined to be identified was

startled when Secretary of State Rice warned him not to lay bad news

on the president. 'Don't upset him' she said " .

 

Don't upset him? Over two thousands Americans dead in Iraq, tens of

thousands of Iraqis dead, and Bush must not be upset? The situation is

so serious that Senator Joseph Lieberman, an enthusiastic supporter of

Bush's war, now is urging a bipartisan " war council " that could advise

the President. (There is a rumor Lieberman may be brought in to

replace Rumsfeld).

 

The Newsweek article confirms the feeling many of us have had, as we

watched Bush blunder into a criminal adventure in Iraq and stumble so

badly over the New Orleans tragedy, that the nation is like a train

rushing along toward a bridge that isn't there. The war is getting

worse instead of better, the deficit is rising, the tax cuts benefit

the very wealthy, the administration is absolutely riddled with

corruption - as bad as anything I've seen in my life - and Bush

doesn't listen, doesn't read, wants long vacations and wants to be in

bed by ten! (And now, as those my age realize, we are stuck with a

medical insurance plan that Bush can't even understand).

 

What makes matters worse is that there seems to be no way to put a

brake on this train. The Democrats are divided and for the most part

clueless - outside of John Murtha, who saw the truth and spoke it.

Hillary Clinton is still building her political platform on support of

the military (and, lately, on a bill to ban flag burning). Bush, the

man who became President by one vote of the Supreme Court, despite

losing both the popular vote and (as the media pretty unanimously

agreed after a careful look at the Florida ballots) the electoral

college, is now frightened, fearful, appearing only at events that can

be carefully controlled, with audiences that are friendly.

 

We have three more years of this Administration - and frankly not much

to hope for from the Democrats. If there is any hope it will come

" from below " , from millions of citizens who are fed up with an

administration that has had only the interests of the corporate state

at heart. When there is strong pressure we can see, as with Nancy

Pelosi, change is possible. It was clear from watching John Murtha

that the military is very uneasy, there are tensions between the

military and Rumsfeld. What we need and don't have is a Martin Luther

King Jr. But what we do have is Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost her

son, the Rosa Parks of the peace movement, camping outside of the Bush

ranch all this past summer, galvanizing tens of thousands of Americans

- many of them military families.

 

What I believe we need to do is tie together some of the issues - the

terrible losses of American and Iraqi lives, the failure of the

country to put its money where it is needed (New Orleans and our

infrastructure), the loss of our civil liberties, the shock of finding

torture now an official project - to point out, by dialogue, not by

shouting, that we have an administration of the wealthy which is

indifferent to the burdens carried by working families, many of them

African American, Asian, Hispanic. In short, where there is no

leadership, that burden falls on us, home by home, town by town, vigil

by vigil, letters to the editors, delegations meeting with members of

Congress.

 

Newsweek, troubled by what it found in the White House, searched for

answers in places not so obscure or foolish - the Freudian tensions

between Bush the younger and his father, Bush the failure all his life

who is now suddenly frightened and insecure as reality presses in. The

Newsweek article is important - this is a newsmagazine, not a journal

of opinion. And the news it brings us is that our Administration is

out of touch and out of control. For our friends elsewhere in the

world, now is not the time to " make peace " with the Administration,

but to speak truth to power. For those of us living here, now is not

the time to despair but to realize that when even a leading

newsmagazine runs a feature article pointing out that the emperor is

naked, the time for change has come.

 

AggressiveProgressives