This is an AMAZING piece!!
Dark of Heartness, Part II: Compassionless Conservatives
by David Michael Green | Apr 20 2007 - 9:50am |
Et tu, Wolfie? Et tu?
Imagine our shock at Paul Wolfowitz's shock. He not only masterminded humanity's greatest current catastrophe, the US invasion of Iraq, but he did so by fabricating and marketing a complete mythological cosmology of Good versus Evil (Bush good! Saddam bad!), the likes of which might have left even Jim Jones envious and amazed. And he did so in a fashion that no doubt brought a posthumous smile to the face of his graduate school mentor, Leo Strauss, who taught that we of the hoi polloi don't have the right stuff to maintain our democracy, and thus need enlightened elites like Wolfowitz to spoon feed us religion and other fairytales in order to keep us on the right course, even if it's for all the wrong reasons.
But then, of course, the whole dang thing came a cropper in Baghdad, and - as if the symmetries between Vietnam and Iraq weren't already spookily profound enough - Wolfie found himself following the trail of shame pioneered by Robert McNamara, casually parachuting out of his Pentagon office and into the presidency of the World Bank. (Does this mean that, like McNamara, thirty years from now Wolfowitz will be the subject of a feature film in which he kinda sorta apologizes for his grand goof? We'll just have to wait and see if he becomes the last human on earth to recognize the full magnitude of his spectacular achievement in Mesopotamia.) Meanwhile, safely ensconced at the apex of financial (as opposed to military) power, Wolfowitz simply refused any longer to answer questions related to his previous employment. Though the dead and the dying of Iraq will not be any time soon, Wolfowitz had simply moved on.
And, with seemingly nary a whiff of irony about him, he came to his new position preaching the virtues of 'accountability'. Moreover, Wolfowitz - dictatorial leadership style no worse for wear after the last go 'round - blasted into the World Bank declaring that the evils of corruption were the key source of global development problems, and that rooting them out would become job one at the Bank. But now he and his supporters, including the Wall Street Journal, the National Review and the White House, profess shock at all the hullabaloo generated by the revelation that the anti-corruption president was ordering up massive promotions for his girlfriend (also his employee) while simultaneously preaching the gospel of squeaky clean, again with no apparent sense of irony. So Mr. Accountability is now running around trying to make sure that no one holds Mr. Anti-Corruption accountable for his corruption. Meanwhile, Mr. It's-All-About-Me is utterly uncomprehending when it comes to understanding other people's feelings about all this.
<SNIP>
Bush has no more compassion than does Nancy Reagan or Matthew Dowd. They, and their ilk, know only self-interest, and if they're ever able to miraculously find their way to favoring stem-cell research or ending the Iraq war it is only because they are personally affected and can therefore begin to start imagining other people's suffering. But still, only on that one issue. Otherwise they remain as oblivious - as sociopathic - as ever.
How did these people - the very worst amongst us - come to speak for America?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6944
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
