What this administration knows about governing – it’s all about image
The popularity of my post yesterday about the media being banned from NOLA leads me to comment a bit further upon the strategies behind this media control.
See, the problem with Abu Ghraib wasn’t torture, it was the pictures of the torture. The problem with Fallujah wasn’t the civillian casualties, it was the pictures of the casualties. The problem with the more than 2000 dead US soldiers in Iraq wasn’t the dead soldiers, it was the pictures of the flag-draped coffins of the dead soldiers.
In the same vein, the problem with Katrina isn’t the massive deaths and flooding, it’s the pictures of the massive deaths and flooding.
In the same vein, Bush isn’t a preznit without first-responders around him as props. If that means grounding flights while he’s touring the disaster area so that 3 tons of relief supplies don’t get delivered or 1,000 firemen who rush over from another state are sent into 2 days of sexual harassment training and then used as props in a photo shoot, so be it.
You know why they (and by “they” I mean “Rove and the GOP controllers”) do this? Why they are so blatant and shameless about it?
Because it works.
The sheeple of the American populace don’t care enough to find out that we have a Potemkin presidency where imagery and politics trumps reality and policy. They’ve been trained by numerous sources, particularly television to respond to some core fight/flight adrenal soundbite topic, such as gay marriage! or flag burning! or welfare queen!, and to hell with everything else. Note: two words and/or 3 syllables max seem to be the current meme threshold. Get yer bumperstickers ready.
That anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking can see what an amazingly thin facade covers the corruption, ineptitude, and arrogance of this administration says more about the laziness of the populace than it does about the nonextraordinary evil of the grassfuckers in charge. The imagery of Our Dear Leader as strong, resolute, take-charge, successful, and compassionate executive is just that – imagery. The smoke and mirrors worked quite well for the Wizard as well.
We, the People, are getting what we deserve. Bush is the fruits of our nonlabor. We have no one to blame but ourselves. I’m tired of living in Munchkinland.