POTUS Goes Slightly Off-Color

by Joshua H. Liberatore

Although famous for his deep, unrestrained piety and his regard for wholesome family values, POTUS is not above venturing the occasional gauche crack when the occasion arises. Over the past eight years, the casual, folksy manner that has sometimes baffled critics, depressed linguists, and mystified foreign dignitaries, has no doubt also endeared POTUS to millions of Americans who delight to see their own lower sensibilities and visible shortcomings writ large in the occupier of the Oval Office. No one can argue that POTUS hasn’t earned his laughs, many of them the result of his deliberate provocation.

Some of POTUS’s more innocent forays into the untoward have been couched strategically in a well-placed quotation. To an audience of military support organizations and enthusiasts, POTUS recalled Marilyn Monroe’s famous 1954 performance at a USO venue overseas:

As she stood before a sea of soldiers, one officer called her “the greatest hit the Yankee Clipper ever made.” [Laughter] One awestruck sergeant who had the privilege of driving her around couldn’t help but note that: “In my 14 years of Army driving, this will be the most curves I’ve ever taken in one car.” (October 1, 2008)

A favorite quip among his editors at the Federal Register was of the more spontaneous variety, in which POTUS rendered an ironic twist on his own sincere, if often botched, attempts to speak Spanish in public. At a joint press availability with Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe Velez this September 20th, POTUS reminded his guest of the American tradition of calling on journalists personally:

PRESIDENT URIBE: We have two Juan Carlos here. A ver, un Juan Carlos de RCN y otro Juan Carlos de Caracol.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I only saw one Carlos.

Get it? POTUS himself liked the joke so much, he returned to it when Uribe called on the other Juan Carlos:

PRESIDENT URIBE: El otro Juan Carlos.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I only saw one Carlos. Speak English this time, Juan, will you?

By the time he and Uribe left the Rose Garden, the kindly Colombian President was in on the joke too:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Si. Gracias. Adios, Juan Carlos.
PRESIDENT URIBE: Dos Juan Carlos. Two Juan Carlos.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Y vamos?

Often, POTUS elicited hearty – and sometimes awkward - laughter, when he made himself the object of his own mockery. Concerning his own ineloquence:

The East Room is a fitting place to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. I say fitting because in 1860, this was where James Buchanan first – became the first President to receive an official delegation from Japan. It was a great meeting – except for one slight wrinkle. The interpreter the Japanese brought with them couldn’t speak English. [Laughter] So he translated Japanese into Dutch, and then another interpreter translated Dutch into English. I thought that was pretty interesting. People say when I speak, it sounds like Japanese translated into Dutch translated to English. [Laughter] I’m just upholding a diplomatic tradition. (May 1, 2008)

After a rousing performance by a Theodore Roosevelt impersonator, POTUS cited the bad habits of his past:

And, of course, it’s good to see President Roosevelt. [Laughter] Oftentimes people ask me, do you ever see any of the ghosts of your predecessors here in the White House? I said, “No, I quit drinking.” [Laughter and applause] But we just saw one. (October 27, 2008)

And when his own peccadilloes did not suit the humorous opportunity of the moment, POTUS poked fun at his deputy:

The Vice President tells me there’s a lot of fine fishing here, and I’m looking forward to going out and trying to catch some. I love to fish. And the good news there’s a lot of good fishing here is because the Secret Service won’t let me go hunting with him. (October 20, 2007)

Cheney’s reputation of cold mercilessness came in handy again at last year’s ceremonial pardoning of the national turkeys:

I also thank everybody who voted online to choose the names for our guests of honor. And I’m pleased to announce the winning names. They are “May” and “Flower.” They’re certainly better than the names the Vice President suggested, which was “Lunch” and “Dinner.” (November 20, 2007)

Readers following other news stories in this traditional season of presidential pardons might well have submitted two other names to this year’s White House competition – “Cheney” and “Gonzales” – but as in 2007, the softer choices “Pecan” and “Pumpkin” won the day.

A Letter from the Provinces: On Confidence

by Patrick Baker                                                                November 26, 2008

A lack of confidence in America – in both senses of the phrase – is wreaking chaos at home and in the provinces. First it caused the mortgage bubble to burst, then giant insurance and financial institutions to collapse, and it has now forced the Big Three to their wobbly knees. If only we could restore confidence in American housing, financial, and automobile markets, then we could get out of this hole. Or so we are being told.

    From the perspective on the periphery, however, things look a bit different. That is, they look to be exactly the opposite. It seems not to be a lack of confidence that has caused these problems or contributes to their dreaded permanence, but rather its contrary: overconfidence. Our financial and governmental habits have been characterized by overconfidence in an ever-rising housing market; in the “no-risk” version of the free market, thought up on Wall Street in the mid-nineties; in a stable, low price of oil; in the value of inherently worthless things; in the beneficence of greed; in the relationship of Chevy or Prudential to the solidity of rocks, rather than to their rate of acceleration in freefall; in the ability of corporations to regulate themselves; and in the assumption that there has been a captain at the helm of our Ship of State – in the form of either Congress or the Executive – even a sleepy one, or one who happened to be deaf, dumb, and blind, or even just plain dumb. All these versions of overconfidence have reigned in America at least since the Gingrich Revolution.

    And to the extent that Americans buy into the “confidence-problem” theory, they will once again be guilty of overconfidence, mired in an exaggerated and unfounded faith that this problem can be solved by government, especially the current one; or by money, either real or imaginary (since, not being backed by gold or anything else of durable value, our money is essentially imaginary); or by the same “captains” of industry who got us into this mess. If Edward Smith had survived the Titanic, would we be so eager to give him the next vessel in the shipyard? Thinking in these terms, why would anyone ever listen to Robert Rubin again? About anything.

    We should not think of the economy as some teenage boy who’s got everything going for him except the nerve to ask out the blonde sitting next to him. The economy does not need a pep talk or an encouraging glance to make its move. Nor does it need a blank check. It needs a reality check, which means first and foremost deflating the overconfidence that has allowed it to soar beyond its capacities. The economy as we have known it in the last decade needs to be popped, not propped up. It simply merits no confidence. Should we pretend otherwise only so that the unscrupulous can continue to profit before we really crash?

    So it would seem better to think of the economy rather as an airplane whose pilot is dead and whose cockpit is on fire. If we, the passengers, manage to land this thing, it would be wise not to take off again until the structural problems have been repaired and a competent captain has been found. The only thing worse than not resolving this crisis would be to relieve it through an unwarranted injection of undeserved confidence. Such would be equivalent to dismantling the warning lights that keep flashing on annoyingly as the pilot anxiously fondles the throttle.

    Saying this is all fine and good, but, as always, we passengers are powerless. Fasten your seatbelts, America – our captains have returned from the bar and are about to be cleared for take-off. I just hope they don’t crash in the provinces.

Pieces of Clothing

by Daniel Liberatore

Mob of ducks
Moves back and forth
In the water
As you sway in your hammock
And strum your guitar quietly

Cars thud tires
And a siren sounds silently in the distance
A motorboat hums

The sun spies you lying there
With thoughts spilling lengthwise
Into the lake

Hearing your world
You untuck your shirt from your jeans
And watch the ducks
With shoes undone and sweatshirt sleeping

Nature is the pieces of clothing
That you wear everyday
Today your socks match

The Benefits of Being POTUS

by Joshua H. Liberatore

For those Americans who once suffered from POTUS-envy, the high office may have lost some of its traditional luster in recent weeks. The worries attending a spiraling financial crisis, unsuccessful wars against abstract nouns, and the shenanigans of modern-day pirates serve only, it seems, to hasten the graying of more presidential hair, all under the constant scrutiny of aggressive media. Indeed, under the present circumstances, one almost pities POTUS-elect. Nevertheless, the overall package – the rent-free house equipped with both bowling alley and movie theater, the personal kitchen staffed with world-class chefs – still seems pretty good. So, with only 60 days left on the job, POTUS can’t be blamed for indulging in occasional nostalgia when contemplating the fringe benefits of his position. At the 2008 United Service Organizations World Gala on October 1, POTUS joked: “This job comes with plenty of privileges. I haven’t seen a traffic jam in 7 3/4 years.”

Not bad, when you put it in those terms, but motorcade travel has its downsides too. On most Sundays, POTUS likes to ride his mountain bike for a few hours at the Secret Service training campus, an enterprise which requires a 14-vehicle security motorcade not to mention trail companions packing heat. Not everyone’s cup of tea, you say?

Well, Members of Congress are certainly fond of hitching a ride with POTUS whenever he happens to speak in their districts. And in turn, POTUS likes reminds them of the favor, to the enraptured delight of his less well-heeled audiences. In Columbus, Ohio:

I want to thank the Members of Congress who have joined us today. Pat Tiberi, appreciate you coming, Congressman – and Dave Hobson. Very nice of them to take the afternoon off. They flew down on Air Force One, and they’re flying back on Air Force One. It’s a convenient way to travel, isn’t it, guys? (March 5, 2005)

More recently, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia:

I’m so pleased to be traveling with Congressman Nick Rahall today. I can’t thank him enough. The Congress is in session. He’s a – he’s got a chairmanship, and yet he took time to come down to fly down on Air Force One. I can’t thank you enough – it’s not a bad way to travel, by the way. [Laughter] But I appreciate you coming, Nick. (July 31, 2008)

And POTUS is right: Air Force One is definitely no shabby means of transport, especially for those quick trips to the interior. But even some of the simplest pleasures in life have garnered a new charm for POTUS during his tenure as Commander in Chief. In his remarks prior to signing an executive order designed to protect the striped bass and red drum fish populations in St. Michaels, MD, POTUS invoked another subtle advantage to traveling with a security detail:

And so we’re here today to talk about sport fishing. As a matter of fact, I’m fixing to go do some sport fishing. I can’t guarantee I’m going to catch anything. I hope that frogman out there does his job. (October 20, 2007)

As if the opportunity to rub shoulders with other world leaders on a regular basis weren’t enough! In a congratulatory speech he gave earlier this week at the Department of Transportation, POTUS offered this concise summary of his favorite presidential perks:

I want to thank you very much for the great job you are doing to make sure that across America our railways and highways and airways are working to keep our citizens moving. You have done a terrific job, as far as I am concerned. The past eight years I have not seen a traffic jam – [laughter] – waited for an airplane – [laughter] – or had my bags lost. (November 18, 2008)

Will the quiet ranch life in Crawford ever measure up?

Presidential Numeracy

by Joshua H. Liberatore

Remember when POTUS accused Al Gore of using “fuzzy math” as he made his debut on the national stage in the 2000 debates? To think what just eight years have taught him. At the time, Gore’s scowls in response to this attack earned him no praise from undecided voters, nor did they conceal a sitting VPOTUS’s insider’s knowledge of a cherished White House device. While Bill Clinton’s most famous evasions involved fuzzy forms of the verb ‘to be,’ surely the aspirant Gore had picked up something of the general art of fuzziness to which a straight-talking Texas governor was simply not privy. Let’s see what POTUS has learned since then.

In his remarks at the Associated Builders and Contractors National Legislative Conference on June 8, 2005, POTUS used an especially broad brush in describing our energy reserves:

It makes sense to explore ways to make sure that we can use corn or soybeans to diversify away from oil that come from a foreign country. We’re spending money on clean coal technology. Do you realize we’ve got 250 million years [250 years] * of coal? But coal has got environmental hazards to it, but there’s – I’m convinced, and I know that we – technology can be developed so we can have zero-emissions coal-fired electricity plants.

(If you’re wondering about the box note there, perhaps you guessed it: We at the Federal Register gently correct these sorts of exaggerations for the archival record, while leaving the original figure intact for fidelity’s sake. Left unannotated, who knows what posterity might make of our leaders’ bizarre predictions for a rosy future?)

Fuzzy math aside, the literary device POTUS is employing here is known as hyperbole, but its rhetorical opposite, called litotes, can also prove effective in certain contexts. In a familiar trope, POTUS illustrated the necessity to maintain a long view when it comes to spreading the blessings of liberty to foreign lands, here to an audience in Lancaster, PA:

But the struggle is just as intense today as it was in the ’40s and the ’50s. I must have told this story hundreds of times, that one of the most amazing aspects of my presidency was my relationship with the Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Koizumi. What’s amazing about it is that when my dad was 18, he signed up to fight the Japanese; they were the sworn enemy of the United States of America. Thousands of people died in that conflict. (October 3, 2007)

Only thousands? Another more recent example of dramatic understatement concerned the promise of American citizenship, at a naturalization ceremony at Monticello in Charlottesville, VA:

Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 [300 million]* people. They’ve made America a melting pot of cultures from all across the world. They’ve made diversity one of the great strengths of our democracy. And all of us here today are here to honor and pay tribute to that great notion of America. (July 4, 2008)

But sometimes, when neither exaggeration nor understatement fits the bill, it suits POTUS just to aim for a comfortably vague range. At a recent summit on international development held on October 21, 2008, POTUS measured American generosity thus:

Through our Africa Education Initiative, as the President mentioned, the United States has trained more than 700,000 teachers. I think you said a million teachers? Yes, I’ll go for a million then. (Laughter and applause.) Somewhere between 700,000 and a million. (Laughter.) Distributed more than 10 million textbooks – somewhere between 10 million and 15 million – and provided hundreds of thousands of scholarships to help girls go to school.

Some fairly large spreads, you say? Well, when all other techniques miss the mark, POTUS might just dismiss the value of calculation altogether. During a lecture at the National Defense University, POTUS brought mathematical comfort to an audience of defense specialists (October 23, 2007):

Today, we have no way to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat, so we must deploy a missile defense system there that can. This system will be limited in scope. It is not designed to defend against an attack from Russia. The missile defenses we can employ would be easily overwhelmed by Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Russia has hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads. We’re planning to deploy 10 interceptors in Europe. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math. (Laughter.)

Got that? So, if you’re wondering what POTUS and POTUS-elect discussed in their official transition meeting at the White House this past Monday, don’t neglect the likelihood that the shadowy arts of presidential numeracy made it onto the agenda. A mere community organizer just couldn’t be expected to grasp them intuitively.

A Letter from the Provinces: On the Promise of Obama’s Leadership

by Patrick Baker                                                                 November 8, 2008

In the provinces, Obama’s election seems to amount to nothing less than the promise of a new world order. Those of us with direct experience of American politics, however, know that Obama’s promise is much less than that. Indeed, such is the mantra even among the President-elect’s own intimates. And we are being told by pundits, politicians, and journalists alike not to expect too much from the man who will inherit Bush’s black hole. America voted for change, and now it is being reminded that change is difficult. Nevertheless, one thing has changed definitively with the election of Barack Obama: the structure of presidential power and the related style of leadership.

    In the recent past, presidents have owed much of their success to big moneyed interests, usually referred to benignly as “lobbies” or “donors”. Obama is different in that his donors – the ones who put him over the top, anyway, and especially after Super Tuesday and again in September – were hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, not big corporations. The upshot is that Obama does not owe concerns like Exxon Mobil or Halliburton anything at all. That doesn’t mean that such interests will no longer be represented. But they will have to fight now, and fight hard. The Cheney Energy Task Force – with all the geopolitical baggage it brought with it – will most certainly not be reassembled by the next president.

    Now, Obama, because of his inexperience, is going to have to rely heavily on advisors, but he will not necessarily be owned by them like Bush was. He will not assemble a team of lackeys, and he is too strong a personality to allow himself to be bossed around by his Secretary of Defense or Vice President. Obama will not be owned by his underlings as Bush was, for the simple reason that his election owes nothing to them. Bush was chosen and then (maybe) elected president as an acknowledged arm of the Republican National Committee. He knew that he was in the Oval Office to rubberstamp the decisions of RNC higher-ups; they got him into power, and he believed that the whole point of the office of the presidency was to execute their will. Bush’s style of leadership followed the chairman-of-the-board model. The chairman represents the will of the board (the cabinet) and the stockholders (the party); for the most part he is a figurehead, while day-to-day operations are decided by the company’s president – in Bush’s case Cheney, and for a time Rumsfeld, now Paulson. Leadership on that model means getting all these forces organized and then getting out of the way to let them do their job.

    Obama, on the other hand – like Bill Clinton in his day – owes nothing of his election to the Democratic National Committee, and so he has a free hand. They need him, not the other way around. Obama also has a very different idea of leadership. As a community organizer, he learned that the chief needs to listen to constituents and advisors, but that ultimately he must be the one to make decisions and set policies. He then entrusts their execution to his officers, who appear to be and think themselves to be – and in a sense become – the real actors. This model of leadership is described countless times in the second section of Dreams from My Father. It is both effective and responsible. It is based on the ombudsmanship concept of governance, which entails sifting through the people’s whims and desires to find and represent the true public interest.

    Obama’s real promise is that he can free Americans from the childish whorishness that has typified governance ever since the Gingrich Revolution. First under a Republican Congress and then with a Republican president, the Grand Old Prostitute listened to people’s most irrational whims, decided which of these tricks it could turn most easily and for the most amount of money for its rich friends and unscrupulous lobbies, and then offered them on a platter. In a sense it represented the public interest, but only if interest is identical to unreflected, base desires. Republicans promised no taxes, no oversight, no services, no government – not worrying that Katrina might hit or that infrastructure would collapse, or that their fantasy wargames would have real-world consequences.

    The ombudsman would never spring for such ideas, because he knows that one of his essential responsibilities is to protect the people from its own shortsightedness, ignorance, and often just its stupidity. Obama’s promise is that he will return the presidency to this model and thus to its basic function: that of actually governing. Such is the promise, at any rate, that his leadership holds for the whole American empire, from the capital to the provinces.

Generation O: Obama, Hope, and a New Normal

by Tricia Guest

The last thing I wrote on my chalkboard as I left my classroom on Election Day was “Congratulations Senator.” As much as I wanted to think that Barack Obama had the election wrapped up, there had been too many articles about the Bradley Effect and one too many McCain-Palin signs in my solidly middle class neighborhood for me to be more confident. I figured I would be a good sport no matter what the turnout was and show my second and third graders support for the new president.

    When I was able to fill in “Obama!” and display Wednesday’s morning Detroit Free Press, I was thrilled. I had every intention of being a good sport and congratulating McCain if he had won, but I was certainly glad I did not have to fake a smile.

    There has been much in the paper in the post-election media blitz about the amazing, almost unbelievable, accomplishment of Senator Obama. The first African American president, son of a single, working-class mom, who worked his way up the political food chain before the age of fifty. Photographs of African Americans dancing in the streets of downtown Detroit until the wee hours of the morning after the official results were in dominated the paper. Much was made of Obama’s inspirational candidacy and victory, especially in terms of how he will inspire black children and serve as the ultimate role model.

    As I was writing my congratulations on the board, I thought of my first group of students – about seventy five black children in the poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta. When President George W. Bush won his first term, sixth grader Charles came in crying, worried that the new President “was going to take away [his] check.” The next eight years did not supply much hope for Charles or his classmates in the way of opportunity or reassurance that someone would give them a chance. My students did not have much hope for themselves, no matter how many times I told them that hard work would benefit them in the long run. Despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges they faced, especially in the era of Bush the Second, a handful of them are now enrolled at Mississippi State University; I would love to be able to celebrate this victory with them. Obama will likely give their peers and younger kids still enrolled at Threadgill Elementary more tangible hope, hope that is much more meaningful and realistic.

    Eight years later, I am teaching in a classroom that is the polar opposite of my first one: predominantly white, save a few Asian students. Fully-loaded SUVs line the parking lot every morning and kids report on weekend trips to apple orchards and skiing vacations. I spend so much time reading children’s literature and working out math problems in preparation for lessons that it is hard for me to leave my teacher mode; I still almost automatically think of situations through the eyes of one of my second graders. When they saw the newspaper hanging from the chalkboard, I do not think they necessarily thought of President-elect Obama as being black, but rather as the future President of the United States. I think that is the most important feature of this election – that Barack is not only a black man who will be President; he is a hard-working, charismatic, well-spoken man with ideals and values in line with the American philosophy. It will be normal for my little guys to see him represent them.

    Not seeing color is ridiculous, as Stephen Colbert, the fake news anchor extraordinaire, jokes about frequently. The comments are as ridiculous as he means them to be. It is not that I don’t want my kids to acknowledge that Barack Obama is black, but rather to acknowledge him first as their President, and realize secondly that he happens to be black. I want them to see the First Daughters playing with their puppy on the South Lawn and recognize that the girls are not too much different from them. They will obviously see his color, but I don’t believe it will play a major role in the opinion they later form of him and his politics. Eight-year-olds, white or black, will probably concern themselves more with the dog’s breed than the girls’ skin color.

    The historical significance of Obama’s achievement will be learned in high school history classes, when students are forced to memorize the date Obama was elected and possibly have a vacation day on his birthday. Maybe that is when they will think back to second grade and realize that the newspaper hanging on the board was not just a note of congratulations but instead my best effort to help them see how remarkable it was way back then to witness an African American first turn a dozen or so states purple, and finally swing them toward true blue on election day.

    The very red suburban community in which I teach has never held diversity as one of its greatest values. Republican campaign signs were almost as common as jack-o-lanterns a week ago. I first assumed this was due more to fiscal conservatism, and some religious conservatism, but I think there was some racism involved, too. A colleague’s playing The Jeffersons’ theme song in the teacher’s workroom and calling it the new National Anthem lost all comedic value when it was followed by the comment, “Well, I hope they are happy now and stop complaining about racism.” I understand that some of the adults I work with have much further to go in changing their worldview than do my students. Their ignorance is rooted not only in racism, but also fear: fear that the ease with which my coworkers and I have been able to capitalize on the opportunities handed to us might not be so easy for their kids to come by, as if an Obama presidency threatens their sense of entitlement to the tools and outcomes of success. Obama will not take away this opportunity from the middle and upper classes, but he will make sure that children from all races and walks of life will have the best shot at those resources. But in the grip of this irrational fear, they might conclude that the world is not designed for their children’s eminent success. That would be scary for any parent until they realize that more opportunity does not have to come at the expense of the privileged, but that the privileged might have to work harder, too.

    The refreshing discovery is that my students do not and will not feel this imaginary fear. They will be diligent in their studies, maximize their talents, and accomplish great things alongside kids who were inspired by Obama to overcome poverty or racism or a poor educational foundation. A typical black family will be the one at the White House, doing ordinary family things. My students are the future leaders of our country, with the potential of growing up with a more sensible view of race than that of their parents’ generation. In one election cycle, Americans may have helped deter the spread of racism.

    This political victory is historically – and emotionally – significant for the African American community. I cannot fathom what it must be like, after decades of elementary school teachers telling kids only half-heartedly that they can dream big, to actually see the sky light up with hope. Obama has not walked an easy road; teachers like me can now point in complete sincerity to the photo of the forty-fourth president and honestly tell my students that no matter what road they take, as the Obama campaign mantra suggests, they all can.

    The newspaper still hangs from the chalkboard right between the map of the United States and the daily rotation schedule. I will probably replace it with a photo from the Inauguration, and possibly hang up a picture of the newly elected President next to the flag. Every time they stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, they will see their President and be reminded that everyone can, and with determination, we will.

Politics and the Art of Distraction

by Joshua H. Liberatore

If it’s been a while since you’ve seen Wag the Dog (1997), or if you’ve never seen it, now is the ideal moment to give it a fresh viewing. Two days before Americans go to the polls in what are expected to be record-high numbers, I can’t think of a better two-hour syllabus for gaining an appreciation of just to what lengths our political system will go to make sure its vested interests remain entrenched and secure. And if you are finding yourself a bit weary of the campaign talking points – the numbing idealism of the Obama catwalk, the sinister depravity of McCain’s stumping – a good political satire might be just enough to energize your trip to the voting booth. But satire done right is never soothing, nor is it meant to be. While there are laughs to be had in Wag the Dog, the dark realities that our laughter is meant to cast in new light are as troubling as they are true.

    First, a quick synopsis. In order to quell the breaking story of alleged sexual impropriety involving the president and a Firefly Girl, a crack public relations team gathers in the bowels of the White House to devise a plan that will deflect the attention of the ravenous media and the swayable American public. It is less than two weeks before election day, and the popular incumbent must be allowed simply to coast his way into a second term. Any scandal, no matter how dubious or absurd, could destroy him at the polls and bring to power an opportunistic senator lacking scruples. Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) is the specialist tactician called in to lead the effort, and in his beard, wool hat, and cozy sweaters, he is calm, decisive, and ruthless – an unusual but attractive picture of the backroom Washington operative. Within hours, he concocts the basic plan: with the help of a Hollywood production squad led by Stanley Motts (Dustin Hoffman), the White House will fabricate a war against Albania – chosen because Americans are expected to know nothing of the place – and finesse the news cycle away from pedophilic sex toward the firm ground of national security, a guaranteed bestseller.

    The media campaign necessitates the full suite of propaganda tools: memorable but meaningless catchphrases, calculated symbolism, staged photo opportunities, even a few theme songs. In the single best scene of the movie, songwriter Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) directs a mixed-race gospel choir in a rousing rendition of “Guarding the American Dream” with what looks like a glockenspiel mallet as Stanley watches gleefully from behind the glass of the recording booth. By all calculations (poll data cited throughout), Americans seem to be buying the ruse. When the rival candidate, with the help of the CIA and FBI, tries to counter the media blitz by announcing not that the war is a sham but only that it has abruptly ended, a new twist shifts the focus onto the frenzied rescue of an American sergeant, William Schumann (Woody Harrelson), said to be caught behind enemy lines (in actuality, he’s incarcerated in a U.S. military prison). To keep the public entranced and emotionally attached to this narrative, Conrad and Stanley initiate a hilarious national trend that involves jettisoning pairs of old shoes onto tree branches and electrical wires to show solidarity with “Old Shoe” while a second theme song is hurriedly recorded and stuffed into the stacks of the Library of Congress for convenient “discovery.”

    What’s perhaps most shocking about watching Wag the Dog in 2008 is to observe its uncanny prescience. Made a year before Bill Clinton asked lawyers to parse the word “is” in the Monica Lewinsky show trials, and a full five years before George W. Bush was transformed overnight from a pathetic silly-billy into a messianic warmonger, the film reveals some curious insights about our perennial political games and some particulars about our lamentable present. In Wag the Dog, the creative Hollywood minds to whom we entrust so much of our credulity function as plausible foils for the real-life think tanks and lobbyists that influence our policy and budget appropriations. They are organized, they are supremely well funded, and they know how to meet tight deadlines. Those that do the job well are those that best captivate audiences with the most compelling narratives. Success is not predicated on rational strategy or commonsense problem solving but on effective storytelling. And when the story itself sags, sound, image, and special effects collaborate to wash away the leaks in the design.

    This November, our national story is certainly sagging. A serious financial crisis is at hand. Wars against abstract nouns rage on without cease, with an overextended military straining the operational budget and inflating the mounting debt. Unemployment plagues many states and cities. In short, there’s a lot indeed to be distracted from. In the past week, U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan conducted cross-border raids into neighboring Syria and Pakistan, respectively, killing eight “militants” in the former, and at least two dozen in the latter. If anyone noticed these signs of an escalating war on terror, nobody seemed to be talking much about it, nor has the U.S. government recognized the likelihood of civilian casualties. The presidential campaigns failed to make mention of them, or if they did, nobody watching cared. Given that Obama and McCain locked horns over the theoretical advisability of widening the war on the Taliban and al Qaida in two televised debates, their subsequent neglect of an actual air strike on Pakistani soil seems both bold and willfully dishonest.

    Other unsavory news includes the breakdown in negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement with the “sovereign” Iraqis, who understandably have serious concerns about the draft resolution they’ve been presented and will be unlikely to approve it before the expiration of the current U.N. mandate that grants U.S. forces legal authority to remain in Iraq on December 31st. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the various factions putting pressure on him are haggling over the precise date of withdrawal of forces and the matter of jurisdiction over coalition misdeeds. McCain likes to scold Obama for his unwillingness to recognize the success of the mythical surge. Obama wisely demurs; perhaps he has read reports from the many informed experts who argue that the troop surge’s association with decreasing violence is a classic instance of correlation without causation. In fact, ethnic cleansing – the systematic dismantling of mixed Shi’a and Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad and other cities – is chiefly responsible for whatever calm is said to exist. The other factor is the rarely-discussed program by which 100,000 Sunnis, many of them former insurgents, are simply paid – with U.S. supplied funds - to halt their resistance and instead join the employ of the goverment-sponsored militias, the Awakening Councils. Not very democratic these trends, but this war was never about spreading democracy, regardless of what President Bush chooses to believe.

    Mere details, you say? For the Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, and Pakistanis at the core of these untold stories, the details matter. Of course, few Americans want to be reminded that our wars are not going well: the “bad” war of choice that Bush will bequeath his successor is no nearer to “victory” than it was before the much-lauded “surge” came into effect; the “good” war in Afghanistan is deteriorating with each week of continued violence. These are unpleasant stories, and on the eve of the most important election in a generation, few seem interested. Meanwhile, our candidates make appearances on “Saturday Night Live” and “Letterman” and pay sportsmanlike homage to the studio altars of our national obsessions. Our news media track stories about Sarah Palin’s costume allowance, Obama’s immigrant aunt, and John McCain’s eight houses. We are caught up in hundreds of narratives at once and the endless patter of competition simply overwhelms us, exactly as it is meant to. Who will prove the more successful manipulator of our affections is still hard to tell, but the prodigious fortune spent toward this end projects a very ugly trend that is neither new nor necessary, as some have suggested. It turns out that truth imitates fiction in strange ways, in a striking inversion of the premise of Wag the Dog: instead of a phony war distracting American voters from the antics of an insipid political campaign, we have an increasingly superficial political campaign distracting us from the fallout of an ignoble war.

A Letter from the Provinces: On McCain’s Final Days of Desperation

by Patrick Baker                                                                 November 2, 2008

In the provinces we have been bewildered by the McCain campaign’s last desperate attempts to save itself from oblivion. Bewildered, and disquieted. Ever since the selection of Sarah Palin, we have watched with mounting unease as the McCain machine rummages ever deeper in the skeleton closet of America’s electoral past in search of the right whip to drive the electorate to irrational fear of the opponent. Sadly, they seem to believe that only a frenzied, frightened, and hateful populace can hand them victory.

    First there was Bill Ayers. With dazzling sleight of hand, Palin linked Obama through Ayers to contemporary terrorism, thereby suggesting an unspoken connection to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida. This was really nothing new, considering the continuous but untraceable attempts to depict Obama as a Muslim, and the stress, even at official Palin rallies, on Obama’s middle name, Hussein. But this was different; this was proof, right? The willful association with Bill Ayers also had another aim: to conflate Obama, who has no connection to Sixties culture, with the extreme radicalism of that age. As such it was an attempt to fit this election into a worn-out mold, characterizing it as a choice between the respectable upholder of traditional order, and the irresponsible, often violent whims of ignorant youth.

    Then there was socialism. When Bill Ayers’s viewer ratings dropped too low, McCain turned to the antiquated but tested tactic of red-baiting. Out of nowhere he transformed Obama’s keen observation about our progressive tax system – that its aim is indeed to spread the wealth around – into the slogan of a revivified Eugene V. Debs campaign. At the same time McCain aligned himself with a cartoon character known as Joe the Plumber. For the benefit of vapid voters these two have agreed to share the same fantasy universe of straight capitalism, in which Joe, as an unlicensed plumber in arrears, does actually make over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually, and where McCain, taking on the guise of yet another cartoon character, Grover Norquist, would never dream of taxing him at all. Anything else would be as un-American as sturdy bridges in the Midwest.

    Now, with less than forty-eight hours until election day, the question is whether McCain will risk it all on a last roll of the tried-and-true dice of irrationalism and hate. Will he race-bait? In one sense he already has. His campaign’s praise of “small-town values” and average “Joes” acts at least in part as an understood blame for what are often called “urban problems” – “urban” of course being the current euphemism among politicians, journalists, educators, and sociologists for “black.” But will things get uglier? In the third week of October, McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, suggested that low numbers on the home stretch might necessitate highlighting Obama’s relationship to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright – something McCain earlier pledged he would not do. If snippets of Wright’s incendiary sermon do make their way into prime-time attack adds, it will be for one purpose only: to terrify ignorant Americans with the image of an angry black man supposedly inciting his following of thousands to rend their teeth on the “real America.”

    McCain has been an illustrated dictionary’s entry for desperation ever since the South Carolina primary of 2000. That was when he learned that mavericks were tolerated by the RNC only so long as they shot off their mouths, not their guns. His about-face on a host of issues sacred to the back room of the Republican machine – tax cuts for the super- wealthy, the status of evangelical religion, even the acceptability of torture – show where his desperation has driven him, and the lengths to which he will go for power. Will a man who has already sacrificed his honor, indeed his very self, in his bid for the presidency resist the temptation to trample on the vestiges of racial harmony in America? And should he win by using such a tactic, what will happen on the streets of our nation? As Americans get set to decide the fate of the whole world, it feels strangely comforting to watch it from the provinces.