Today's
editorial from the Times editorial board, while no Olbermann Special Comment, is likely to touch off yet another round of wingnut whining about the "New York Slimes" or whatever:
Entitled "The Great Divider", it slams Dear Leader:
As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he's settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can't defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.
That's Bush in a nutshell: When reality goes against ideology, ideology wins out every time. So, since he can't stand to lose, and since he can't win in the real world, his only option is to invent fake realities where his policies are correct.
Two examples from the Times:
In Mr. Bush's world, America is making real progress in Iraq. In the real world, as Michael Gordon reported in yesterday's Times, the index that generals use to track developments shows an inexorable slide toward chaos. In Mr. Bush's world, his administration is marching arm in arm with Iraqi officials committed to democracy and to staving off civil war. In the real world, the prime minister of Iraq orders the removal of American checkpoints in Baghdad and abets the sectarian militias that are slicing and dicing their country.
In Mr. Bush's world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don't. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don't support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.
I find it interesting that Bush, and the GOP as a whole, are getting increasing amounts of criticism for their actions in the first case, but relatively little flak for the second. To me, the second is far more dangerous, far more insidious. It's a direct attack on the soul of the country. Anyone looking for warning signs about the approach of neo-fascism would do well to start with that tendency, one that the conservative movement has used for the last couple of decades, but never with such ferocity.
The only part of the editorial (read the rest of it) that I'd have to disagree with is the last paragraph:
This is hardly the first time that Mr. Bush has played the politics of fear, anger and division; if he's ever missed a chance to wave the bloody flag of 9/11, we can't think of when. But Mr. Bush's latest outbursts go way beyond that. They leave us wondering whether this president will ever be willing or able to make room for bipartisanship, compromise and statesmanship in the two years he has left in office.
I don't wonder at all if he will be willing and able to make room for compromise. He won't. He, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and Gonzales, and... will fight kicking and screaming. It isn't going to be pretty.
-dms