The Recent Bush Coronation Was Nauseating

The recent Bush Coronation was nauseating, and the tone of Washington, D.C. purely fascist. When the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned the Bush-Cheney junta in 2000, I was appalled. Now my regard for America is at an all-time low.

My only connection with American television is from the Armed Forces Network (AFN). A basic decoder allows us access to this programming in Europe, the Middle East and the Asian Pacific. Overall, the arrangement is satisfactory. Perhaps the best trait is the absence of traditional commercials.

However, there is a Pentagon Channel of Orwellian news about victory in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is always that pitiful, lie-spewing automaton, White House spokesman Scott McClellan. There is also CNN news – though more frequently, the shift is toward Fox News and the American fascist outlook filtered by Australia’s loveable Rupert Murdoch.

Weeks ago a news clip revealed that a retired, four-star American army general was on his way to Iraq to assess the “situation.” Part of the news featured brief coverage of Bush rationalizing this event. The president remains extraordinarily deficient in social skills and reminds me of Huck Finn, unable to expound his considerations before the Widow Douglas.

Typically, the sight of Bush hanging himself higher and higher with every unfinished verbless sentence is so distressing that I switch off immediately: I feel like a member of Greenpeace watching a month old seal pup beating its own brains out.

Saul Landau, a professor at Cal Poly Pomona University, where he is the director of Digital Media Programs and International Outreach, is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch, a liberal on-line journal.

His recent dispatch is worthy of consideration:

“President Bush doesn't allow negative news to interfere with his predictable rendition of clichés and slogans.”Iraq will be free, the world will be more peaceful, and America will be more secure," he regularly announces, as news of bloody chaos emanates from Iraq.

Bush claimed success for his 2002 "No Child Left Behind Act."

"We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing."

Studies showed, however, that charter schools ­ "options" ­ left behind lots of kids.

Bush never had to worry about his financial future yet dogmatically insists that privatizing social security will afford future generations increased security. By skimming 15% off the top as brokers' fees?

Bush's clichés remind me of how my mother tried to indoctrinate me with Shakespeare's truism: "neither a borrower nor a lender be."

In fact, Shakespeare put those words in the mouth of Polonius (Hamlet's would-be father-in-law), who continued that "loan oft loses both itself and friend."

But how would Mom or Polonius have survived in 2005 without credit cards and mortgages ­ to say nothing of auto and appliance loans? She also neglected to tell me that Shakespeare drew the Polonius character as a pedant whose lack of practical wisdom proved fatal.

This pompous bungler served as a character foil. By following his simplistic logic ­ spying on Hamlet to learn the cause of his infirmity -- he got himself fatally stabbed.

Like Bush, Polonius possessed a one-dimensional view of the world; a stark contrast to Hamlet's complexities. Hamlet reflected on experiences, analyzed his emotions and rejected facile solutions to his moral and political problems: how to avenge his father's murder and punish the murderer, the King who had married his mother?

But Hamlet's introversion led him to ignore threats to Denmark's security. His Byzantine mental process led not only to his own and his loved ones' demise, but to the conquest of Denmark as well.

Contemporary US leaders speak with the pomposity of Polonius, but lack the elementary moral foundations education that Shakespeare gave to his foil. How would Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld interpret Polonius' most famous saw, "To thine own self be true"?

For truth to surface in the Oval Office, Congress would have to create the position of "court jester," a truth-telling clown who would counsel the president on the politics of contemporary empire.

Such a truth telling clown would announce: "Nothing succeeds like failure."

He would use Bush as an example. He failed as a student (poor grades and questionable character) and a young adult (addict and shirker).

In business ventures, from oil drilling to owning a baseball team, Bush invested millions of dollars ­ of other people's money. He failed, but nevertheless grew richer, thanks to bailouts from wealthy Republicans. Stockholders, however, lost money.

Bush's friends encouraged him to invest $600,000 in the Texas Rangers. He made almost $15 million when the team was sold.

In 2000, he lost the popular vote for President in 2000, but slimed his way into the Presidency thanks to Florida shenanigans and a Republican Supreme Court. He launched an invasion of Iraq, which he called a "catastrophic success." Bush built up the US debt and deficit to record levels and divided the nation more than it had been since the Civil War.

While his hand steered the ship of state, a vast corporate scandal emerged that involved Bush's friend and campaign contributor, Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay, ENRON's Chief Executive officer. Bush emerged as a moral failure. But it didn't seem to matter.

Before the 2004 election, the public also knew that on the economic and social level Bush had delivered nothing for the majority. His tax policies, however, had made the filthy rich even filthier.

In foreign policy, after 9/11 Bush succeeded in converting immense world sympathy and support into unabashed hatred and contempt. He isolated the United States by withdrawing from important world processes like the Kyoto environment discussions and the International Criminal Court. He also lied about the reasons for invading Iraq: weapons of mass destruction and ties to the 9/11 terrorists.

If lying signifies failure, then Bush is overqualified. Bush also took more vacation time­ during a war than any other president. He eroded traditional foundations of the nation: separation between church and state. In light of this record of fiascos, he garnered some 59 million votes in 2004.

"They've seen me make decisions, they've seen me under trying times, they've seen me weep, they've seen me laugh, they've seen me hug," Bush told USA Today (Aug 27, 2004). "And they know who I am"

Yes, the voters knew. But why they chose Bush would defy even Shakespeare's infinitely complex mind. Do millions identify with Bush because he screws up?

Roman emperors had jesters to remind them that they were not God. Bush may not think he's God, but does believe God has spoken to him.

A jester would whisper in his ear: "You have power to destroy the world, but maybe it's not God who's talking to you," as he pointed downward and winked his eye­ satanically."