Has anyone considered that maybe George W. Bush is a lying, conniving fucking weasel?
Good ol’ Lyndon Johnson is credited with one of the most fundamental truisms in politics, specifically when it came to disseminating bad information about opponents:
It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Make them deny it.
Johnson knew it was the confrontation of the issue that sank people, careers, institutions… you name it. While the justice system believes you are innocent until proven guilty, public opinion doesn’t work that way. Say the same thing over and over again, and people will eventually believe it. Just ask John Kerry what people think about his military record.
Here’s where I’m going with this. According to the AP: “Court papers filed by the prosecutor in the CIA leak case against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby said Bush authorized Libby to disclose information from a classified prewar intelligence report. The court papers say Libby’s boss, advised him that the president had authorized Libby to leak the information to the press in striking back at administration critic Joseph Wilson.â€
That’s all fine and good, and I’m happy as hell that the prosecutor has become capable to officially file this. What’s more important, however, is if this White House can deny it and get away with it.
I’ve spent the last six years in shock and awe (that’s where all that went). I’ve watched an administration repeatedly, baldly, bluntly tell the world it was going to do whatever it wanted and get away with it. Not only has it done that, but it’s done it all really, really badly. Like redefining incompetence badly. Not only did you smoke in the non-smoking section, but you used the grease dumpster in the kitchen as an ashtray and burnt the restaurant down. And then you said you were going to go to another restaurant, because the service sucked. And everyone said, “Well, he seems so dosh-garn country-bumpkin charming that it must be bad service, because no one could be so stupid as to use a grease pit as an ashtray and blame a waiter.†But you did. And you went to another restaurant and you smoked there too. And you burnt the block down. And you just kept on accusing waiters. That’s how bad.
But no matter the arson, no matter the blatant corruption, lies, mismanagement and incompetence, he’s still there.
Anywho, my point isn’t really about the issue. My point is that in the last 12 hours, I’ve seen link after link headlining “Bush Authorized Leak.†Catch it on TV or radio, and pretty soon you’re hearing rather memorable quotes from the President in the last year or so saying how much he hates leaks and will use every power at hand to terminate anyone in his administration who does leak. It’s everywhere.
There’s a picture being painted in the collective conscious of a smoking gun in the hands of George W. Bush – a guy who will probably be the first to attest that facts are meaningless because perception defines reality.
My concern is will this administration just… keep getting away with shit at no consequence? Any other administration, any other time, it’d be the weenie shrinker of weenie shrinkers. But this isn’t any time. This is a time when record voter turnout gave a 0.000001% margin to a guy who shouldn’t have gotten the 0.000001% margin the first time. This is a time when approval ratings have hit the second lowest of all time – just above Richard Fucking Nixon – and Congress isn’t sure if he’s done anything wrong, much less done something so horrible that they would at least officially shake a finger and call him a bad boy. Besides getting a b.j. from a fat chick, what the fuck do you have to do to get fired in that city?
Have we – you, me, them, Congress, everybody – reached a point of blind apathy so complacent that it just keeps going? Will this be the test that this administration can’t pass, or will this be the test that proves Lyndon Johnson’s theory wrong?
