A recurrent theme in literature is the hero with two opposing personas. One is human, the other mythic. Often the doppelganger represents the dark side: Dr Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein and his monster. Think Dorian Gray and the picture in the attic.
This paradigm describes a phenomenon that has long got my goat. Bush will present himself to the world as a godly, Christian, noble but still aw shucks regular guy. Meanwhile, media shills spew the most outrageous filth in furtherance of his agenda.
Torture is a good example. Our president solemnly condemns the 'few bad apples', while Rush brays that Abu Ghraib is Brilliant! Our boys just letting off steam! Muslims defecate on themselves anyway, so what's the big deal?
Below the fold, other examples, including the Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde tag team on the DSM. Also, I would love to hear from you, any examples of this phenomenon you'd care to contribute?
It is a pet theory of mine that a big part of the rightwing appeal is allowing people to be their worst selves. (E.g., It's no mystery that the Republican Party started winning when Dixiecrats divorced the Democratic Party over civil rights. Or that one popular RW self-identifier is God, Guns and God hates fags.) The talk radio/Fox News/Coulter/ Swift Boat phenomenon was a big part of the Republican rise to power in the 90s. These shills do more than just pound the RW message: they market it with hate, extremism, bullying.
They know their audience.
Torture, as mentioned above, is a great example. Rush gives his listeners permission to virtually revel in it, the raghead bastards are scum, they have it coming. They'll be sorry they messed with us.
Campaign ratfucking is another good one. Bush paints himself as the candidate to restore dignity to the White House. Meanwhile, the RW smear machine does its number on anyone standing in the way.
Iraq: If you listen to Bush, we're saving the brown people, not stealing their oil. Coulter tells it like it is. We should conquer them and convert them all to Christianity.
Tax cuts. Why, the tax cuts are for the middle class, to create jobs, the economy! On Fox and talk radio, the freepers shout it loud and proud: It's all about MY MONEY.
Even Terri Schiavo. Bush dragged his ass out of bed to champion the Culture of Life. It took Scarborough and Hannity to add that delicious extra zip of villifying Michael Schiavo as a murderer. (Chilling note: Does Jeb Bush's recent threat to investigate Michael Schiavo for murder mark a sobering new turn in the process: The politician openly embracing the extremist hate, the vicious threat? Think Delay/Cornyn and open season on judges. Think jackboots.)
And of course, whether the main course is gays, Muslims, foreigners, immigrants, welfare queens, trial lawyers or Michael Schiavo, there is always one constant dessert in the banquet of hate: Sniveling traitorous America-hating liberals. Bring your baseball bat.
There you have it. Bush acts the godly righteous person. Meanwhile, media shills translate the message into a poison the freepers eat with a spoon.
So too, now, the Downing Street memo. When confronted with the evidence, both Bush and Blair categorically denied the substance of it: The intelligence was not fixed, they did everything they could to avoid war, taking your country to war is the most solemn, painful decision, blah, blah blah. And whom do we have this time to give us the ugly truth, with a smirk that would make the Chimp himself proud? None other than the MSM.
WaPo, Andrea Mitchell, Dana Millbank for the snide cherry-on-top, explain to us with a roll of the eyes that, of course you morons, everyone knows Bush lied. So what? Americans (real Americans, that is) are fine with it. So he started a war in defiance of international law and the US Constitution. Get used to the new program. Bush is the law, er, our strong, resolute leader.
Again, please, let me hear from you. Any other good examples?
Endnote:
Credit where due, the premise is from a brilliant course I took in college, which (along with other neat stuff) can be read in the book Man and his Fictions (by Kernan, Brooks and Holquist). Other examples of the dual hero theme: Superman and Clark Kent; Tarzan, both ape man and English noble (Tarzan's father was an English lord, and he was born possessing all the instincts of aristocracy), and Shakespeare's Richard II. (the bad king who ill-fits the throne he sits on: the king as the mortal flesh-and-blood man, versus the king as the history-spanning office, the Throne.)