Bushspeak: It just ain't funny anymore

By Jaime O'Neill
Paradise Post

It would be funny if it weren't for the horrendous consequences, and it stopped being funny a very long time ago.

Still, we laugh to keep from crying. Laugh at the contorted logic and the bungled syntax. We laugh at the baldness of the lies and the transparent cunning of the attempts to divert and deceive and manipulate us.

We laugh at the spectacle of a great nation being run by a "decider," a man who now presumes to warn us about our addiction to fossil fuels after having devised an energy policy concocted by a cabal of oil company execs way back in 2001, a group of plotters whose identity is still being hidden from the public, though it is certain that Ken Lay was among that number.

We laugh, but the laughter sticks in our throats as the cost of the war in Iraq tops $10 billion a month in what amounts to an oil company subsidy that, along with the death toll, makes the cost of our commuting more extravagant than solid gold toilet seats.

When this president instructs the people he serves about the need for hydrogen-based fuels, we laugh at his condescension because he trusts we will forget the active stance this administration has taken against conservation, against alternative fuels, against taxing gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs. We laugh when he speaks to us in that patronizing tone reserved for the youngest of school children, but it just ain't funny anymore.

It ain't funny anymore to be led by a man who makes the United States of America a dangerous laughingstock throughout the world, a man who thinks Pakistan is an Arab nation. ("I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a ... force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world." George W. Bush, mistakenly identifying Pakistan as an Arab country, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 3, 2006.)

It ain't funny anymore when he tangles his words in ways that reveal his utter perplexity with issues that swamp his ability to think. ("I strongly believe what we're doing is the right thing. If I didn't believe it I'm going to repeat what I said before I'd pull the troops out, nor if I believed we could win, I would pull the troops out." George W. Bush, Charlotte, N.C., April 6, 2006.)

It ain't funny anymore to hear him fumble his way through a tortured sentence only to arrive at the very place he began, stating the obvious in terms so starkly circular they seem to be the honest expression of an empty head. ("No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that." George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 22, 2006.)

It ain't funny anymore to be represented in the world's capitals by a guy who sounds as though he would be more at home as a character from "The Simpsons," sitting on a barstool at Moe's and offering a dunce's insight on matters large and small. ("Wow! Brazil is big." George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005.)

And, as his approval ratings slide and the nation awakens to the damage done, the fear increases that yet another deadly diversion is in the making, a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran in order to once more rally political support at home and forestall the loss of Republican power in Congress during the midterm elections.

And though he continues to paper the walls with his brainless bon mots, it just ain't funny anymore.

All but his die-hard supporters know this. You don't see many of those Bush/Cheney bumper stickers up here on the Ridge of late. It seems like maybe a whole bunch of people have come to their senses, or sobered up, or grown a conscience or a brain.

These were people who thought it was a pretty cool idea to put a moron in charge of our health, our safety and our national security. These were people who thought it fit in nicely with U.S. traditions to go invading foreign nations whenever we got a little shiver up our spines. These were people who thought unfounded fears constitute a foreign policy. They were people who were cool with the idea and the practice of torture as an instrument of that foreign policy. They voted for all that bad stuff, and they were awfully proud of that support, plastering it all over their bumpers last November, even though they've gone out and peeled those bumper stickers clean off since then.

But just a few months ago, they were the people who didn't seem to know which side their bread was buttered on, who thought big tax cuts for the richest 1 percent and big debt for their grandchildren were going to be a real good thing. They were people who seemed indifferent to whole lots of considerations that should have given them pause, little things like the future of the planet, the right of a woman to keep government from interfering in her reproduction, fair treatment for veterans, and a due respect for the Bill of Rights that ensures Americans certain inalienable rights.

These were people indifferent to corruption on a grand scale, to thieves and thugs like Dick Cheney, whose very face advertises his villainy. Now, with gas prices soaring, they see what happens when foxes are put in charge of the henhouse, when our government works for Halliburton and not us.

Now, like all those good Germans who claimed they knew nothing about what Hitler had been up to, these people peel the Bush/Cheney bumper stickers off their cars, now that the damage has been done.

And it just ain't funny anymore.

***

Jaime O'Neill is a widely published freelance writer.

Amen.

Ditto

What he said.