Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com

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The Way We Were

by Maureen Farrell

When I was barely two, my mother trained me to toddle over and kiss the TV screen whenever President John F. Kennedy appeared. The idea, they tell me, was simply to rib my Nixon-loving father, but a strange phenomenon occurred. While I eventually overcame my inexplicable addiction to handsome and brilliant but oh-so-wayward men, to this day, whenever I hear JFK's voice reaching out across the History Channel void, I stop and listen intently.

I have few delusions about Camelot, however, and had pretty much decided that this charged attraction was not due to Kennedy's wit or his intellect or even his way with words, but was largely the product of my own early conditioning. Last week, however, after watching George W. Bush bumble his way through his interview on NBC's Meet the Press, I realized that it's much more complicated than that -- and suddenly, "the dumbing down of America," ceased to be a mere catch phrase.

Bush's highly scripted press conference on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom also provided a glaring clue, as did the Washington press corps' Stepford behavior. [BuzzFlash.com] And the surreal post-press conference commentary raised a bevy of red flags -- especially when, despite a gazillion signs that the president and his posse had itchy trigger fingers, Newsweek's Howard Fineman depicted Bush as a "reluctant warrior" who was being dragged into battle. "If he's a cowboy, he's the reluctant warrior, the Shane in the movie, strapping on the guns as the last resort because he has to, to protect his family," he told Hardball's Chris Matthews.

Nearly a year later, however, in a Feb. 11, 2004 Newsweek Web exclusive, Fineman was singing a different cowboy tune:

"This country simply has no history of going to war half-cocked and trigger-happy. Our ideal is the reluctant warrior; Alan Ladd in "Shane," Gary Cooper in "High Noon." We aren't (and don't think of ourselves as) quick-drawing gunslingers who shoot first and ask questions later. To argue that the best way to keep the peace is to act on the edge of recklessness is Real-politik of a certain chilling sort. . . If we have to change our national character, the president needed to tell us why. He didn't."

Why did it take Fineman so long to realize that his Shane was a sham? As early as the fall of 2002, when Congressman Jim McDermott was being pummeled for saying that the president would "lie to American people in order to get us into this war," BuzzFlash knew the score:

"Despite former weapons' inspector Scott Ritter's assertion that there's no proof Hussein has amassed weapons of mass destruction, Dick Cheney says there's "no doubt" he's got them and plans to use them. During the Cuban missile crisis, John F. Kennedy relayed photographic evidence proving the Soviet Union was up to no good. Where's the proof now? Why hasn't the administration won over our allies? Why do so many doubt there is "no doubt?" [BuzzFlash.com]

And though Colin Powell's U.N. performance was advertised as an Adlai Stevenson moment (with even Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory saying, "I'm Persuaded"), it seems that America's standards in just about everything -- from its leaders to the truth to civility -- have plummeted. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, quotes are worth a thousand explanations. Compare and contrast, if you dare:

War

"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war." – John F. Kennedy, June, 1963

"F*ck Saddam, we're taking him out!" -- George Bush, 2002

Peace

"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. . . I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children-not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time" -- John F. Kennedy, June, 1963

"But the true threats to stability and peace are these nations that are not very transparent, that hide behind the, that don't let people in to take a look and see what they're up to. They're very kind of authoritarian regimes. The true threat is whether or not one of these people decide, peak of anger, try to hold us hostage, ourselves; the Israelis, for example, to whom we'll defend, offer our defenses; the South Koreans."
-- George W. Bush, March, 2001

Got the picture? Scary, isn't it? Issues of war and peace are only the tip of the Twilight Zone iceberg. For your consideration, then, here are further musings from statesmen, citizens and honorary citizens that give a glimpse of some of the ways we've changed and, even worse, some of the ways we've stayed the same.

High Office

"The President is at liberty, both in law and in conscience, to be as big a man as he can be." – Woodrow Wilson

"You know, I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office." -- George W. Bush, 1989

Guarded Insights

"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed managed to wangle slots in the Army Reserve and National Guard units." -- Colin Powell, My American Journey, 1995

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." -- George W. Bush, 1994

Pretend Patriotism

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." – George Washington

"George W. was a hottie in his flight suit. He was the victorious commander, and most of all he looked at home with himself. He glowed with the pride born of authenticity, declaring the war over and thanking all those appreciative sailors on the decks of the Lincoln." – Susan Fields, the Washington Times, May 2003, following Bush's "Mission Accomplished" Top Gun stunt

Casus Belli

"We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations." – Thomas Jefferson

"Bush and Blair have been making plans for the day when oil production peaks, by seeking to secure the reserves of other nations." -- George Monbiot, the Guardian, Dec., 2003

Corruption

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -- Samuel Adams

"Four generations of building toward dynasty have infused the Bush family's hunger for power and practices of crony capitalism with a moral arrogance and backstage disregard of the democratic and republican traditions of the U.S. government." -- Kevin Phillips, Jan. 2004

Fear

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." -- Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 1957

"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." – George W. Bush, Oct., 2002

Dissent

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. " – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

"[The Bush] administration is trying to criminalize dissent, characterize protesters as terrorists and trying to intimidate and marginalize those opposed to its policies." --- Michael Avery, president of the National Lawyers Guild, Feb. 2004

Military Spending

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.. . . This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

"President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex and its potential to take over the country. We're ignoring his admonition. Congress won't let us close military bases to save money. Worse yet, Congress is spending trillions of dollars on weapons systems, the next fighter jet, national missile defense, more aircraft carriers and nuclear missile submarines. The justification for this gorging on weaponry is to defend against the dangers of $1.49 box-cutters." – John L. Graham, Nov. 2003

The Media

"The (American) press, which is controlled mostly by vested interests, as an excessive influence on public opinion."-- Albert Einstein, 1921

"What mass media don't discuss much is their own role in public opinion and public ignorance, two measures that run hand in hand. That half or more Americans think Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack -- perhaps the most media-covered event in our history -- stands as a horrific indictment of U.S. media today. Such levels of ignorance can't be found in other countries." - Jeff Cohen, Dec., 2003

Compassion

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." -- Henry James

"Please, don't kill me." -- Gov. George W. Bush, with lips pursed in mock desperation, mimicking death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker (after ordering and presiding over her execution), Talk Magazine, 1999

War Profiteering

"Like any other racket, [war] pays high dividends to the very few. . . But there is a way to stop this racket. . . It can be effectively smashed only by taking the profit out of war. . . Let the officers and directors of our armament factories, our gun builders and munitions makers and shipbuilders all be conscripted--to get $30 a month, the same wage paid to the lads in the trenches. Give capital thirty days to think it over and you will learn by that time there will be no war. That will stop the racket--that, and nothing else. – U.S. Marine Commander Smedley Butler, Forum Magazine, 1934

"The best way to explain the Carlyle Group is to use a euphemism that Dwight Eisenhower employed back in the 1960s, when he was leaving office. He warned the country of something called the military/industrial complex and that is probably the best way to describe what the Carlyle Group does. . . George Bush Sr. is working for this company that is the 11th largest defense contractor in the country at the same time his son is in office waging war. . . It is clearly a conflict of interest. And conflicts of interest lead to potential corruption." -- Dan Briody, NPR, May, 2003

Power

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." – James Madison

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." -- George Bush, Dec., 2000

Enemies Within

"As a matter of fact, it is the fascist-minded men of America who are the real enemies of our institutions." - Harold L. Ickes, 1937

"Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." -- The Los Angeles Times, August, 2002

Public Disservice

"To inform the minds of the people and to follow their will is the chief duty of those placed at their head." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Throughout his campaign for the presidency and his years in the White House, Bush has mugged the truth in many other areas to advance his agenda. Lying has been one of the essential tools of his presidency. To call the forty-third President of the United States a prevaricator is not an exercise of opinion, not an inflammatory talk-radio device. Rather, it is backed up by an all-too-extensive record of self-serving falsifications." – David Corn, The Nation, Oct., 2003

Liberty Lost

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." - Charles A. Beard, 1935

"Attorney General John Ashcroft lashed out Thursday at critics of the administration's response to terrorism, saying questions about whether its actions undermine the Constitution only serve to help terrorists." -- CNN, Dec. 2001

Truth

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." – H.L. Mencken

"[Martin Sheen]and other anti-war celebrities, including Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, have been labeled "unpatriotic," or "un-American." The Dixie Chicks, for example, won several Grammys this year, but their criticism of President Bush still has radio listeners calling for stations to quit playing their music, and many stations have. Columnist Richard Johnson of the New York Post headlined more than a dozen entertainers as ‘Saddam Lovers' and urged readers to boycott their work." --- ABC News, April, 2003

Justice

"It will not be enough to stamp out anti-democratic practices in the land of our enemies. The conditions which created Fascism there must not pass unnoticed here. Their first and most dangerous symptom is always the same everywhere: an abandonment of equal justice to all. . . "-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black, 1938

"The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system. . . . " -- the Washington Post, Dec., 2002

The American Way

"We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of the few. A Republic cannot stand upon bayonets, and when the day comes...we must rely upon the wisdom of the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions." -- James Madison, the Federalist Papers

"[T]he big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?" – Paul Krugman, Feb., 2004

Of course, it would be easy to prattle on like this if it were not so distressing. God knows there are countless quotes that could fit countless categories, with, some, like "Incompetence," affording far too many samples to choose from. According to Gore Vidal, for example, when JFK received his highest approval rating after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he noted that "It would seem that the worse you fu*k up in this job the more popular you get.'" (Bush's high approval ratings in post 9/11 America give credence to that).

Or what about a slight reality check? Kennedy also quipped, "Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Nixon and the White House."

Now that everyone from John Dean to Hunter S. Thompson have deemed Bush and his buddies worse than Tricky Dick, it's time to take stock. Yes, boys and girls, when the Nixon years become the "good old days," happy days are most decidedly not here again.