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archived: 18 - 24 Sep, 2005 Back Next UPDATED: September 20, 2005 THE TIDE
Mere anarchy is loosed
upon the world, William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” In politics, history and the affairs of humanity, the tides come, and the tides go. They ebb outward, and they flow inward. Some tides are taller than others, and some are filled with rip-tides, strong surface currents flowing outward from the shore. The tides command changes, and the changes command obeisance. In 2000, the tide of neoconservativism arrived weakly as the unappealing aftermath of the most contentious presidential election in American history. Several months later, like a tsunami caused by a submarine earthquake, the tragedy of 9/11 lifted the neoconservative tide to its precipitous peak. President Bush seized a bullhorn and returned to his type, cheerleader, the only role that has ever really suited him. Eighteen months thereafter, the tide of neoconservativism retained its strength and launched the Iraq War. When Bush appeared on the deck of the Aircraft Carrier Lincoln in his flight suit beneath the banner proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished,” the neoconservative tide had reached its final peak. From that moment to this, its tide has ebbed and declined. At the same time, the tides driving the political opposition to neoconservativism have been ebbing and flowing. While they were gaining strength in the days, weeks and months preceding 9/11, at that point, they fell backward entirely overwhelmed by the tsunami and tidal waves set off by that awesome tragedy. Following Bush’s proclamation of the cessation of hostilities under the banner aboard the Lincoln, the tides opposing neoconservativism slowly began to gather their forces. Throughout 2003, the opposing tides built up their energy, but with the turn of 2004, they began to clash and mingle with the tides of neoconservativism. Throughout the presidential campaign, the tides ebbed and flowed, and on Election Day they were nearly equal in their intensity. Bush won a narrow victory that was, once again, spoiled by the closeness of the totals and the suspicions, investigations and recriminations about voter suppression and outright election fraud in Ohio, Florida and a growing list of other dubious state results. Following Bush’s second inauguration in January of this year, the tides of neoconservativism have been in constant retreat. In January, Bush’s approval rating stood at fifty-one per cent. In June, driven downward by the continuing chaos and carnage in Iraq, Bush’s ratings had been in a steady decline for over three months. However, when Cindy Sheehan shot to prominence as the leader of the antiwar movement, Bush’s popularity faced its strongest challenge to date. Bush’s precipitous decline over the past six weeks has been breathtaking. Today the presidential approval rating stands at a frightfully pitiful forty per cent, and the trend is definitely moving downward. Cindy Sheehan was one mother of one lonely soldier who had died for neoconservativism in Iraq. Her refusal to be fobbed off by Bush – who behaved very badly during their brief and tightly controlled meeting – was bringing the president to his knees. Today, Cindy Sheehan is touring America in the company of many supporters holding antiwar rallies that have struck a vibrant chord with the American people. Throughout August, the tides opposing neoconservatism were rising. Approval ratings for Bush’s handling of the Iraq War were driven downward to the low thirties. Facing Cindy Sheehan, Bush cowered cravenly at his Prairie Chapel Ranch. He crept by her encampment at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas crouching and cringing behind the blacked out windows of his massive SUV security vehicle. With Bush’s popularity tumbling downwards in the polls, his worried advisors recommended that he meet with the lone mother and attempt to placate her in a genuine effort to defuse the situation. Bush refused their entreaties stating categorically, “I’m not meeting with that goddamned bitch! She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!" Charming? Certainly not.
There is a tide in the
affairs of men William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3. With Cindy Sheehan’s popular approval rising to a toweringly high tide, and Bush’s sinking like a stone, Hurricane Katrina appeared out of nowhere to overwhelm the riptides and cross currents with a tide, deeper, taller and stronger than any that had come before her. When 9/11 struck, Bush blinked and read, “My Pet Goat,” to the class of school children instead of simply telling them calmly and quietly that his duties demanded that he return to Washington. When Katrina struck, Bush blinked again and went to ground, first to Arizona to celebrate John McCain’s birthday then to San Diego to attend a Republican Party fundraiser where he joyfully played his new guitar while the citizens of New Orleans drowned and suffered in the toxic flood that was now engulfing their homes. So deeply was Bush enamored with his own performance of his role as president that he did not deign to contemplate the massive travesty unfolding in New Orleans. The president was in denial. Hundreds of thousands of Americans predominantly black and poor had been killed, drowned, starved or murdered in the aftermath of Katrina. They had all lost their homes and everything that they had ever owned. Bush appeared to be unaware or even complacent in their plight. He made a series of obtuse public statements that were devoid of sympathy with the people whose lives had been wrecked and ruined by the flood. In order to jerk his consciousness into the proper response to the tragedy, his staff required him to witness videos of the pathos and the chaos running amok in New Orleans. Bush and Karl Rove responded with two press conferences, one in Biloxi and the other in New Orleans where the president still failed to convey any genuine empathy for the people killed and ruined by the tragedy. Worse. Sharp eyed reporters spotted the removal of construction equipment after his Biloxi press conference that were merely used as props, and Senator Mary Landrieu spotted the removal of most of the construction equipment that had been mustered to prop up Bush’s press conference about New Orleans. The senior Senator from Louisiana lashed out at Bush in a blistering statement released to the press exposing the chicanery and outrageous use of mechanical props that had all of the fingerprints of Karl Rove. At that point, desperate in his agony to return to his presidential role, Bush made the bizarre decision to appoint Karl Rove to supervise disaster relief operations. Neoconservative obsessions with public perceptions and political polls have never been more clumsily displayed for public consumption than in Rove’s new role as disaster and emergency czar. That was bad, but worse was to come. The clouds darkened again with the next presidential announcement. Bush named himself as the head of the investigation into the government’s failures in responding to the Katrina catastrophe. It is difficult to determine whether this last gesture was more worthy of Frans Kafka or Lewis Carroll both of whom wrote literary masterpieces about the travesties of justice meted out through the perverse political manipulation of the courts. In one final desperate last ditch attempt to halt his political disintegration, Rove created a fantasy set in the French Quarter of New Orleans where Bush would appear to read yet another statement about the tragedy. With a highly theatrical backdrop of the church of St. Louis that had lost its steeple to the hurricane and an exceedingly eccentric costume with no jacket, no tie and his shirt in disarray and buttoned incorrectly like that of Homer Simpson on a bad day, Bush coldly intoned his litany of calculated promises designed to restore public confidence in his presidency. Bush promised to repair the steeples of the churches blasted away by the winds of Katrina which was applauded thunderously by the steeplejacks of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama – all one of them. Following on from that outburst of empathetic generosity, Bush outlined his unique plan to return New Orleans and the surrounding region to their former glory. Unbelievably, Bush’s formula for the repair and restoration of the damage caused by Katrina involves yet another round of tax cuts for families with net worths of over $1.5 million plus golden, gilt-edged government-backed ‘opportunities’ (read, payouts) for the businesses and corporations of America that will allow them to yield massive profits from the disaster. Halliburton will do well from the president’s plan, very well, indeed, thank you very much. Great, if you own stock in Halliburton. Today, George Bush stands naked before America. He is bankrupt, morally, spiritually, politically. The political capitol that he proudly proclaimed in his victory speech last November has been lost in the floodtides of political opposition launched by Cindy Sheehan and Hurricane Katrina. American neoconservativism is now on the wane. It is now ebbing and dissolving into the atmosphere of history and the memories of failures, lost opportunities and too many wrong turns to remember. In the political mind of America, neoconservativism is now a lingering murmur, a slurring whisper when it was once a storming force with false promises of imperial grandeur. Now a lame duck president, Bush will not be able to repair his broken credibility. In the minds of most Americans, Bush’s brittle and ultimately fragile character has been completely exposed. His character is now revealed broken into bits and pieces by the twin disasters of Iraq and Katrina. His is a shallow legacy with only the whiff of failure, decay and decrepitude engulfing his memory. America faces three and a half years of a presidency flawed to its quick by the inadequate characters of George Walker Bush and his circle of committed neoconservatives. The myth of Bush and the neoconservative vision that spawned him drowned in the floodtides of New Orleans. The tide has turned, and we have a mammoth task of rebuilding in its wake.
Bush unbalanced as polls
plummet __________________ Since 1968, Michael Carmichael has been a professional political consultant. Beginning as a Student Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy, he has worked in five US presidential campaigns as well as over 100 major American political campaigns for federal and state offices. In 1985, he founded The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC, European Business News, NPR and many European television broadcasts examining American politics and culture. In addition to his column for The Political Junkies, he is a regular contributor to the Moving Planet weblog. See: www.planetarymovement.org and http://planetmove.blogspot.com/
Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
