Wednesday, March 04, 2009

How Close the Bush Bullet

By Robert Parry
March 4, 2009

Earlier this decade when some of us warned that George W. Bush was behaving more like an incipient dictator than the leader of a constitutional republic, we were dismissed as alarmists, left-wingers, traitors and a host of less printable epithets.

Read on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of your best assessments, Robert. Thanks. May I add that, if Bush was the bullet aimed at the heart of Democracy, radical conservative talk radio was the gun powder as well as the Justice Department. Now is the time to get rid of Rush Limbaugh. But how
How do you topple the Rush Limbaugh paranoid machine? Exposure! Exposure! Exposure!
Remember the McCarthy era, when the nation looked at the man as one big pain in the rear, but inconsequential? It took an Army General on television to reveal McCarthy for what we really was - - a hateful human being "with no sense of decency," who propagated lies day after day and ruined thousands of people's lives and scared Americans to death with the message, "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are coming! They are everywhere, maybe in your neighborhood or backyard." The backlash from that confrontation completely destroyed McCarthy's paranoia machine and he ended up in the psychotic ward of a Washington hospital, receiving the treatment he needed (and cried out for in his unconscious acting-out way) for years. Rush's message and tactics are much the same - - "The liberals are coming! The liberals are coming! And they are bringing socialism to your neighborhood and destroying American freedoms and Democracy!" He has propagated thousands of inaccurate, narrow-minded opinions about just about everything and everybody - - like a 400-pound, drug addicted god, he speaks from radio heaven and relegates those who disagree with him to a hell of a life ruined or an election lost or a marriage spit or a child committing suicide. He builds up nothing, rather he panders hopelessness, fear and lies. He preaches the nihilism of Frederick Nietzsche with the certitude of a Communist dictator and at the same time enjoys the legitimacy of a listening audience that is two-thirds Christian in faith. Shame on the religious right, which has lost the true spirit of Christ's teachings for an orthodoxy of hateful political activism. Christians fondness is nothing more than a bargain with the devil's messenger. My friends, it is time for a new Army General to step up to expose Rush Limbaugh for what he really is, says and causes in terms of tragic human, civil, political and religious outcomes. Rush has enjoyed a "get out of jail free" card from the national press for too long. I am speaking about the big guns like ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, NPR and Fox. It is time for exposure, because Rush is vulnerable on many fronts. He is vulnerable in terms of his personal life, habits and 400 million in wealth earned as a minister of hate. I do not have time or space to elaborate. However, the true account of these facts will trim the number of his listeners significantly, maybe drive him from radio for lack of sponsors. It is a story of addiction to power with all the usual concomitant episodes of slander, money under the table, kickbacks and bribery. He is vulnerable in terms of philosophy and message. He is vulnerable in terms of a record of thousands of inaccurate and outrageous statement - - many of them contradictory. He is vulnerable in terms of the record of how many people he has harmed by lies, driven to divorce and suicide, and driven out of office. The record of the human misery he has caused matches that of some Banana Republic dictators. He is vulnerable in terms of his claim to Christian values. But most of all he is vulnerable because the man has a Narcissistic personality Disorder with paranoid and substance abuse clinical foundations. His disorder is approaching the Malignant Narcissism phase, with visions of grandeur and belief that his mouth and influence can get him out of any mess. Thank God he does no hold any significant position of authority in government or the military. If the reader thinks this information is inconsequential, he should know that the recent tyranical rulers of Russia and Iraq suffered from the same illness. So, will another Army General please step up and take down this sad representative of humanity - - this modern day McCarthy - - and move the American public from the view that Rush Limbaugh is just a pain in the rear to the realization that he is one of the most dangerous and destructive forces to Democratic and constitutional values in America, as well to human beings who get in his way. Who will be that messenger? Who will step up to the plate and hit a home run over Rush's media fences that will land in the hearts and minds of the American people? Who, indeed?
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Anonymous said...

I don't understand why John Yoo and David Addington were given ANY credence. I suppose they were cover for Cheney-Bush?

But why haven't they been prosecuted for sedition (yet)?

I suppose if the "truth" investigations ever get going, Yoo, Addington et alii will be the first called and, I trust, pilloried.