Paralysis of the Mind

We had a bet going tonight at work about whether or not Bush would say something "glowing" about Speaker Pelosi as he kicked off his speech.

Looks like we won.

"Madame Speaker" aside, tonight was just one more opportunity to prove that our president is a miserable public speaker. Bush always screws the pooch when he's not surrounded by slavish adoration. I don't know if it's mental on his part or just some weird karmic imbalance, but unless the crowd is 100% on his side, Bush stumbles.

Fact is, though, Bush has only given one important speech in his entire presidency. His State of the Union in 2002 was the one that set the tone for the madness we're now deeply embroiled in. He created the Axis of Evil out of thin air, started his overly public babbling about how much God was blessing us and the rest of his simpleton creed.

Back then, though, everyone seemed to love it. His approval ratings were 118%, even the left-wing pundits (all none of them) were playing chicken to see who could give Bush the most laudable plaudit. (Thomas Friedman won, saying that Bush made Abraham Lincoln look "like a atheistic child pornographer who clubbed seals for a hobby." Seriously. Look it up.)

Those were hard times if you didn't agree. Now, of course, just about everyone has come around to agreeing that a) Iraq was a big mistake and b) Bush is not impressive in any facet of governing. Democrats loathe him for being stupid, Republicans hate him for expanding the government and over-spending on the war, the world hates him for lying and conservatives hate him for not ordering the Northeast wiped off the map.

But it has been an eerie time to live through. One of my favorite things about learning U.S. and world history was the strange ideas (strange to me, anyway) that people accepted without a second thought at various times in our existence. I was outraged at slavery hundreds of years after it was wiped from the books in this country because I just couldn't imagine where the pro-slavery argument came from.

I suspect, years down the line, that I might be able to speak a little more confidently about the strange times after 9/11, when our little bubble burst and lots of people -- some of whom I even like and respect -- were very cloudy in their thinking. But instead of it being years into a distant past, I actually lived through the time. And while the insane right will probably fight about Iraq long enough that, like Vietnam, it will stop being a mistake in enough people's eyes to make sure it's a gaping wound forever -- I was there to remember what it was like this time.

And, back to Bush, that's why he's such an inevitable disappointment while speaking. We really had a chance after September 11, 2001, to work toward a world that Americans in history had always aimed for. But instead, this grinning skull made sure that the world would only change for the worse. He's never had to take responsibility for a single thing in his life, and so America never owned up to any of the blame that, yes, we deserve, in getting to where we are today.

So, yes, the state of our union is still strong, and God is still apparently full of blessings for us ... and we only have to sit through one more perfunctory and painful effort from George W. Bush before he can truly be consigned to the dustbin of history. I can't wait. And I'll be there for that one, too.

This is the great leader that, apparently, 33% of our country will back no matter how many of our soldiers or Iraqis or Iranians or Saudis or Brits or Aussies or human being of any stripe he will put into the grave.

A day after giving a terrifyingly subdued speech while looking dramatically out of place (a library ... seriously, they put him in the library?!) American forces committed a terrifying raid on an Iranian consulate, kidnapping five people. The right are already gearing up: It's not really a consulate, Iran aids terrorists, God OK'd the mission, etc.

But the nuts and the bolts of the situation haven't changed: Yet again, we're attacking a sovereign nation. You know, exactly like the terrorists did on September 11, 2001.

I don't know if Bush is a dry drunk or if he's outright insane or if he just thinks -- at the pinnacle of his sad lifetime -- that in the end, Daddy's connections will bail him out one last time. But he oh-so-obviously has his blank little heart set upon putting boots on the ground in Iran and trying it again.

The blogosphere has exploded within the past 24 hours -- on both sides -- with rumors and general contemplation of Iran and a war. So let me, again, offer one little voice: I think George W. Bush is *just* crazy enough to escalate Iraq directly into Iran. And I'm not sure anyone, anywhere can stop him if that's what he and Cheney are planning.

Historians have uncovered the scary truth about what the White House was like during Nixon's final days. I'm glad the country didn't know about it then; I'm equally glad I can't see any further beyond the veil of silence than anyone else can right now. But you don't need to be a foreign-policy expert or historian to know exactly how badly an Iranian invasion would go.

Still, my guitar gently weeps. And, if we're all right, so will my country.

The worst-kept secret of all time was officially announced: Yes, George W. Bush is going to call for 20,000 (actually, 21,500) more troops to go to Iraq. It's a whole new strategy!

Or, quite possibly, he was going to stay the course by slightly changing the course on which he would stay.

Bush, a noted genius of repetition, picked up a new rhetorical flourish for this speech. The war on terror, at least for the moment, isn't the ideological struggle like World War II anymore -- it's the Cold War all over again. And we, of course, love freedom and are fighting for that and anyone who is against us etc etc etc so forth ad nauseum.

Raise your hand if you're tired of hearing about freedom ... yep, thought so.

That said, I'm pretty sure that victory is right around the corner. One more push and we'll rid Southeast Asia of Communi--

I mean, one more push and we'll push the Nazis back fr--

I mean, I love freedom. Yay, freedom!

The greatest weapon the United States ever came up with is not nuclear in nature. It's not a smart bomb, a fighter jet or an aircraft carrier.

The greatest weapon we ever had was the idea of America. The streets were paved in gold. You could go from rags to riches. We were the home of the free, the first ones to the moon, the last ones to hold you back because you were an immigrant. We were the nation that had a job for everyone, and if you worked hard, you could carve a piece of the nation for yourself.

And while we haven't always lived up to those ideas (and some of those ideals were somewhat phony in the first place), we were a beacon of freedom during some of humanity's greatest trials.

But our leadership has decided to hand back out greatest weapon for no other reason than it's hard to live up to ideals ... and expediency is a lot easier.

Compare where America stands right now. We, as a nation, ask minimal support from the rest of the world, be it money, a small amount of troops or even support in the U.N. -- and we can't get it. Meanwhile, al-Qaida asks young men to sacrifice their lives in the most empty way possible as suicide bombers, and they have no shortage of candidates who are ready, willing and enabled. Who's winning that war of ideas?

While we've fallen short of our and the world's ideals before (Japanese internment, Vietnam) in the past, Iraq comes at a time when we're the last superpower on the map. Now, though, we're all that's left, which places our actions under extra scrutiny. And our answer to radical religious terrorism? Begin a war on shaky premises. Leave another country we invaded teetering toward becoming a failed state. Back home, we suspend the laws that have been the backbone of the country for more than 200 years. Oh yeah, and we elected a guy who tells the entire world that God (his God, anyway) tells him to do things.

All the while, we let our best idea rust. The world no longer views us with rose-colored glasses because we're the aggressor now, the ugly American writ large. And while we pack the greatest punch militarily, the cache of dreams we once held in reserve is emptying, fast. And it's difficult to win a war -- of ideas or otherwise -- when you have nothing to fight with.

Typically in the past, I've done a best-of and worst-of list for the year around this time. This past year was ripe for parody in many ways, but the more I tried to think about what I wanted to write, the more I came back to one idea, one very simple idea that dominated everything else. And I'm not talking about Lindsey Lohan strolling the grounds without undergarments.

Indeed, when it comes right down to it, 2006 (and, concievably 2007) is really about just one thing. So, without further ado...

The Story of the Year: The madness of King George

Iraq is the keystone to everything that has happened since the day in 1997 when the big-money men of the Republican Party went to meet George W. Bush to see if he was the guy who would be running in 2000.

There's a lot of side plots, of course. Signing statements are an amazing story. What's happened to Jose Padilla is a chilling tale. Afghanistan. Tax cuts. 9/11. Cheney and Rumsfeld. All of these things have come and gone with various outcomes and differing levels of injustice, insanity and incomprehensibility.

But Iraq is the Rosetta Stone. The reason is very simple: Everything else Bush has done has been a response or a reaction. Iraq was Bush being proactive, and you can't hide your ambitions and intents when you're working for yourself. And for Bush, his soul has truly been laid bare by what's happened since Iraq was dreamt up.

The world cried out against his idea, but that never fazed him. The U.N., the Democrats, the shambolic Americans left -- these people never mattered anyway.

But in 2006, the reckoning was upon him. Our country, weened on legends of heroism and bloodless Hollywood war flicks, loves going to war -- but we won't tolerate losing or spinning our wheels when we get there. And, at the absolute best, we were barely holding on in Iraq. Bush's strange pronouncements that victory was "around the corner" did not hold, even with those that would support him until the very end.

And did Bush waver? Was he fazed? Did he wonder? Was there a single thought that punctured his bubble of clueless resolution?

You'd have to think not, judging by his clumsy defense of the hated Donald Rumsfeld just days before the election. Bush ventured into Rush Limbaugh's fever swamp a mere week before the 2006 election to say that Rumsfeld would be his defense secretary until the end.

Of course, the American people -- who had turned on him in polls and in day-to-day life long before -- turned on him at the ballot box. But that still didn't matter to Bush. Rumsfeld went away, but the plan was still sacred and viable: Victory in Iraq is just around the corner.

* * *

Indeed, from day one he led as though he'd beaten McGovern 49 states to one. He never remembered that he'd lost the popular vote in 2000. He forgot how it was his connections -- not him -- that had won him that election. He'd forgotten how badly he had to slander his inept opponent in 2004 to win then.

But that was Bush, living out his campaign hype as though it was real life. He was a decider, he said. He was resolute, he said. Flip-flops were for people's feet at the beach, he said, and he decided a long time ago that he would live up to that no matter the cost.

And Bush has never seemed to care about the death toll. His supporters certainly don't: You can take a gander through the right-wing blogs to see exactly how few 3,000 people are in the scheme of things in their eyes. But what do you expect? Bush's party is one of deranged figures: Limbaugh's viscious hypocrisy, Ann Coulter's cheerful sociopathy, Michael Savage's indiscriminate hatred. Expecting these people to care about 3,000 dead Americans -- even the supposedly beloved soldiers -- is lunacy.

There is no cost too great for Bush. The great line from the Nuremberg trials is the banality of evil, but consider Bush evil is to give him much more credit than he's worth. What Iraq proves is that he's uncurious. He (and you have to assume, those he listened to) know nothing about the world outside the borders of America. His original assumption: "Topple Saddam, install a democracy and people will just pick up freedom" has the intellectual heft of a letter to Santa Claus written by a 5-year-old. He could have counted on civil unrest. He could have considered religious strife. He could have not hung Saddam Hussein during a holiday. He could have done many things, but these were either not thought or -- more likely -- simply discarded.

* * *

Bush's genius at politics is producing incredibly simplistic ideas. He wins by constantly repeating dumbly simple things to a public that's rarely paying a lot of attention. (This worked pretty well for Reagan, too, although he was a bit smarter than Bush before the Alzheimer's knocked him down).

Those simplistic tactics, however, do not work on a grand level. Bush has tried to goven as though he were campaigning, and when the ideas were simple (Saddam evil, Kerry's bad, Tax cuts for all, Death tax bad) he did fairly well. But all it takes is something a little harder -- say, rolling back Social Security -- and suddenly Bush looks dumb because he can't articulate anything ... if he has anything worth articulating.

Iraq, of course, is the perfect proving ground for this. It was only days before we were in Baghdad, pulling down statues and scouring spider-holes. Yet you didn't need to be an expert on the Middle East to know winning the first battle wouldn't be the hard part. And there was Bush, celebrating. Mission Accomplished indeed -- Bush whooped it up like he'd won the Super Bowl when, in reality, he wasn't even through the first quarter.

* * *

Nobody will be surprised when Bush announces a surge in the troop levels in the next few weeks. It's coming just as sure as your W-2s are.

But I see this is a real test of what we consider the world's best democracy. The people of America spoke quite loudly that they do not approve. Bush ignores the will of the people ... and then what?

The Democrats have already said, loudly and presumably proudly, that impeachment is off the table. It's hard to blame them, after watching a popular president of their party get impeached over a crime of passion. That said, when the will of the people is usurped, it's no longer a democracy or a republic.

I'm not holding my breath for the Democrats, mind you. There's plenty of blame to go around, and some of our current situation is absolutely on them. But when the highest elected official in the land no longer listens to those who elected him? What's the next step? And is the public still in the game enough to know or care?

In the end, you see, it's really on us. We put George W. Bush in a position to do what he's done in our name. Vote for him or vote against him, history shall probably not be kind. And we had the chance to take the keys away from him before he crashed.

That's the story of the year.