They're Shooting the Messenger Again

The GOP is desperate--radically desperate.  Never before has a political party--or a political ideology--been so singularly poised to blow its opposition completely out of the water as Democrats and progressives are today.  The criminal indifference, incompetence, and outright thefts from the citizens of America and the world have become too large for the nauseated public not to notice.

And the corporatists, the theocrats and the reactionaries are once again doing what they have done so well: shooting the messenger.

Now usually, "shooting the messenger" has meant decrying the "liberal media"--as if there were such a thing--in order to suppress evidence of their criminal wrongdoing and intimidate those who would report the atrocities.

Today, however, the messenger is of another stripe entirely; today, the messenger is a scapegoat.  

Today, the messenger they are shooting is one GEORGE W. BUSH.  He is their messiah.  Their prophet.  Their one and only savior.  And they are shooting him in ritual sacrifice, in the vain hope of saving their sorry skins.

There has been much rejoicing at ollieb's post on ordinary Republicans turning on the Great W., listing his innumerable failures and personal inadequacies.  And why not?

A Gallup poll is showing a 13-percentage point drop in Bush's support among Republicans.  Even George Will and Peggy Noonan have turned on Bush.

And ordinarily, these things might be a cause for celebration: after all, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, right?

Well, it is a cause of celebration in a certain sense, in that their standbearer is now tarnished beyond repair.  It also presents an extraordinary opportunity for progressives--but only if we do'nt let the GOP get away with shooting the messenger once again.

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You see, as Kos and Hunter have pointed out before, the problem is NOT BUSH.  It never was.

The Republicans just love to come out on TV and on their blogs and state that we crazy lefties are simply blinded by our hatred of Bush.  But this  is mostly simply untrue--and those for whom it is true have a singularly narrow view of the problem.

Bush is, in fact, a tool.  A Tool in all senses of the word.  And he always was.

He's the degenerate son of a President, who got C averages in school, ran two businesses into the ground, traded Sammy Sosa, ran up huge deficits in Texas, and is running America into the ground.  He's not that bright, and he's a recovering alcoholic and (probably) cocaine junkie.  His M.O. is to get involved in something, screw it up, get bored, and leave.

The only reason he's anybody special is because of a) his family name and connections, and b) his put-you-at-ease charisma and ability to remember names, which caught the eye of one Karl Rove.  Karl Rove thought Bush could go far, if propped up correctly.  And he was right.

But Bush himself isn't the problem, and never was.  He's just a mouthpiece--a Manchurian candidate--for the evil forces that put him there in the first place.

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And now those evil forces want to do away with him.  He's bad press now.

They want to put their Manchurian candidate out of his misery.  Disown him.  They want to shoot their own messenger.

They want to hide the fact that EVERY malfeasance done by Bush is the product of the very ideologies they have been spouting for decades.  They want to hide the fact that every criminal disaster that has befallen America and the world under this regime is the simple outgrowth of policies that they have been licking their chops at implementing ever since Goldwater's defeat.

They want to paper over their intentional neglect of the needy by calling it Bush's incompetence.

They want to paper over their enabling of corporate greed by pointing to the moral failings of Bush as a person.

They want to hide the fact that the Katrina disaster was the product of Norquist's desire to drown government in a bathtub--not of Bush's incompetence in the face of danger.

They want to hide the fact that the Iraq disaster was a product of their imperial ideology--not of Bush's incompetence in nation-building.

They want to hide the fact that the massive deficits are the product of their funneling borrowed Chinese money to millionaires--not of Bush's lack of spending restraint.

They want to hide the fact that American dissatisfaction with the economy is due to their Friedmanesque support of "free" trade--not due to Bush's inability to communicate the wonders of their economy.

In short, they would love to lay it all at Bush's feet.  They would love to shoot the messenger.

They would love to blame their rotted corn on the failure of the husk to be adequately attractive.

And we mustn't let them.

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My fellow Americans and liberal progressives, we are at a serious crossroads.  The damage is done.  The public wants a change.

But what change will we give them?

We can either be content to lay back and take satisfaction in the fact that Bush is about to be thrown under the GOP bus, or we can take this opportunity of a lifetime to destroy, once and for all (or at least for a generation) the evil ideologies of those who actually put Bush the Tool where he is today, and replace them with the progressive values that America really stands for--and always did, until this unelected coup of criminals took over.

Their cult of Kingmakers are offering up their Messiah King as a ritual sacrifice.  We can either take it--or we can storm the temple palace gates and bring them ALL down.

Their guns are turned on their Messenger.  They are goading us into setting our sights there as well.

Me?  My aim is on the Message.  What say you?