Fantasy

I don't think anyone still watches the President speak on TV anymore. We all know it's canned, partisan, obfuscating and with only a tangential relationship with reality. As The New York Times puts it in their editorial on tonight's address entitled "President Bush's Reality":

He has described a world where Iraq is a young but hopeful democracy with a "unity government" that represents its diverse population. Al Qaeda-trained terrorists who are terrified by "the sight of an old man pulling the election lever" are trying to stop the march of progress. The United States and its friends are holding firm in a battle that will decide whether freedom or terror will rule the 21st century.

If that were actual reality, the president'’s call to "put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us" would be inspiring, instead of frustrating and depressing.

If that were the actual reality.

If.

On the lack of a clear plan for extricating ourselves -- let alone winning as he and his courtiers so bray:

But the nation needs to hear a workable plan to stabilize a fractured, disintegrating country and end the violence. If such a strategy exists, it seems unlikely that Mr. Bush could see it through the filter of his fantasies.

Alas, he's not the only lunatic in charge. There's the man so often called President Cheney:

It's hard to figure out how to build consensus when the men in charge embrace a series of myths. Vice President Dick Cheney suggested last weekend that the White House is even more delusional than Mr. Bush'’s rhetoric suggests. The vice president volunteered to NBC's Tim Russert that not only was the Iraq invasion the right thing to do, "if we had it to do over again, we'’d do exactly the same thing."

It is a breathtaking thought. If we could return to Sept. 12, 2001, knowing all we have seen since, Mr. Cheney and the president would march right out and "do exactly the same thing" all over again. It will be hard to hear the phrase "lessons of Sept. 11" again without contemplating that statement.

The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again even if always getting the same undesired result. Especially when it has to do with human slaughter.

If you don't believe that Bush is dangerously insane, then treat yourself to his attempt at browbeating an unusually bold Matt Lauer and through him the American people into his almost-makes-sense-oh-holy-shit insanity regarding CIA prisons and U.S. use of torture, via Crooks and Liars. Money quote:

"I'm not going to talk about techniques. And, I'm not going explain to the enemy what we're doing. All I'm telling you is that you've asked me whether or not we're doing things to protect the American people, and I want the American people to know we are doing so."

Could this not be translated into English as, "Just trust me, bitches!" Because after all his empty promises and bald-faced lies, only an insane citizen would trust him. Not when he won't even acknowledge to us, his employer, what the fuck he authorized.

Bush argues with Lauer that everything he's authorized is "legal," which makes him either a liar or insane like President Logan on 24. In fact, it turns out he his White House counsel, John Yoo, may have been insane -- power-crazy -- himself:

UC Berkeley law Professor John Yoo, who as a Justice Department lawyer was one of the Bush administration's chief legal theorists, summarized its view in his forthcoming book, "War by Other Means":

"We are used to a peacetime system in which Congress enacts the laws, the president enforces them, and the courts interpret them. In wartime, the gravity shifts to the executive branch."

As Glenn Greenwald reminds us:

The Constitution is actually pretty clear on that score. Article I says "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States" -- Article II says the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" -- Article III says "the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in . . . inferior Courts." That arrangement isn't really a side detail or something that shifts based on circumstance. It's pretty fundamental to the whole system. In fact, if you change that formula, it isn't really the American system of government anymore.

So where are the keepers of the asylum? Aside from all of us at the voting booth this November, the opposition Party is finally unwilling to go along with the madmen.

Explains Kevin Drum:

Within a few months of 9/11 Karl Rove was telling party members what a great issue terrorism would be for Republicans. Andy Card was busily working on the marketing campaign for Iraq, timed for maximum impact on the midterm elections in 2002. Joe Lieberman's DHS bill was hijacked and deliberately loaded with anti-union features in order to draw Democratic complaints and hand Bush a campaign issue. The UN resolution on WMD inspections in Iraq was kept on fire until literally the day after the midterms, at which point the version acceptable to the rest of the world was suddenly agreeable to Bush as well. Democrats who supported Bush on the war were treated to the same scorched-earth campaigning as everyone else. Bipartisanship bought them nothing.

Spencer Ackerman's explanation for that which drives my small, in relentless blows against the empire:

I think I understand a psychological motive for Bush hatred now: By using September 11 to aggregate power for himself, and to make his opponents--you, me, and every other liberal who needed to feel like we could trust our leaders after we were attacked--feel disloyal to their country, he prevented us from healing.

The king of controlled American outrage tonight is the man of snowballing integrity, Keith Olbermann, again courtesy Crooks and Liars, as he broadcast with the still gaping hole left by the terrorists behind him:

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.

He closes hard on the who responsibility for why that awful 9/11 hole is still unrepaired, still taunting us:

Look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

You deserve to watch it all yourself -- media history.

Five years is seems a milestone time to reflect, and you can see the spins they used to consolidate their insanity stranglehold on America are now ghastly reflections being used against them, their smug rhetoric, their lies.

After all, what comes to mind now when you read the two simple words, "Mission Accomplished"?