loosie: words: Clanton's Rant

Clanton's Rant

Bloody days in Iraq make Ohio a true red state.

by Clanton McNeese | 2005.08.09

For George Bush, the deaths of the Ohio soldiers provided “a grim reminder,” one more bloody string around the finger that pointed the way to war. The president produced the requisite words of regret that another twenty reservists were dead, but his resolve remains unshakeable: every American casualty confirms the rightness of his invasion and every setback renews his confidence in its outcome. Bush’s beliefs transform bodies into arguments against change. U.S. military losses can occur only in victory, never in vain. George Bush strikes a pose as the leader of a beleaguered garrison, the last best hope of civilization.

To the president, bombs in England and threats by Zawahiri offer evidence that our invasion of Iraq is defensible and effective. But George Bush would have drawn the same conclusion had there been no terrorist blasts on the London Underground, and had al-Qaeda stayed silent. On the simple map that Bush follows, all routes lead to the same destination.

As the newly dubious stray from the flock of the faithful, Bush has announced a plan for American disengagement: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down,” he chants, with all the self-satisfaction of a kindergartner who has mastered a treacherous stretch of the alphabet. Even a casual observer could point out that many of the Iraqis who stand up are soon shot down, but the president is undaunted. For good reason: undoubtedly America will decide when the Iraqis are sufficiently erect, and when U.S. troops can justifiably abandon the hot sands, leaving an endangered nation to its fate.

Bush delights in calling himself “a wartime president,” and his domestic policies clearly do little to feed his ego unless he can couch them in heroic terms. Thus, it is a bold George Bush who can risk touching “the third rail” of American politics in an odd assault on Social Security. It is a visionary George Bush who can lead the nation to energy independence by tossing billions in tax breaks to his old associates in the oil business. In his defense of Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales and even Rafael Palmeiro, the president conveys a message that is all about himself: George Bush is a stand-up guy, reality be damned.

This president treads a national stage on which he flaunts his uncanny ability to play contrasting roles simultaneously. So he can be both combative commander and macho underdog, both second-term president and Washington outsider. He is a privileged child and a regular guy. He is a New England prep school boy in dusty cowboy boots. Not since the poet Walt Whitman has one man contained such multitudes. To all the roles, however, there is one shared theme. George Bush must ever play the hero.

It has become commonplace to refer to Rove as “Bush’s brain.” But if this administration is truly following a Rovean political philosophy, it might be more accurate to think of the president as “Rove’s body.” It’s a body that Rove quivered over at first sight, when a young George Bush got off that train in Washington, exuding, in Rove’s words, “more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have.”

Rove, of course, exudes all the charisma of an eggplant. But he values what he lacks, and he immediately recognized Bush as a shining example of all the popular boys at whose hands he had suffered countless indignities. Memories of the wedgies and swirlies still lingered. Naturally, Bush was the kind of cool guy who responded to flattery as his birthright, but Rove was the kind of nerd who could offer more: the ghost-written term paper, the sober drive home, the unblinking alibi. Karl unwedged his briefs, drained the water from his ears, and got to work making a politician.

It’s a funny story, but true enough, and harder to laugh at each day. Back during Vietnam, “four dead in Ohio” was the refrain of an anti-war song that had more power for some people than the 50,000 names that later turned up on that black memorial in Washington. Ohio was a key to Bush’s re-election in 2004. Ohioans voted against equal rights for gay couples and against gun control. Now they must wonder what they voted for.