No, it's a genetic thing, and there is good old Frank Devine, still fighting the culture wars, as expected in the American owned The Australian. And what does the noble Devine call his latest piece - why as you'd expect of a cracked 78 rpm shellac recording of the old school, History will smile on Bush.
This of course an easy way of getting out of present, hard reality - that poor old George was booed out of the White House with record unpopularity figures.
Never mind, in Bizarro land, it's important to dream. Frank, for example, borrowing - or homaging, as all right wing cultists with sheep mentality do - the thoughts of Fred Barnes, comes up with a nice 'what if' proposition - what if Al Gore had been in charge, and followed through on global warming? (That allows Frank to fire off both barrels of his antique shotgun in the general direction of "environmental zealots").
What if John Kerry, that "embroiderer of his own combat experiences in Vietnam", would have been in charge of the war in Iraq?
He never bothers to ask what if that service-dodging, combat-avoiding George Bush had been in charge. Would Kerry (swiftboated by people who share Devine's mentality) have been so cavalier with the lives of others?
Well shucks folks, seems to me if you actually serve, then your service should be trashed if it's librul service. Kerry didn't really stand up for country, not like George did by ducking actual warfare. Libruls don't know how to fight, or if they fight, they lie about it, pretend, make it up. Snivelling libruls.
But enough of "what ifs" - Frank could build a world out of 'what ifs' to match Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy.
No, let's talk about the hard, grinding world of politics:
"American voters also take responsibility for the individuals on whom they bestow the enormous burdens of the presidency. Respect for their achievements and understanding of their weaknesses eventually develop, even of profoundly unpopular presidents".
"Frank Langella's sympathetic, tour de force performance as Richard Nixon in Frost-Nixon is an indication of this."
"Bush, amiable and graceful of style, will have a lighter task in regaining the American public's esteem, after exiting with low, low standing in opinion polls".
Can't you just see it - poor old Frank swooning over Frank Langella doing Tricky Dick and thinking all is forgiven (you know, the way everybody forgives Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars, because heck he was just a dad wanting the best for his son, and killing a few million people and a couple of worlds along the way was his way of showing it).
You can imagine old Frank shuffling out of the theatre, tears still streaming down his eyes, thinking by god, Tricky Dick was right to bomb the shit out of Cambodia, look at Vietnam these days, a thriving communist government in charge of a thriving capitalist economy. So much achieved with a little minor destruction (pity about democracy and the dominoes).
But wait there's more: "Bush's record has been distorted by The New York Time's campaign against him: the most vicious, relentless and shallow assault on a president I have observed in many years of acquaintance with American journalism".
There you have it. It's all the fault of The New York Times. Those bloody American liberals. But wait, god has already punished them: "But the Times is suffering a backlash for its excesses in the form of of diminished circulation, earnings and reputation. The little Sir Echoes it recruited, at home and abroad (including here) would be wise to begin looking for wriggle room".
Phew, that's a relief. There are some fools out there who think the Times is suffering from the impact of the internet and the requirement to find new ways of doing business and journalism in these wired times. Stupid analysts - it's the vengeance of Bush, Devine and all like-minded sympathisers, who've just refused to do business with the wretched Times on high falutin' moral grounds. Yep God smote the people of Ashdod for their vile ways.
Sometimes you wonder whether Frank wanders into the desert, with a typewriter and without water, so he can rise to the high-minded hysteria his paranoia requires.
But that's about the best of it - then it's on to how wise Bush was in his response to 9/11 (Frank doesn't seem to have twigged to the way the Times designed the attack on the Twin Towers as a desperate, flailing attempt to boost their circulation), how wise Bush was to believe in WMDS, how wise Bush was to overcome some early minor stumbles in Iraq, how much warmer in personality Bush was than Reagan, and how wise Bush was to order the amazingly successful surge.
Then the wrap-up: "History takes more note of the outcome of military conflict than of process". (Sure, what happened in World War Two again? Never mind, SBS's programming would fall to pieces without the Nazis).
"The American commentator Charles Krauthammer sees an Iraq "turned from aggressive hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States"." (So an American loon says it, so it must be true. All that blather by the New York Times and the liberals about the alarming rise in Islamic fundamentalist tendencies in the new Shia-dominated government in Iraq is well, just blather. Unless you happen to be a woman in Iraq, but as we all know, it's entirely appropriate to beat your wife and rape her if she won't put out).
Suddenly I feel a song coming on:
Short-haired Bushies come out every night
To tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked how about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet:
You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die ...
(You see, according to the Gospel of Frank, there's too little certainty about when the seeds of the financial collapse were planted for this to have any impact on Bush's image. Sure, gonna get me some of that pie).
And what's Frank's final original thought in relation to Bush and Obama? "We should pray Bush's successor is comparably successful in handling the challenges that will confront him". Especially if Obama wants to leave office with record low popularity ratings and a general revulsion following close behind him.
Deary me, will it never stop. Will it never end? Will Bush-lovin' in the most homoerotic way imaginable never be satiated?
Just one problem Frank - poor old Shrub was so inarticulate, so inept with American English, that I defy anyone to mount a play out of any of his television interviews. You should never misunderestimate the incapacity of the man when it comes to not saying what he doesn't think, or at least mis-spoking it.
But I do see the chance of a good mainstream comedy in twenty years. Jim Carrey will be old enough, or maybe Will Ferrell. We could call it "A Shrub Too Far". Or how about "The Years of Living Dangerously"? Or what about "The Year My Voice Broke, and I decided to show my daddy I knew how to do things much better than him after I gave up the drink and got a clearer mind"?
Whatever. Stay frosty, old chum.
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