Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect. They live for this shit at the Times, right? A new encyclical delivered from the Bully Pulpit! Let the obeisances commence! We must attribute "vision" to the Executive, the vision must be "bold" and "sweeping." As it has been before, so shall it be again!

I refer, of course, to the latest excellent Rovian campaign scam, the Mission to Mars. And yes, the Times's sense of ritual is strong, as witness the first paragraphs of the two front-page articles (news report and news analysis) offered up to the occasion:

President Bush on Wednesday set a goal of returning to the Moon by no later than 2020 and eventually using a lunar base as a launching pad to Mars. But in a speech that offered a sweeping vision for space exploration, Mr. Bush offered little new money for his idea and few technical details.

Bush Backs Goal of Flight to Moon

The history of bold visions for human spaceflight is littered with more failures, delays and cost overruns than clear successes. The fates have been particularly unkind to Republican presidents, who twice made their ambitious ventures in election years.

Bold Visions, Many Pitfalls

Aside: For sheer pious claptrap, though, nothing beats this from the "straight news" piece: "Summoning the spirit of Lewis and Clark, who set out two centuries ago to explore the wilds of the uncharted West, Mr. Bush noted the United States' pathbreaking history in space ..." It's a wonder my gag reflex didn't completely prevent my reading on.

What fascinates me is the sense one gets here—notice how the "sweeping vision" is praised in the midst of a cautionary "but," notice the tone of regretful finger-wagging in the "Bold Visions" piece—of the Times being forced to dance on the point of a rather cruel logic. The Big Speech is a celebratory state occasion, and it's the duty of the Paper of Record to respond in kind: indeed, it could hardly be a Paper of Record if it failed to promote the rituals of Establishment Democracy. But ... damn ... the actual record makes such an awkward fit ...

'Cause, let's face it, in this context:

• Vision appears to mean, repeating more or less exactly what Daddy said 15 years ago ("In 1989, President Bush's father envisioned a permanent base on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars, and the next year he set a goal of reaching Mars by 2020, the outside target date the current President Bush has set for a return to the Moon");
• Sweeping means, uttering grand-sounding noises with as little of content in them as possible ("Mr. Bush was vague about even the basic details of a manned mission to Mars, including when the technology would be ready to make it possible");
• Bold means, setting things up so that the costs fall on whatever poor sucker comes after you ("Under the rough budget issued on Wednesday, relatively little new money would be spent over the next five years ... and the big spending would probably not come until 2014").

And so, visions of Kennedy dancing in its head, the Times bends the knee, with every outward show of piety but with a bad conscience that just can't help breaking through. The complex honesty of the courtier ...

posted by michael  7:27:50 PM  
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