06-07-01
LIARS AND TYRANTS AND BOORS, OH MY!


I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, because being right is an awful lot of fun, and when I am right I tend to make sure I beat the fact into everyone's head:

Every time - EVERY SINGLE TIME - a regressive points a finger at liberals and accuses them of doing something heinous, it is because THE REGRESSIVES ARE DOING IT THEMSELVES.

Now before someone gets all anal and nitpicky on me, I'm not referring to straight policy issues - obviously, when right-wingers accuse us of being tree-huggers it's not because they're sneaking out their back door at night to snuggle up to a Douglas Fir. But when it comes to morals, or underlying motives, or underhanded deeds, the right-wing modus operandi is to rush to the nearest reporter and begin hurling accusations at liberals before those same accusations can be hurled at them. Think about it. Which right-wingers screamed the loudest about President Clinton's affair? Could it be...oh, hmm...Dan Burton? Henry Hyde? Bob Barr? Need we drag out the scantily-clad skeletons residing in these gentlemen's closets?

Oh, but wait. It wasn't about sex, was it? (And I'm the queen of Romania). All right, let's pretend it was about the lie, because it makes those little regressive tails wag so happily when we do that. How many outrageous lies from the right can you think of in under five seconds? One...two...three...four...five; time's up! I have seventeen - how 'bout you?

The right-wingers have turned lying into a veritable art form; their lies are so extreme, so convoluted, and so lacking in rational thought and logic that calling them 'lies' seems almost an insult. It isn't the least bit surprising that they raise holy hell when they accuse liberals of lying - the more guilty regressives are of a crime, the more they scream and holler about the other side doing it (even when - ESPECIALLY when - the other side isn't actually doing it). And there's nothing regressives enjoy more than a baldfaced lie or three, because they're all liars at heart. I don't know that this is necessarily because they ENJOY lying, though I think they do; I think it's probably because the truth is rarely on their side, and they have to lie in order to get any public support whatsoever.

My favorite lie in recent memory - the one that has me alternating between laughing my head off and seriously reconsidering my commitment to pacifism - is the White House vandalism lie. It's hilarious because it's so STUPID, and so painfully blatant...yet it's also frustrating beyond belief because hardly anyone is calling them on it. And in the grand scheme of things, it's a little lie; not nearly on the scale of lies such as "The votes have been counted" (is everyone else as happy as I am that they finally stuck James Baker back in his casket?) or "The people elected Bush to--" (fill in the blank: rape the environment, strip people of their civil rights, plunder social programs to give tax breaks to Bill Gates' ilk) or "compassionate conservatism". Yet this little lie, precisely because it's silly, and small, and stupid, may well be the thing that finally causes the masses to wake up and smell the fascism - as long as heroes like Anthony Weiner continue to keep it on the front burner.

It is, perhaps, one of the few tactical errors Karl Rove has ever made. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, and since the Bushies were so intoxicated with the success of the coup my guess is that they felt damn near invincible. So why not spread a little rumor about Clinton staffers trashing the White House? They knew that the lemmings on the far right would lap it up like milk and honey, and it sure made for some great soundbites - plus, it had the added bonus of giving Shrub the chance to look gracious.

The one sticky part of it was getting the story out there - they couldn't stage a press conference to describe in whey-faced detail the nightmarish state of the vandalism, because their official stance was that they didn't want to talk about it. Luckily for them, they didn't need to stage a press conference...they needed only to "leak" a few juicy details to their little media pawns to get the ball rolling, after which they could send Fleischer out from time to time to make veiled references to the 'White House trashing' before reiterating that the new administration was trying to move on. It didn't matter that the lie was so ridicuously transparent; the Rove-ian White House has so little respect for the general public that they can't conceive of people being intelligent enough to see through their puerile tricks. And their arrogance, their complete boorishness and lust for power, is by far their biggest weakness.

The plan didn't work as well as they'd hoped, primarily because they had to keep reminding people that Shrub was being gracious and leaving the matter behind, and they couldn't do that without bringing the matter up again. They were so hellbent on proving that Shrub was gracious that they even propped him in front of a camera and had him comment on the supposed vandalism, so he could then say "but I'm not going to dwell on it". And while they fully expected that people would throw their hands up in disgust at those evil, decadent, perfidious Clinton staffers and then move on, they weren't prepared for President Clinton to request a list of the damages so that he could pay for them (clever guy, our Bill), or for the overly zealous Bob Barr to demand an investigation (see, this is when I get the giggles...imagining Karl Rove saying "Would somebody give that inbred moron from Georgia a friggin' clue?!!"), or for the dashing and intrepid Anthony Weiner to stage a press event around a letter demanding an apology once the GAO confirmed what we already knew - to wit, that the vandalism story was sheer propaganda.

Anyone who expects the Bushies to be consistent would probably have expected them to pull a repeat of the China situation - issue an apology, and then send the troops out to convince the public that it wasn't an apology at all. And you know, this would have been the smartest thing for them to do. Ari Fleischer could have said in all bespectacled earnestness, "We'd rather state our regret over any hardship that may or may not have been endured by those staffers who may or may not have been involved in the vandalism which may or may not have occurred, and put the matter behind us, than dwell on such an ugly and unspeakable incident." Shrub could have smirked and said "We just want to be gracious to the past admis- admit- adminitrastation and give them our regrets even though we have nothing to apologize for, than put the country through more, um, dishonor and disintegrity which is not what I'm going to bring to Washington, I mean, what I've brought to Washington - 'cause I'm already here, heh heh - so we aren't going to dwell on what kind of vandalism they might have done." And then all the pundits could have raved about how gracious and wonderful and, well, gee! nice! the Bush administration was, and so on.

But no. See, once tyrants get a little taste of power, they go hogwild, and that's exactly what we're seeing from the coup-conspirators. They're so certain that they can get away with anything (and you have to hand it to them - they just about have) that they won't budge an inch. And they enjoy threatening people, because it makes them feel more powerful. They threatened the press about covering the Bush twins' shenanigans (which went over like a lead balloon, but far be it from the regressives to learn from their mistakes), and that was so much fun that they then threatened the Clinton staffers about pursuing the vandalism lies. Of course, once you make a threat, you have to back it up, even if you're nothing more than a petty little tyrant...so out trots Fleischer again to release a list of the so-called 'damages'. A list based on "recollections". A list that people have been asking for for MONTHS. Oh, and yes...they released a photo of a messy office as well ("Cover the children's eyes! Get Aunt Ethel's smelling salts! This disturbing picture shows...PAPERS shoved into BOXES! Oh, horrors!"). And these self-absorbed, arrogant, drunk-with-power troglodytes actually seem SURPRISED that some in the media and many in the public have responded with a resounding "Huh-uh - I ain't THAT dumb, buddy".

Because it's all just too stupid. And it's difficult for the Bushies to continue their ceaseless mantra of "we're so gracious and honorable" when they've got Trent Lott jumping up and down declaring war on the Democrats and generally acting so het up that one can't help but wonder if his shellacked hairpiece is going to come loose and go sailing into the air. Lott, who's been practically certifiable ever since he realized he was going to get kicked off his little majority leader throne,
recently shrieked that Jim Jeffords had staged a "coup of one" with his defection. "The will of the people has been subverted!" Lott wailed.

Hmm, why does that sound so familiar? Hang on, it's on the tip of my tongue...by Dubya, I've got it! It's what happened when they put a smirking fool into Al Gore's house!

What'd I tell you? If the right-wingers holler about something, it's because they've done it, are doing it, or are about to do it. Watch and see.


~Rose




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