Brave New Bushworld ~ Governance By Propaganda

It's certainly not news to those of us who've been paying any attention at all for going-on-8-years now. So can we finally muster the political will to impeach the bastards before some other country tries them for war crimes?

Your Demon has to applaud Scott McClellan, even though everybody else, right and left, is vilifying him. He has, albeit hamhandedly, and for a price, written a tell-all memoir about his days as White House Press Secretary that finally begins to sound closer to the truth than what we've been hearing all these years. The book is what it is, and doesn't carry any particularly surprising information. Its failures and shortcomings, too, are rather pedestrian for the genre: 1. He wasn't to blame for parroting lies and misinformation; 2. He believes that Georgie, too, was misinformed and ill served by conniving advisors when he wasn't engaging in "self-deception"; 3. the MSM shares some blame for being too credulous in the run-up to the war.

Therein lies the cause for the very noisy controversy.

The LA Times says, "Get McClellan a press secretary!" Talking heads on all the late nite shows yesterday were huffing and puffing (if they were media types) how outrageous it is that the man feeding them cotton-candy lies and spin wants to blame them, serious journalists, for not pushing McClellan harder! The gall!

A very few pointed out that, er, he was right.

Right-wingers' heads were exploding all over print and the web yesterday and today. Karl Rove said of McClellan's opus that it sounded like it was written by a liberal left-wing blogger, the worst invective he could think of, no doubt, to hurl at the former denizen of the holy inner circle ~ treason, that's what it is!

Since when, Karl probably wants to know, is propaganda and spin a bad thing to the inner circle and workings of the Republicon machine? Weren't we all agreed that Americans are too stupid, lazy and uninterested to deal with reality? ~ feed them dreams, glory, righteousness, and leave the dirty business of running the country and the world to those who know better!

The Bush White House promptly proved McClellan right in its denials and spin: three people, including Rove and Dishy Tart Perino, said the exact same thing (no echo chamber here): "It doesn't sound like the Scott McClellan we knew." Suggesting, of course, that liberal bloggers had taken him hostage, or drugged him, or that he has gone completely and inexplicably off his nut.

He couldn't have suddenly sprouted a conscience and seen what all but the less-than-30% of the hard-core dead-enders have also seen: Bushco is the greatest fraud perpetrated on this country, EVER. We've just very nearly escaped a new brand of NeoCon fascism. McClellan is not the first to have noticed and sounded the alarm, and I daresay he won't be the last. It's getting harder and harder for the Radical Right Wing to shout down and/or demonize the few left who don't see what they're all about. I guess we should all be thanking our lucky stars they got too arrogant, greedy, and careless. If Bushco had been more competent...I shudder to think.

What amuses your Demon most, however, is that the same media accused of complicity by McClellan is pumping this story through the roof mostly as a result of its indignation~ while the very recent Pentagon-War-Profiteer Pundits shoulda-been-a-scandal, flogged by those same media? Nary a word, still. How dare McClellan call them complicit??

If you haven't read the excerpts from McClellan's tell-all that's set Washington afire, check the Politico link for the scoop on the CIA Plame leak and alleged conferences between Libby and Rove to get their stories straight, McClellan's thoughts on Bush carrying the campaign spin mindset into the WH when honesty was needed, and the "denial" Bush experienced over Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10649.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/28/AR2008052803030.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/washington/28mcclellan.html

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/clarke-and-mcclellan-2004-and-now/

Way to go, McClellan. Pretty impressive for a guy seemed to be destined to play minor hack and toady on the big world stage of history. You've almost redeemed yourself. And bitten Bushco's ass big time in the process, probably despite yourself.