Platitudes, Precedent and Penis.

The news-entertainment complex has achieved another spectacular. From the glory days of Reagan, to the astonishing election of King George, the only logical outcome in the recall in California was a victory for Schwarzenegger. Madison avenue is purring. And so much fun to come.

Bush the Second was elected President on his own terms. He was allowed to choose the location and even the moderator of the few debates he had with Gore. He quickly learned that all he needed to do at an election rally was to mention Clinton and the crowd was energized. Details are for Democrats. And almost a majority of the electorate bought it.

In a stealth campaign, he bussed his way from Houston to Washington, unexamined. A loyal member of Yale’s arcane Skull and Bones Society (as is John Kerry), mystery still surrounds the President of the United States and that’s how he wants it. We do not know, for example, whether Bush ever read (or when he read) the Statement of Principles (1977) set out by the Project for a New American Century, (PNAC), and we will not know.  

On first name terms with the world media, Schwarzenegger sashayed from celluloid to Sacramento, unexamined. He also chose when and where he would participate in live debates and won. Ideas, substance, experience: blah, blah!

Tom, Peter, Cruz et al were trapped in a remorseless media vortex. There was no competition and the Times of Los Angeles is demonized.

The gossamer candidates triumph amidst a fawning, cowering media and a docile electorate. The victorious covert campaigns give way to even more covert and obscurantist administrations.

What a shocker!

In a study funded by the US Government, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, the authors concluded (among other things) that political conservatism is significantly associated with "mental rigidity and closed-mindedness, including increased dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity, decreased cognitive complexity and decreased openness to experience."

It is also associated (according to the report) with fear, anger, aggression, pessimism, disgust and contempt.

Phooey! There must be better ways to spend tax-dollars.

In admonishing President Bush to take charge of his White House, the mild but savvy Senator Lugar of Indiana stung like a wasp. All buckle and no balls, Bush was incandescent with rage that his macho Commander–in-Jump-Suit image should be so bluntly and publicly questioned by one of his own. Unable to disparage Lugar’s patriotism, Karl Rove is already working on juicy (but jinxed) photo-ops of Bush the Leader. Man among men.

After all, if you can’t control a few silly neocons, how are you going to control the world! Or the “international commons of space and cyberspace,” as recommended in the PNAC’s September 2000 report Rebuilding America’s Defenses.