A Thousand Points of Denial

Well, frumps, this week’s Tales of the Strange and Uncanny come from Never Never Land, the preferred getaway of the GOP Old Guard and associated right wing camp followers.  Up until very recently, NNL has been a sunny, hospitable respite for conservative pols, historical revisionists, apologists, robber barons, tax dodgers, captains of industry and their minions and chattels. NNL is meant to be a place where “never is heard a discouraging word,” and Old Glory flies overhead while good old boys, at the “Nineteenth Hole,” reminisce over their personal roles in “making America Great.”

Something has gone terribly awry in Never, Never Land, of late, though. Reports have leaked out describing unheard of cloudy skies, inexplicable fogs, and sudden cloudbursts coming up with no warning and getting the NNL “happy campers” all wet.  Imagine the disruption, the anxiety, the cognitive dissonance spreading like a cancer – it must be stopped, at any cost!

Bush et fils

Just this week, this unthinkable catastrophe has brought to the fore one of the graybeards of NNL, (that we might reasonably have expected never to hear from again) who sailed back into the fray, like an avenging angel, to protect the sanctity of Never, Never Land.  That’s right, frumps, George H.W. Bush blipped across the radar for a Texas-style photo-op with President Obama and seized the opportunity to show a little paternal solidarity with Dubya who’s been sensibly (for once) keeping his head down.

While he had the media on-hand, Bush, Sr. also treated us to a “piece of his mind” about current state of civil discourse and the role of  Cable TV News or “the Cables” as he calls them.  For purposes of illustration, Bush, Sr. singled out Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann for special mention calling them  “sick puppies.”  Bush said, “the way they treat my son and anyone who’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible.”

Ahhh, The Irony!

Could this possibly be the same George H.W. Bush who spawned Roger Ailes (Fox News Giant Head) and cooked up the Willie Horton campaign?  It’s like Dr. Frankenstein going on camera and saying “Not my monster!!”

Seriously, for a moment, Bush’s remarks also highlight the disconnect between thought and action that has riddled the right’s perspective causing them, most recently, to vigorously defend the indefensible and attack the nonexistent.  Not coincidentally, I believe that this misunderstanding, or misreading, is what lurks behind all of the “Free Speech” rant coming out of the Tea Baggers and militant right wing.

A lot of these people simply don’t make a clear distinction between thinking or saying something and  actually doing something.  That mental sleight of hand is especially common among those engaged in making ends justify means.  It is an ideological game that can land one into trouble whether one is five years old or seventy-five.  And I sincerely believe that it is at the root of many hate crimes and assassinations.

Going back to what Bush said: “the way they treat my son and anyone who’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible,”   implies that somehow, Bush Sr. believes that actions like war crimes and Constitutional abuses are excusable if one ascribes to a certain “point of view.”  And those who point out how and why such things might be wrong are “sick puppies” because their point of view indicts such actions as unjustifiable.

It’s also interesting to see the subtle turning of the tables that occurs in Bush’s statement:  suddenly those who are “just horrible” are on the offensive and the son is suddenly a victim defending against their unwarranted attacks.

Whereas Maddow and Olbermann are critical of George W. Bush’s actions as president and bring facts to support their “point of view,” Bush Sr. is not disputing those facts but rather, taking umbrage at M&O’s temerity in voicing opposition to Bush Jr’s opinions and beliefs that are  supposed to provide unequivocal justification for his actions.

You can see the same kind of thought process at work in many of the “grassroots” initiatives popping up on the right.  There appears to be a belief that if one carries a “pure” ideology around in one’s heart and mind, any actions that issue from that place are justified because the motive is “pure” and for a “greater good.” That mindset has been making war and genocide palatable and possible  for centuries.

Those who ascribe to that mindset will be just as taken aback if they are held accountable for carrying bigoted, meanspirited posters, or for illegal wiretaps, or lying to the American people as they would be if they were told to put down their weapons and stop blowing up their enemies in combat.

That “Win at Any Cost” mentality appears to be “bred in the bone” as well as the Guiding Principle of the modern GOP “There is Only One Right Way” (and that is the “right way”).  It is also a time-honored tradition of conservatives to paint their victims as bullies (who, by the way, got what they deserved) whenever a “bloody shirt is waved at them.”

For an excellent background-er on that topic, it just so happens that today, one of my favorite journalists, David Neiwert posted an absolute treatise at C&L on “waving the bloody shirt” which provides profound insight into why some weird things happen in the right wing that the left can’t understand at all.

His article is called:

Limbaugh, conservatives and the ‘bloody shirt’: The right has a long history of turning perpetrators into victims

it’s great fun and a recommended read.   Here’s a bit that’s relevant to this discussion:

“. . . this is an old tactic of American conservatives: Turn their own foul behavior on its head, and accuse those who would hold them accountable for it. That’s what “waving the bloody shirt” has always been about, since the phrase was first coined.”

Of course, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are able to defend themselves handily against cranky, old ex-Presidents.  Still, it’s fun to watch, anyway,  plus Rachel invited Ron Suskind (author of a great book called The Way of the World) to chime in, which yielded up my new favorite description of the current GOP when he said that what’s left is “the shrunken, hardened core.”  Suskind also had a few interesting insights as to why Bush, Sr. might have gone slightly off the kook end on this occasion.  Watch: