On April 24, 2003, with the Iraq War barely a month old, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the boycott of the Dixie Chicks. The President responded that the singers "can say what they want to say," but he added that his supporters then had an equal right to punish the singers for their comments.
"They shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out," Bush said. "Freedom is a two-way street.""
Robert Parry draws some interesting lessons from Bush's anatagonistic attitudes towards lese majeste. Excerpts and commentary after the fold.
A politician's reaction to dissent is often the true test of a commitment to democracy. Great leaders not only tolerate criticism, but welcome disagreement as part of a fair competition of ideas leading to the best result for society.
This is the crux of the matter to me. The common wisdom, even on the left, concedes the Bush cabal may well be a train wreck in progress when it comes to governance, but they have a lock on political smarts and tactics, particularly in electoral campaigns.They are astute politicians because they win. Or, rather, they have won so far.
But the shining lights of Rovian success may well come from the short term blaze of burning bridges. Put simply, political parties of the special kind you have in the US are coalitions of united, coincident, corresponding, or merely non-competing interests. The Bush Repubs have hitched their star to the types of people that scream for raw meat. These people can add heat to your campaign, but ultimately who wants to spend time at teh BBQ with them?
The Swift Boaters, Radio Jock/Faux dittoheads, and triumphalist Dominioneers represent a strain of populist "No-Nothingism" that has always been part of teh carnival of American politics. The dark side of the carnival - well off the midway.
The Neocons made common cause with these people. They used them to drumbeat for war, and get out support. They presented a face to these types, tailor made to their prejudices.... But when the masks really start to come off, as now , there is no other face to show.
Politicians of all stripes know that success is built on coalitions and compromise. The Dominionists, because of teh religious nature of their politics, and the Dittoheads, because of the bilious nature of their unrealistic world view, can never compromise. Their politics is so entwined with their sense of reality that they can not see political rivals as other than mortal enemies.
Bush can not brook dissent because he truly has drunk his own kool aid. Any open criticism, be it by Dixie Chicks or Stephen Colbert, is a challenge to his moral right to govern.
Bush is not a politician. He is, in a real and scary sense, a royal figure. Dissent must be weeded out. It must not be allowed to go unpunished.
While Bush doesn't always join personally in the attack-dog operations, he has a remarkable record of never calling off the dogs, letting his surrogates inflict the damage while he winks his approval. In some cases, however, such as the punishment of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, Bush has actually gotten his hands dirty...
This fits in with Bush's operating routine. From his childhood frog blasting, through his frat-boy assaults, he has always insulated his fun-time by having a coterie of like minded bulies around him. They excuse his violence, and fig leaf his own involvement.
With Bush's quiet encouragement, his supporters also denigrated skeptical U.S. allies, such as France by pouring French wine into gutters and renaming "French fries" as "freedom fries."
Bush's backers even mocked U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix for not finding WMD in Iraq in the weeks before the U.S. invasion. CNBC's right-wing comic Dennis Miller likened Blix's U.N. inspectors to the cartoon character Scooby Doo, racing fruitlessly around Iraq in vans.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Dennis Miller has ever issued a retraction, apology, or excuse for that one.
But what's most troubling is that this intolerance toward dissent is not simply overzealous Bush supporters acting out, but rather loyal followers who are getting their signals from the top levels of the Bush administration.
For instance, a new federal court filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney apparently instigated the campaign to punish former Ambassador Wilson for his criticism of the administration's claims that Iraq had sought enriched uranium from Africa.
That's it in a nutshell. Who could think anything else, given the penchant for hierarchical top-down organization to the "FRWC"? Ailes sends "daily memos" on coverage points to his Fox minions, Rumsfeld creates a boutique stand-alone intelligence apparatus at Defence to circumvent the CIA and Foggy Bottom and "stovepipe" findings favorable to the regime's plans. These guys micro manage. Its probably due to their distrust of underlings. Did anyone really think the Swift Boaters were a spontaneous "retail" operation?
Yet, even as Bush was professing his curiosity and calling for anyone with information to step forward, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized the declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to arrange for those secrets to be given to reporters.
In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the anti-Wilson scheme got started - since he was involved in starting it - he uttered misleading public statements to conceal the White House role and possibly to signal to others that they should follow suit in denying knowledge.
What did Dubya think that he knew, and when did he remember to pretend to forget it?
The bottom line is that the Bush Presidency is not one of "ideas", it is a governance by "feeling". When you try to prove their claims wrong rationally, by fact or argument; when you dissent or disagree in the normal democratic fashion, you are not engaging the members of this administration in debate. Remember - debate is based on ideas. What they see it as - you're hurting their feelings.
Or as Parry puts it:
The common thread linking the Plame case to the attacks on the Dixie Chicks and other anti-war celebrities is Bush's all-consuming intolerance of dissent.
Rather than welcome contrary opinions and use them to refine his own thinking, Bush operates from the premise that his "gut" judgments are right and all they require is that the American people get in line behind him.
Bush then views any continued criticism as evidence of disloyalty. While Bush will tolerate people voicing disagreement, he feels they should pay a steep price, exacted by Bush's loyalists inside and outside the government.
So, when Bush's supporters malign his critics as "traitors" and spit out other hate-filled expressions bordering on exhortations to violence, Bush sees no obligation to rein in the intimidating rhetoric.
Instead, Bush almost seems to relish the punishments meted out to Americans who dissent.
Almost?