Friday, January 23, 2009

They're Like Cockroaches

We'll never be rid of the Bushies. In addition to the already ongoing revisionist history effort known as the Bush Legacy Project and the cover-ups and obfuscation of the historical record exemplified in my previous post, it's clear that another tactic will be distraction through hysterical attacks on the new Administration.

Case in point: former chief Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. Yesterday, he penned an op-ed in the WaPo that amounted to rooting for another terrorist attack on the US so that Obama could be blamed for his new policies banning torture. Today, in the NRO, he follows up:

It’s not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Seriously. Re-read that statement and think about just how insane it really is.

I know it's hard -- we've become inured by the relentlessness of the rightwing noise machine that's been in overdrive since at least the early days of the Clinton Administration. The tactic is to trot out an amoral wingnut to say something even further over the top than what was said the day before. This has two purposes. First, it gives fresh talking points for reinforcing the calcified mindset of people who get their "news" from Fox and AM radio. Second, it causes the MSM to react to a perceived new goalpost by redefining the "middle," as in "the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle."

And, of course, if the MSM doesn't move far enough, fast enough, or uncritically enough, the playbook calls for trotting out another wingnut to claim that "the liberal media is in the tank," which the choir will eagerly echo.

Never mind that, in reality, the MSM is filled with chin-strokers who appear unable to decide whether their favorite topic is how the Obama Administration has failed to deliver or how destructive it would be to investigate the Bush Administration; the whole point is to keep the spineless quivering. The constant, underlying drumbeat is fear, fear, fear.

You watch. The ugliness has only just begun.



[Added] More revisionism. More denial of reality. And another ineradicable cockroach.

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