The Right Wing Noise Machine is repeating one word over and over :
MANDATE, MANDATE, MANDATE. Sorta has a nice ring to it, like "
Sieg Heil!".
"Mandate" is a pill intended to make the second term neo-con agenda easier to swallow. As more and more of the public and media swallow this pill, news of the second term agenda leaks out. Progressives are likely already having dry heaves from the force feeding of the `red' pill. Google News and MediaMatters.org provide ample evidence of the right's latest prescription for the American public.
Conservative pundits like Limbaugh are happy to push pills for the right (Rush is rumored to color his OxyContin red before taking it for `pain'.) Unfortunately, talk radio is not the only right wing drug store.
William Kristol of the
Weekly Standard may have taken a bit more than the prescribed dose, and his readers follow suit. Kristol opines "...we're nevertheless inclined to call this a Mandate. Indeed, in one sense, we think it an
even larger and clearer mandate than those won in the landslide reelection campaigns of Nixon in 1972". Here's hoping that Bush's mandate ends in resignation as well.
The Washington Times feels about red pills the way a certain former Washington Mayor felt about crack. In an article entitled "Conservatives urge Bush to go his own way" (as opposed to his ultra-liberal first term?), the Times states "Conservative activists say President Bush should push forward with his second-term mandate ratified by 59 million voters on Election Day, including a constitutional amendment banning same-sex "marriage." In the same article, Pat Buchanan describes the Bush win as "a victory in the `culture war' ". Buchanan takes his `red' pill as a suppository twice a day, religiously.
Fox News is, of course, America's leading distributor of red pills. Ed Gillespie of the RNC is quoted by FoxNews.com as saying "I think we saw obviously tonight a decisive win in the popular vote". Rudy Giuliani is quoted on Hannity and Colmes as saying " I think the popular vote ends up creating a mandate." Rumor has it that Fox news has stocked every Green Room and break room with "right wing red" pill dispensers. Much to Fox's dismay, the red pill does have a few side effects.
The doctor's instructions on the red pill requires the patient to forget a few things, like John Kerry received the second most votes of any candidate in history after Bush. Nausea and vomiting could occur if the patient recalls more people voted against Bush than any previous candidate. Depression and Insomnia are likely if the patient is informed this was the narrowest win by an incumbent since 1916, and the smallest ever for a "War President". Magically, this red pill converts the dream of `mandate' into a drug induced reality. Perhaps this is what that anonymous White House Senior Adviser meant when telling Ron Suskind that `when we act, we create our own reality". Unfortunately, the main stream media has been slipping a few red pills as well.
It appears that the Washington Post has been unable to resist the red pill allure. Charles Krauthammer writes "Later than most two-term presidents, George Bush got his mandate", then follows up with "The endorsement was resounding." Krauthammer goes further to say that "...a 3.5-million-vote margin is a serious majority."
Another Post article states "Bush heads into a second term with a clearer mandate and greater power than he did in 2000 to put a conservative, free-market stamp on U.S. domestic and foreign policy". Considering how Bush ruled in his first term, that idea that war-mongering and gay bashing is not conservative enough is sobering.
CNN is desperately trying to catch Fox News in the ratings. Several CNN programs are doubling as advertisements for the wonders of the `red'. Paula Zahn (Paula Zahn Now,11/8/04), Andy Sewer (In the Money,11/7/04) and Carol Costello (CNN DayBreak, 11/5/04) all claim a Bush "mandate". CNN execs likely hope increasing their own distribution of the right wing red will lead to increased ratings as well.
Tony Karon of Time may must have overdosed in a Fox News Green Room recently. Karon claims "George W. Bush took the reins of power with the confidence and certainty of one who had carried a landslide mandate to implement his own agenda. This time, of course, his claim of a popular mandate is incontrovertible". Landslide mandate? Incontrovertible? Amazingly enough, this is NOT a Rush Limbaugh quote in Time Magazine. According to several liberal blogs, this issue of Time has been linked to a marked increase in vomiting in several blue states.
Obviously, the right wing noise machine is pushing the mandate pill for a reason. While it is easy (and quite cathartic) to poke fun at the media for swallowing and regurgitating the right's message, there are real side effects. As always, this message is prepping the public for the second term agenda. Rumors of this agenda have become slipping out, and, if true, this agenda will induce much more than depression and insomia.
Andrew Gumbel's article in The Independent entitled "The New Republican Reality: No policy is too right wing" highlights a few possibilities for "four more years' of new and more powerful red pills . If that title is not frightening enough, he opens the article with "Where should the United States invade next? Iran, Syria, or Cuba?" An anonymous State department official is quoted from an October Salon.com article as saying:
"The neo-cons, working in tandem with a similar staff in the office of Prime Minister Sharon of Israel, have a three-part agenda for the first part of Bush's second term.' He wrote. "First, oust Yasser Arafat; second, overthrow the secular Baathist al-Assad dictatorship in Syria; and, third, eliminate, one way or another,Iran's nuclear facilities."
Gumbel goes on to mention that President Bush promised Cuban exiles in Miami to "liberate their homeland." With our military stretched to the limit in an Iraq under martial law (didn't Bush say over and over in the campaign that Iraq was improving every day?), one must wonder how we plan to invade Iran,Syria, and Cuba as well with an "all-volunteer" military.
Of course, nation building, plundering, pillaging, and putting "freedom on the march" are not the only plans for a second term. Mr. Gumbel quotes Republican strategist Richard Vigueire as saying " "I don't know if we're going to abolish the prescription drug benefit [for senior citizens], but we'd like to. It's just an expansion of government". Gumbel paints a very ugly picture.
The right wing noise machine uses "pills' like MANDATE regularly to control the news cycle and justify new policies and programs. The implications of this are alarming. War in Iraq and the threat of terrorism on our soil could be compounded with further wars in Iran, Syria, and Cuba. If this does happen, a draft is inevitable. Many more Americans will likely die in pursuit of right wing nirvana for Bush and Cheney. The only hope is for progressives to take and stand and rebut this right wing noise machine every time it distributes a new red pill, a new right wing message. As long as the right controls the news cycle, the right will set the message. The right will continue to distribute its "pills" to numb the American people to right wing agenda. Until the left creates and organized and directed opposition to rebut the right in every venue and media outlet, the right will continue to dominate political discourse and political power.