Will 2004 be remembered as the year of the great conservative crackup? Has the Bush administration and its phalanx of rightwing pundits, talk radio shouters, party-line newspapers and TV news channels grown so intoxicated with power as to leave the majority of Americans feeling uneasy? Could something like what happened to the Democratic left over the follies of the Woodstock generation during the Vietnam era be happening to the Republican right? That is, that many independent voters decide that the party has gone off the ideological deep end and no longer represents people like themselves. Actually, I ought to have written "the great pseudo-conservative" crackup. Philosophically, there’s nothing remotely conservative about the utopian fantasy of turning Iraq into Iowa through bombs and torture chambers, as many libertarian thinkers have argued from the beginning, or about using the "war on terror" as a pretext to claim for President Bush dictatorial powers to imprison with no trial anybody he deems an enemya constitutional monstrosity recently thrown back in Bush’s face by the same U.S. Supreme Court that installed him in office.
The vote in Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld was 8-1, with only Justice Clarence Thomas willing to appoint George W. Bush judge, jury and jailer. A true conservative would say that if history teaches anything, it’s that once seized, such tyrannical powers will be abused, a conviction embedded not merely in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but the Magna Carta of 1215, for heaven’s sake. Until last week, Bush didn’t think those documents applied to him.
Anyhow, here’s a thought exercise for readers inclined to call me an elitist, un-American sicko for questioning Bush’s motives. Write these four words on a piece of paper: "President Hillary Rodham Clinton." See what I mean?
Or try this on for size: "Two Rodham Clinton opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn’t be there because they were wearing shirts that opposed the president." That exact sentence appeared in a news story about a recent Bush campaign appearance. Since when do Americans get cuffed for disliking the president?
But I digress. Because it’s apt not to be a lofty abstraction like habeas corpus or the First Amendment that convinces people that the Bushies have gone too far. It’s just as likely to be something silly, such as Vice President Dick Cheney telling a U.S. senator, on the Senate floor, to go bleep himself—this, because Sen. Patrick Leahy asked questions about Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, being awarded billions in no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq, then doing stuff like billing the government for thousands of meals U.S. soldiers never ate.
Now where I grew up, it’s common to hear the bleep word used a half-dozen times a minute in discussions of, say, baseball. (" Bleep the Yankees, but didja see the bleepin’ catch Jeter made? That bleeper’s a gamer. ") But Cheney used fighting words, big talk from a guy surrounded by Secret Service agents. Then he went on FOX News to boast about how manly it made him feel." Bring ’em on, "eh, Dick?
Some of the administration’s more easily shocked constituents, however, may find it unsettling to hear the vice president use contemptuous profanity even as the Bush administration contemplated fining NBC because Bono, the Irish rock star, blurted out that a song was" bleepin’ brilliant" on a TV award show.
In other news from the fruitcake right, Rev. Sun
Myung Moon had himself crowned at a ceremony attended by numerous congressmen
(including several Democrats) at the U.S. Capitol. According to Salon,
which first reported the incident, the Korean bankroller of the right-wing
Washington Times gave a speech claiming that "Emperors, kings and presidents...
have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none
other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."
He also boasted of reconciling Hitler and Stalin in the spirit world. With
conservative pundits riled up over allegedly unproved insinuations in Michael
Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11," it was business as usual at The Washington Times,
which published a column doubting Bill Clinton’s contrition over the Monica
Lewinsky business on the grounds that the Clintons "have had a pact for
decades: He gets to fool around with women, and she gets to fool around
with women (plus the occasional man like Vince Foster)." Think that’s tasteless,
mean and crazy? Then how about the Bush campaign e-mailing 6 million videos
comparing prominent Democrats to Adolf Hitler? The ad juxtaposes snippets
of Al Gore, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry criticizing Bush
with footage of the Nazi dictator in full rant. Called "Kerry’s Coalition
of the Wild-Eyed," the ad can be viewed on the Bush campaign’s official
Web site. So you’re a Nazi if you don’t like Bush? Good luck selling that
story.
• Free-lance columnist Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient
of the National Magazine Award.
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