May 19, 2003
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"The man that hath no music in himself … is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils"
by P.M. Carpenter
As I sit to reflect on the greatest scam in American foreign affairs history, in the background one of conservatism's more accomplished scammers is yapping away on MSNBC like a rabid Chihuahua -- and as a host, no less. For several days now and in so many words, bit by agonizing bit the Bush administration has been forced to concede that the Iraq war, as a WMD threat-stopper, was a hoax. Thousand of lost lives and unaffordable billions later, Bush II's deceit is exposed -- drip, drip, drip. To describe the administration's latest betrayal of public trust as outrageous is choice understatement; nevertheless, what has kept MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, for want of a better word, outraged for the past week? Not the Iraq scam, but …
Danny Glover. Yes, that Danny Glover, the actor. I kid you not.
Listening to Scarborough -- a proto-fascistic former U.S. representative turned network media whore -- is a lesson plan in Goebbels-ese. As his beloved president's sordid rock of deceit is overturned, the less-than honorable gentleman from the great state of Florida diverts public notice by waging a cruel, word-twisting campaign against the harmless Glover, whom Scarborough says blames only America as the proximate cause of 9/11. Glover does no such thing as MSNBC's barking dog contorts it, yet lawyer Joe Scarborough attacks with the zeal of a drunken Joe McCarthy. He demands that MCI, the long-distance company, fire Glover as its spokesman; he's anti-American (meaning anti-Bush) and should be banished. Scarborough plasters MCI's phone number on the screen and urges viewers to likewise demand Glover's head. The host later declares the virtuous campaign a success: because of his relentless pressure, says Joe, MCI canned Glover. For the moment we are safe in our beds.
As a display of propagandistic art, Scarborough's political depravity is good theatre. His attempts at intellectual somberness are amusing and downright laughable are his right-wing self-parodies in scapegoating sinister liberals, liberalism, the liberal elite and -- what else -- the liberal media. Turns out we who lean leftward are responsible for Stalin's poor character, the 1933 Reichstag fire and New Coke. For a disappearing band of decency-in-government holdouts, we're surprisingly powerful. Just ask Joe McCar ... uh, Joe Scarborough.
But of course there's a much larger point here than the one on Joe's head. His grossly dishonest agenda is all-too emblematic of Bush II's Dorian Gray politics; or as Shakespeare poetically phrased it, its lack of an inner music. Neither hysterical or hyperbolic, I think, is the proposition that the administration's habitual use of Big Lies threatens, with finality, America's already ailing democracy.
To date, the Biggest Lie perpetrated was that of a direct, impending foreign menace to our national security. For two reasons this particular Lie outdid all others in the annals of questionable American interventionism. First, in past instances of dubious belligerency -- say, the Mexican War, Spanish-American War and Vietnam conflict -- the commander in chief proffered at least some plausible justification for military action. Hyped, distorted and blown out of proportion for sure, yet there was a conceivable, debate-worthy particle of truth in each, however slim.
Second -- and compared to today, this was a real novelty -- in each instance the United States engaged the actual perceived threat. When we saw Mexico as trouble we took on Mexico, not Bolivia. When we identified Spain and North Vietnam as trouble we took on Spain and North Vietnam, not Portugal and Burma.
But now comes the Bush administration setting a bold new interventionist course. No plausible justification existed for military action against Iraq; the military and economic basket case of a nation was contained, at peace and under international scrutiny. Yet, as is true for a dog's favorite pastime, merely because it could did the administration punish an impotent sovereign state for the sins of an ambiguous but demonstrably powerful confederation.
In short, within a few months a reckless band of thuggish ideologues violated America's conscience and two centuries of relative international integrity. Rubber-stamped and peddled by a feeble chief executive, only a cocktail mixture of inventive untruths permitted an ethically bankrupt inner circle to dishonor America and swindle its citizens. The damage done to honest democracy is incalculable.
What's more, on another domestic front an equal disgrace played itself out. Beginning around mid-May several prominent news organizations exposed the subsequent reality of Bush II's warmongering dissemblance. Already our most experienced WMD detection team had been ordered home -- empty handed and feeling betrayed. Task Force 75's collective experts went to Iraq expecting to uncover what their government had sworn to without equivocation: the presence of chemical and biological agents by the tons, the technical means of delivering those agents and a robust nuclear armament program.
To ramrod an illegal war, the president had said "we know" of Saddam's illegal goods. The vice president said Iraq both has "reconstituted nuclear weapons" and in time would acquire "nuclear weapons." (Try sorting that one out.) The secretary of state said he "knew" the Iraqi tyrant possessed warheads full of biological agents. And when asked by Congress if Saddam kept weapons of destruction, the Defense Policy Board's chairman said "sure he does."
But it was all a fraud -- "facts" cooked up by a hastily created office of Pentagon yes-men to trumpet what the C.I.A. and Defense Intelligence Agency had found impossible to confirm. Like the American public, Task Force 75 had trusted it leaders. Both got knifed.
So what, as mentioned, was the equal disgrace? The Fourth Estate dropped the story. Editors determined it was an uncomfortable, perhaps even unpatriotic, reality to unload on a sensitive public.
From start to finish the Iraq affair was a professionally huckstered shell game. By and large the public bought into it because the American political tradition -- also by and large, I stress -- has been one of openness, reasonable top-down honesty and mutual respect for a revolutionary social contract. George W. Bush, his furtive handlers and a complicit press have chucked that tradition with breathtaking ease.
One can only hope that we live in a doomed Zeitgeist. At America's helm is a junta of clamoring Joe Scarboroughs for whom smoke, mirrors, deceit and distraction are indispensable staples of political survival. We'll know that God next blesses America when He puts this bug in the electorate's ear: "Cast the treacherous bums out."
P.M. Carpenter holds a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Illinois and is a syndicated columnist. Contact your local newspaper and ask it to carry his weekly column.
© Copyright 2003, P. M. Carpenter
