Revolution Vs. Totalitarian Nightmare Please
Celebrate the confirmation of Torturer General Mukasey with Frank Rich at NYT, as he laments the Coup at Home!
AS Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activists in Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’s two most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.
Much as Musharraf has declared a State of Emergency, suspending the constitution, postponed elections, shoved aside judges and detained lawyers, so has Bush … won a Democratic majority Senate’s confirmation of his attorney general. Tyranny!
Along with his mouthful of sour grapes, Rich is chewing on this malformed nut of recent hist … rionics:
In the days since, the coup in Pakistan has been almost universally condemned as the climactic death knell for Bush foreign policy, the epitome of White House hypocrisy and incompetence. But that’s not exactly news. It’s been apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq, a country with no tie to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction, while showering billions of dollars on Pakistan, where terrorists and nuclear weapons proliferate under the protection of a con man who serves as a host to Osama bin Laden.
Universally condemned climactic death knell epitome of hypocrisy and incompetence suicidal proliferate host! That’s a mouthful! Unfortunately, it’s the kind of graph that is an acquired taste … you have to have swallowed an awful lot of crap before you’ll find that appetizing.
But there’s another moral to draw from the Musharraf story, and it has to do with domestic policy, not foreign. The Pakistan mess, as The New York Times editorial page aptly named it, is not just another blot on our image abroad and another instance of our mismanagement of the war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It also casts a harsh light on the mess we have at home in America, a stain that will not be so easily eradicated.
In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite. That’s why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug.
If Rich has a better idea for dealings with Pakistan, Afghanistan post 9/11, he doesn’t mention them. Therefore, we have to infer for ourselves. We should have invaded Pakistan, not Iraq! Saddam should still be in power! Not the evil Musharraf.
Anyway, Rich doesn’t actually give a damn about Pakistan, Iraq, bin Laden, etc., in this piece. Those are just Bush-bash brickbats. What he laments is the fact that lawyers are taking to the streets in Pakistan, where the evil Musharraf is busy being overtly evil, not in Washington, where the dictator Bush, inept chimp apparently also a devious mastermind, has an undeclared State of Emergency and has lawmakers detained under his spell.
This is a signal difference from the Vietnam era, and not necessarily for the better. During that unpopular war, disaffected Americans took to the streets and sometimes broke laws in an angry assault on American governmental institutions. The Bush years have brought an even more effective assault on those institutions from within. While the public has not erupted in riots, the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like General Musharraf’s.
More Machiavellian still, Mr. Bush has constantly told the world he’s championing democracy even as he strangles it. Mr. Bush repeated the word “freedom” 27 times in roughly 20 minutes at his 2005 inauguration, and even presided over a “Celebration of Freedom” concert on the Ellipse hosted by Ryan Seacrest. It was an Orwellian exercise in branding, nothing more.
How dare President Gitmo utter the word freedom, after subjecting 300 million Americans and 50 million Iraqis and Afghans to his totalitarian rule!?! Anyway, blah blah blah, etc., getting to the point: How come America hasn’t risen up against this tyranny?
We are a people in clinical depression.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty rosy, ready to break into song on this beautiful, crisp, sunny morning in November. A lot better than I had any reason to think I’d feel a year ago. The Democrats have failed to derail Bush’s counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq, and it’s working. All the blood, sweat and tears may yet not be for nothing. Two months out from the last year of this unpopular president’s last term, dealing with a Democratic majority in Congress notable mainly for worse polling numbers than his, the only sign he is anything like a lame duck came when he tried to go bi-partisan on immigration and succeeded in uniting both sides against him. That, and when he went for their pork in the recent water resources bill, and they finally managed to override a veto. Don’t mess with the pork! That’s when you’ll get American lawmakers protesting in the streets!
Curious how, in one of the greatest examples of how our system works exactly as it is supposed to, the people have spoken in congressional elections and declared themselves divided, a sorely tested balance of powers has shown itself still in balance, with a free and lively election to replace this controversial and allegedly dictatorial president underway, this is when the call for revolution is raised.
Both thumbs up for a Rich tour de force of BDS. Or maybe, just BS.
Welcome Punditeers! Even if I was in a Rich funk, it would cheer me up no end to see you. Come on in. It’s veterans day. Here’s to all who’ve ever found themselves One Bullet Away. You’d think on Veterans Day weekend, Rich might find some other subject matter, but nooooo. Speaking of Musharraf, there may in fact be a limit to his usefulness and it looks like he’s trying to find it. It’s probably wrong to speak ill of the dead, but that usually depends whose wife is being gored. Important film news. If only plants could talk. Hey, this one did. So, pilgrim, do you think American are bonkers?
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:58 am on Sunday, November 11, 2007
25 Responses to “Revolution Vs. Totalitarian Nightmare Please”
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November 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
During that unpopular war, disaffected Americans took to the streets and sometimes broke laws in an angry assault on American governmental institutions.
I detect a distinct nostalgia for those heady days of running wild in the streets, smashing windows and throwing sacks of dogpoo at police like a carefree adolescent.
November 11th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
RebeccaH, what he is really upset about is that the revolution just seemed to peter out. In the end, no one stormed the White House. Instead Nixon resigned and left, not because of the war, but because of he was an actual criminal who let his paranoia get the best of him. There’s a lesson there for Lowry.
I never read Lowry. Now I am reminded why. Hideous mediocrity.
November 11th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
This is a signal difference from the Vietnam era…
Rebecca, “nostalgia” is not a strong enough word. Or maybe this is an early on set of Alzheimer’s Disease, and Lowry just thinks it’s 1968.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Could some one recount for me how the heck we got Rich Lowery out of Frank Rich? I’m buffaloed and bamboozled (What ever the heck that is?).
Is F. Rich even old enough to remember the scene?
Is he feeling vicarious nostalgia? How about virtual nostalgia?
Enquiring minds have a virtual thirst for the answers. Frank Rich has a virtual thirst for a nap so he can dream up further crusades ala Duranty.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
During that unpopular war, disaffected Americans took to the streets and sometimes broke laws in an angry assault on American governmental institutions.…recall Lyn Lear this time last year..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyn-lear/why-is-the-white-house-so_b_32121.html
Pathetic, these crusty old liberals are.
I’ve done my errands and sent a package for Soldiers’ Angels. Now, I’m going out for my jog, then I’ll rake the glorious fall leaves, take a nice warm shower, make a steak with a bottle of cab and then make chocolate chip cookies!
November 11th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
The NYT is not credible any more. Neither are most of the print media and the TV media.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
An inversion of that old line the hippies Rich is nostalgic for used to throw around 30 years ago: What if they threw a revolution and no one came?
November 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.
There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.
- Stephen Colbert
November 11th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Greenwich Village explosion
On March 6, 1970, during preparations for the Fort Dix bombing, there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house. WUO* members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbins died in the explosion. Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escaped unharmed, Wilkerson running naked from the apartment and encountering the wife of neighbor Melvyn Gussow, the theatre and movie critic.
Ahh yes, the good old days. We need the kind above days, once again. Sissies.
*those that are younger WUO…Weather Underground Org aka, Weatherman
November 11th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
That was a clever Frank Rich parody, wasn’t it? In any case, it had me laughing out loud.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
MikeH says: Could some one recount for me how the heck we got Rich Lowery out of Frank Rich?
It’s that damn old-timers disease playing keep-away in my brain again. Apologies all around.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
saltydog
No need for “apologies” and we all still love you.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Yes Frank Rich is old enough to be ‘nostalgic’ for the good old days. In fact he fits almost the perfect profile for those most radicalized by the Hippie Effect.
1. Born in 1949 (one of the two worst years if he started college on time, 1948 was the other)
2. In college at the peak of campus radicalism
Of course, this is all just MY analysis: http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2007/01/so-long-hippies-just-not-soon-enough.html
But I am always amazed at how close victims of the Hippie Effect fit the curve.
Cinchers: He also has the added unquantifiable markers of havng gone to Harvard at the time AND studied Literature.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
It sure has been depressing sitting out here in the Bay Area watching the Bush-Cheney brown shirts round up leftists, democrats and other low-lifes for the boxcars and re-education camps. And wasn’t it awful how they shut down moveon.org and carted its principals off? Things are so bad that I can’t even imagine anyone being foolish enough to publish a piece slanderoulsy critical of the Bush administration in a major newspaper. No, it just couldn’t happen …
Viva the revolution! We must off these tyrants and replace them with paragons of true democracy - those devotees of free speech and fair play who have made sure that even republicans and conservatives can voice their ideas at places like Columbia and Berkeley without being shouted down, where the president of Harvard University can raise ticklish scientific issues without being houded from his job, and where even athletes accused of rape can be sure of fair treatment in the press (or at least a fraction as fair as that accorded to former Presidents credibly accused of the same crime). How positively wonderful is this brave new world that Mr. Rich wants us to enjoy.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
“…there was an explosion in a Greenwich Village safe house…”
We should never forget that on the Sunday before 9/11 the New York Times ran an adulatory feature story about an unrepentant 60’s terrorist. Today’s “liberals” really do have an incurable crush on thugs and monsters.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
“The Pakistan mess, as The New York Times editorial page aptly named it”
Good to know his reading is so wide it extends to… the page he appears on.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Frank Rich’s “analysis is not worth the paper it’s written on. He is an hysterical liberal who had much more influence when he reviewed - and could shut down - Broadway musicals. In his current position as run-of-the-mill ranter, his audience is limited to the converted, so he is harmless and perfectly safe to ignore. And if we really want him to go away, that’s what the rest of us should do.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
We are a people in clinical depression.
We == NYT writers.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Jules wrote “How come America hasn’t risen up against this tyranny?”
I’m sure Rich is really thinking, “Because not everybody listens to MEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
The real reasons are, of course, 1) the left’s perception of tyranny are false, deluded drama-queen hysteria; 2) there’s no draft.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I’m just so glad TimesSelect was killed and the loony, antiquated rantings of Rich and co. are once again on full display for our delectation. Not that *I* would waste my time reading them, but these insanities need to be shown the light of day by bloggers well-suited to handling that task. Thank you! Good to know Rich is still a total BDS nutjob.
You know what’s funny — Pinch restricted Rich’s freedom of speech with TimesSelect way more than Bush could ever dream of doing. Yet in Rich’s mind Bush is the fascist. And so it goes with the idiotic Left.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Saltydog, what El Cid said.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
PST314: The article you are referring to is
“The Way We Live Now: 9-16-01: Questions for Bill Ayers; Forever Rad” by Hope Reeves in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine on Sept. 16, 2001.
No URL, but you can search for it using the NYTimes.com search function. It was no doubt in press on 9-11.
However the article that really burned was
“Life With the Weathermen: No Regrets for a Love of Explosives” by Dinitia Smith in the NYTimes on Sept. 11, 2001. [also no URL]
“I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. “I feel we didn’t do enough.” Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970’s as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. ”
The NYTimes is staffed and run by slime.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
A friend has a 9 year old granddaughter who observed “The ones who are complaining about it are the ones who are doing it.” Her observation was gleaned from the news and aimed at the Rich gang
It’s thrilling to learn about short folks who can see that well.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:54 am
“In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11…”
Rich’s article is 100% nonsense, but that line is especially hilarious
The leftoid “principles” Rich is referring to exist only in his addled brain. When liberal Democrats (like him) ruled this country we supported mass-murdering dictators like Stalin and Chiang Kai Chek (both of whom were infinitely worse than Musharraf), and when we captured saboteurs (terrorists) they weren’t sent off to a nice comfy tropical paradise concentration camp in Cuba, they were rushed in front of a military tribunal, tried and executed within a matter of weeks (for which see ex parte Quirin).
And we all know how the liberal Dems wage war…just look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki for an example of how far they’ll go to win a war.
The hogwash Rich is spewing (we used to be really nice guys, but now the evil Bushitler regime has changed us into monsters!) is a fairy tale.
Rich is an utter and complete idiot.
November 12th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
“It’s been apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq”
Sure, Frankie, that’s why Saddam Hussein rules Iraq, Iraqi troops are occupying Washington, and George Bush has been executed for war crimes by the triumphant Baathists.
What a total ass.