Crossposted from Entropy
I've been traveling this week. It's amazing what having access to a television and little to do with your nights can do for gaining some perspective on politics and media. What did I see this week?
Karen Hughes. Everywhere. The week started for me on Sunday watching Richard Clarke on Late Edition and, as of Friday night, the man has dropped completely off the radar. He's had his 15 minutes of fame and (aside from MoveOn.org ads) he's done. Sure, the media will bring him out again next week when Condi Rice gets up in front of the mob to spin the story her way and have the last word, but for all intents and purposes the guy has blown his whistle and now he can go commiserate with Paul O'Neil in the box of abandoned and broken toys.
The really scary bit though is the resurgence of Karen Hughes. The Bush White House has been rather ham fisted of late. Plame, Clarke, and any other number of scandals have been handled about as well as a junior prom date. As I watched Hughes with Barbra Walters and other media outlets this week I watched the wind in the Democrat's sails disappear and heard the other shoe drop. Karl Rove may be the Master and Commander of slime, but Karen Hughes is the perfume that distracts you from the stench of standing hip deep in bullshit.
It was spectacular to watch her this week when the TV News Magazines could have been focusing on Clarke and terrorism, or the dead pseudo-soldiers cum CIA operatives who got Moged in Iraq. Instead they were all breathlessly asking Karen if she'd return to Washington if called back. I don't know if it was Hughes that parceled out the bits of state sanctioned propaganda on the sly that made reporters swoon, but it sure seemed like it to listen to the softball banter that went on this week.
Under this expert feint, this fill in Martha Stewart, there is one overriding reason that Clarke hasn't had any staying power. He's not saying anything that people didn't already know. Just as Paul O'Neil cried wolf, and even Bob Woodward before him in an otherwise fawning book, the American public is tired of listening to people cry wolf. The wolf is wearing Grandma's clothes, Red Riding hood couldn't see it. The public can't, or doesn't care. We welcome our new wolf overlords, same as the old wolf overlords.
It comes down to this, for the vast majority of Americans George Bush is either a savior, or the guy with the nails and the cross. There's really not much in between that I've seen. There's not much at this point that's going to change that duality. Not Richard Clarke, probably not John Kerry, probably not even the Justice Department when the partial birth investigation that is Plame/Wilson is aborted. You're either with Bush or agin' 'im.
Richard Clarke is a footnote in history because American can't handle the truth. He stood on a wall and cried wolf for most of his career. He was right, there was a wolf, but no one wanted to listen and no one wants to listen now. Thanks Dick, we'll take you seriously when something else blows up, don't you have somewhere to go disappear to?
On another note in my orgiastic wallowing in the television media this week I was able to catch Dennis Miller's little corner of vitriol and pandering. All I can say is: Dennis, what happened? I did have fond memories from Dennis's Rants and Ranting Again. Maybe I was lost in the euphoria that was the boom years, but Mr. 'That's just my opinion' has lost it. You could call it comedic hate speech, if it were funny. You just keep telling yourself that you're good enough, you're strong enough and gosh darn it people like you Dennis. Oh wait, that's someone else's line. Someone else's that is still funny and relevant.