by Shawn Hammond (your guest blog friend for a Thursday night because Michael is too busy to be your friend)
I wish this administration was as good at creating sound policy as it is at writing whiz-bang screenplays.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer made the most comically naive comment I've heard so far, with something like, "The highlight of the night had to be the embrace between the soldier's mother and the Iraqi mother, whether it was scripted or not." Whether it was scripted or not? What the hell?
This multimillionaire veteran journalist wasn't sure if it was scripted? He thinks maybe the two just decided to stand up in the middle of the biggest news conference on earth? Yes, it was touching. Seriously. It was impeccable theatrics, too.
In a nutshell, the State of the Union convinced me that this administration is the George Lucas of politics: They're unsurpassed at lining up what appears to be a dream-team cast full of diversity and talent--different races, women, decorated military figures, etc.
Likewise, they spare no expense in making sure they have the slickest production in every performance (such as the GOP convention, the inauguration, and last night). Like Lucas, they studiously go over the laundry list of Hollywood blockbuster techniques to make sure they use every trick in the book: Just like Lucas, this administration never fails to have a huge budget to finance revolutionary special effects, big-name performers, and incredible sound effects. Yet, just like "The Phantom Menace" and "The Clone Wars," every time this White House puts on a big gala it's pretty much devoid of value to anyone with a semi-sophisticated worldview. It has practically no relation to reality. (Certainly they're not the first to do this, but they are without doubt one of the best at it.)
The only way in which Bush & Co. upstage Lucas is that they know how to write better lines for public consumption. If you aren't acquainted with the disparity between their paeans to virtue and their true methods of operation and more-jaded and creepy unspoken rationales, their rhetoric--especially in Oscar-worthy performances like last night's--seems like honey-soaked manna from heaven. When you are familiar with the disparity, their much-sweated-over and focus-group-approved script rings as true as Anakin Skywalker's laughable, lifeless professions of love for Amidala in "Clone Wars." "I die a little every day since you've come back into my life."
Pshaw.
If Bush's language last night were rooted in reality, I'd jump up and down clapping and hooting every other sentence like those Republican jackasses did. It's not, though. So their responses come across like high-school kids rooting for their team regardless of anything else.
Can anyone deny that Sunday's election in Iraq was historic? No. Is the story over? Hell no. The fact that people casted ballots is not proof positive that this enterprise has succeeded. We'll see in the coming years whether it did. Nevertheless, the true point is easily overlooked: With the world's most powerful military, we could feasibly lay waste to despotic governments (not to mention untold thousands of innocents) around the globe. But is it our responsibility? Is it our right? Is it moral to ignore genocide in Sudan but to invade Iraq? Is it moral to overlook countless other human tragedies around the globe and to instead inflict more suffering in the name of grandiose themes that sound good in internationally televised "news" performances?
Should we underfund our pathetic education system and overlook poverty, injustice, and affliction in our own land so that our president can attempt to put himself in the history books alongside names like Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte? I guess if it's entertaining, why not, eh?
Because of this administration's masterful production team, it seems just about everyone loves Bush right now. Our consumer society has already thrown away the jaw-dropping knowledge that these guys are serial liars with a constantly rotating rationale for going to war and another Hollywood-worthy collection of outlandish policies and procedures. But, hell, if it sounds, looks, and feels good, it must be good, right? Why else would the last two Star Wars pieces of shit make ungodly sums for Mr. Lucas? And why else would so many laud the president as some sort of Saintly Hero and willingly lay aside established fact to the contrary? It's all about the show, my friends.
It's acting...merely acting.
