HEY! GREAT NEWS! Monday, presidential spokescreature Tony Snow and presidential counselor (is that like Dr. Malfi?) Dan Bartlett announced that the Bush administration has officially changed its stance on Iraq! We will no longer be “staying the course.”
The White House will instead be substituting another slogan that can better “capture the dynamism” of the disastrous maelstrom that Dubya not only single-handedly (and illegally) unleashed, but has subsequently made far worse at every possible term. Yeah, “stay the course” scarcely describes the dynamism of that.
So the course has been unstayed. This is good. After Dubya’s response during Katrina, when he remained on vacation for five days walking the links, strumming guitars, and sucking ice cream in the company of a band of happy children, I always thought a slogan glossing over the deaths of a lot of brown people that evoked Bush and golf was fairly inappropriate.
The White House has also recently quietly discarded “when the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down,” presumably because what with all the violence (including all the amputations), so few people in Iraq are left standing. So, what’s next? The search for a new slogan, preferably to be unveiled just before Election Day, is an urgent matter of national security. Presumably at this very moment a top-secret blue ribbon commission is empanelled in some secret bunker in the Virginia countryside, trying to come up with the perfect phrase that captures the dynamism of Bush’s military strategy [sic] in Iraq. Time is of the essence.
I’m here to help.
Because, let’s face it, the president’s closest and most trusted advisors don’t get out much. So they might well not be thinking beyond the usual apologetics that have characterized the Bush White House’s efforts to redefine reality in Iraq over the last four years. They need to be more imaginative. Bolder. Creative. More truthiness.
Try these dozen suggestions on for size:
“When Iraqis Get Shot, We’ll Shoot Up.” All that heroin being produced from Afghanistan’s record poppy crop is already headed for our shores, a triumph of the Global War on Terror that really deserves more publicity. The CIA is green with envy, or hard currency, or something.
“Cunning and Rutting.” Captures the cleverness of our military approach, plus the sexual innuendos essential to all good marketing.
”Bombing Them Back to the Stone Age.” Proven Islamo-effective: it worked on Musharraf!
“Hastening Armageddon.” Helps recapture that all-important evangelical Christian base, just in time for the midterms. Jusr think: when the rapture comes, they’ll no longer be able to vote…
“Flambeing the Course.” Alcohol and white phosphorus: what occupying army needs more?
“Let Them All Kill Each Other Off.” Appeals to knee-jerk hatred of Muslims, plus suggests that we could get all the oil after all once they’re done. Bonus: it’s fairly close to current policy.
“Protecting the Sanctity of Marriage.” It didn’t make any sense in 2004, either, and it’s proven effective.
“It’s Clinton’s Fault!” Ditto.
“Saddam: Now More Than Ever!” Why install a murderous new dictator when you already have one available and in custody?
“We’re Giving 110 Percent.” Hey, it works for sports coaches when their teams are losing.
“An Army of One.” Already being used by the Pentagon, plus it describes Donald Rumsfeld’s ideal approach to securing Iraq.
“What the Fuck?” Already being used by the vast majority of Americans.
There’s many other possibilities for a new slogan for the Bush approach to Iraq, of course. It’s a fair bet that hundreds of proto-phrases are being run past focus groups right now. And this search captures perfectly the mindset of the Bush White House. What’s actually happening out in the real world is inconsequential. All their best minds are far more concerned about how it’s perceived by American audiences. Especially in swing states.
But, ya know what? I’ve got an even better idea.
Why not change the policy instead?
I’m just sayin’.
Fortunately, time has a way of forcing truth to the surface and it now appears that the Bush administration has reached its day of reckoning. For the bulk of this year, the GOP has waged a relentless attack on Democrats…all the while convinced that they had the votes they needed to succeed in November…a virtual rerun requiring little more than the roll out of their battle tested rhetoric. Unfortunately for the GOP, during this same time frame voter doubt grew as casualties mounted, sectarian violence became civil war, assurances that the end of conflict was in sight were wrong, and, lastly, the assertions that the opposition was in its last throes proved inaccurate. Additionally, the purple fingers of democracy served little more than symbolism as the Iraqi’s almost immediately reverted to long held tribal alliances, cultural values, and religious beliefs.
With that said, it isn’t difficult to understand why the GOP is now on the precipice of defeat. While the Republican Party focused on savaging Democrats, they failed to pay attention to the all too obvious realities…realities that did not escape the awareness of the voters they took for granted. Voters saw the realities in Iraq and the unwillingness of this President to shift strategies…and that has led to irreconcilable doubts about the President’s judgment and growing skepticism for the sincerity underlying his professed resolve. The bottom line is that voters lost confidence in the attributes they had been willing to assign and attach to this President.
Now that the election is upon us, the Bush administration has apparently decided to alter their intransigent adherence to “staying the course”…because it isn’t resonating with voters…and that is giving skeptical voters the final evidence needed to doubt the President’s sincerity. When this shifting rhetoric on Iraq is coupled with revelations that suggest that the GOP may have manipulated the millions of loyal evangelical voters, I believe these moderate voters are in the process of concluding that this President is more concerned with retaining power than acting with intelligence and integrity to serve the best interests of the nation.
In my opinion, it looks to me that Rove/Bush concluded that 2006 could be won with the same strategy that succeeded in 2002 and 2004. Instead, I believe that it forced voters to view the election as a referendum on the policies and priorities of the Bush administration at a time when it could least withstand the scrutiny. It looks like voters are preparing to call a halt to this charade.
Read more here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
I think Snow said something about “Stay The Course” not expressing the subtilities in Bush’s real policy. Now I don’t want to be accused of helping BushCo out (heaven forbid), but if they are looking for a way to imply a policy that is dynamic enough to include anything like subtilities, then perhaps the slogan will need to include a few words that have more than one syllable.
But those are so damn hard to pronounce.
“Competence Is Overrated” (goes along with “Heckuva job, Brownie”)
“Follow The Money” (it worked for Deep Throat)
Or, considering the attempts to muzzle the press and quiet dissent, a good old-fashioned “Shut the Fuck Up” might be appropriate, if the folks at dKos haven’t trademarked it…
if they have, let’s see if they’ll try to collect the royalty…
clik to enlarge
“Boom goes the dynamite”…hows that for our new Iraqi policy.
“They hate us for our tax breaks.”
Hit the anti-terrorist and anti-tax buttons.
“Have you seen gas prices lately?”
“Playing the course. That’s what I said right from the start. I can’t stand how these liberals lie all the time. Why would we want to stay for gods sake? I said I’d be supporting the troops by playing a few holes with them at the Green Zone golf club.”