Strong Daddy Spin
27 September 2006 8:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
Strong Daddy Spin
guest post by Ed Encho
This week’s Republican spin cycle was kicked off over the news that the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that was leaked over the weekend asserting that the Bush administration/neocon joint venture that is the enduring mess in Mesopotamia has done far more to fuel Islamic radicalism than to combat such elements. Hey, let’s face it when bombs are being dropped on civilians a sad fact that is haughtily dismissed as nothing more than ‘collateral damage’ by Pentagon and White House honchos it doesn’t exactly win many hearts and minds, on the contrary the survivors take up arms and align themselves with the real radicals, it happens the same in any war.
When sixteen different U.S. spy agencies come out and say that despite the administration’s sunny side up propagandizing that the situation is getting worse by the minute it certainly should serve as a wake up call to all. More importantly it accurately portrays the Bush-Cheney-Rove Axis of Evil’s fallacious joining at the hip of the disastrous war of choice in Iraq to the more expansive and purposely vague ‘War on Terror’ that will keep an increasingly fearful American populace safe from homeland terrorist attacks (ala dittohead talking point number one “we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here”) as that which it really is: total bullshit.
Predictably the NIE leak drove the Bush administration absolutely batshit and the GOP spin machine went into overdrive sending out Condi, Dick and ‘Nicaragua’ Negroponte among others to rebut the charges as well as to reinforce the recent canard that it was primarily Bill Clinton’s fault that we were attacked on September 11, 2001 after our last legitimately elected president’s combative response to a FOX ambush went awry. Think tanks hammered out talking points and injected them directly into the mainline of the right-wing communication infrastructure for activists and operatives to have ready to launch a barrage of calls to talk shows and bombard newspapers with letters to the editor.
It has always mystified me as to why George W. Bush and his administration have never received their share of the blame for 9/11 which after all did occur on ‘Le Enfant Terrible’s watch. It is astonishing to me that such a large percentage of Americans not only fail to appropriately blame the Bush administration for their failures in preventing the attacks especially after it was revealed that in August 2001 George W. Bush himself was presented with a classified report entitled \’Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States\’ which he and his arrogant, incompetent cabinet decided wasn’t important enough to interrupt a summer vacation on his phony Crawford dude ranch to deal with.
I also am unable to fathom why so many still incorrectly believe that Saddam Hussein was a silent partner of Osama Bin Laden in the 9/11 attacks. An incessant barrage of propaganda, an addiction to infotainment and intellectual laziness are I suppose somewhat responsible for the steadfast belief in this big lie but alas it as well as the hard core support that the disastrous and dismal policies of the Bush administration are sadly still largely accepted by so many because of the dreaded ‘S’ word. I am afraid that many people are quite simply not ignorant (which at least there may be hope for) but just plain STUPID.
I have never believed that Karl Rove truly is a genius as so many in the media and the cowering DLC beltway strategists are so wont to label him, he is just smart enough to recognize that we are awash with morons and cynical enough to use their chronic imbecility to his advantage. It is like the analogy of the low hanging fruit which goes something like this:
If you have a job harvesting fruit and instead of exerting the extra energy and time necessary to pick the fruit that is at the top of the tree it is far easier to just walk around and pick up the fruit that is already laying on the ground or is hanging low enough on the branches to pluck without much effort. In addition to being easier to gather it is also much riper.
Now if your job happens to be harvesting voters instead of fruit then you only have to convince those who are the most ignorant/stupid, easily duped or otherwise swayed by fear and hate that it is in their best interests to support your candidate no matter how much they are truly getting screwed in the long run by their policies. They are far more plentiful and credulous so why even bother to try to appeal to those who are able to actually think for themselves rather than swallow whatever falsehoods that are fed to them to encourage their willingness to be manipulated into taking a blind leap of faith along with the rest of the lemmings?
Karl Rove has this down pat, you might say that it along with his proclivity for lowball, dirty tricks is his bread and butter as well as the glue that holds together the Lumpen Republican base that would not only follow George W. Bush on a march to the gates of Hell itself but would eagerly march right on in behind him. This is a huge problem in this country that far too many are unwilling to acknowledge and these people will still be this way no matter that happens on November 7th but that is a topic for another time.
Anyhow, I digress….
The GOP spin of choice in rebutting the NIE is that it was motivated by politics. Just attack the messenger rather than the message itself. Ad Hominem dissembling has long been the modus operandi for this rogue regime so why expect anything else?. George W. Bush himself took to the bully pulpit to discredit the leak of the report as nothing more than politics as usual.
Being accused of politically motivated behavior by the unprincipled and ruthless thugs of the Bush administration is like being called a racist by George Felix Allen. Bush also agreed to declassify portions of the NIE but only after his operatives had ostensibly cherry picked what least discredits or undermines their message on Iraq.
But since strong daddy says that it is so then we must trust him, after all it is he who is the ruler and protector of our big American extended family. Strong daddy is just as much a successful archetype as is the great cowboy image to the Republican image industry. We as a country have become a microcosm of a dysfunctional family that enables the rule of a troubled, control freak with a mean streak. Karl Rove and his minions are all top cognizant of the power of playing up the strong daddy figure to those who are ripe for the picking.
Strong daddy is in reality an insecure bully who abuses all of those who are unable to defend themselves against him. Despite his transgressions, no matter how heinous that they may be the family always must close ranks around him in order to protect their integrity as a whole. However, in the end strong daddy is only two things, a coward and a loser.
Most importantly of all strong daddy doesn’t love you, he only hates himself and is only too willing to drag the remainder of the family down to feed his own narcissism and pathological lust for power.
But strong daddy is always the king of the household and he knows it.
