Welcome to the Virtual U.S.A.
Gene Lyons
George W. Bush's swaggering, cinematic landing aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln last week dramatized more than the end of the Iraq war and the beginning of Bush's 2004 campaign. It also represented the triumph of symbol over substance in American politics. The president's handlers appear to believe that a public giddy with TV images of U.S. military omnipotence can no longer distinguish between reality and make-believe.
Evidently, Bush will run as a one-man reunion of the Village People, the dreadful disco act. Having previously costumed himself as a Businessman (his ventures mostly failed), and Owner of the Texas Rangers (he had a one percent share), he's added Cowboy and Fighter Pilot to his repertoire. In reality, his Texas ranch was acquired in 1999; Bush's time in the saddle is limited to golf carts.
The Fighter Jock pose has more substance, as Bush did learn to fly F-102s during his foreshortened service in the Texas Air National Guard's renowned "Champagne Brigade" 30 years ago. The White House seemed to hint that the president himself would perform the landing aboard the Abraham Lincoln hundreds of miles at sea--far beyond helicopter range, Ari Fleischer assured the press.
That would have been a reckless stunt. Formally grounded for failure to take a required medical exam soon after completing his pilot's training, Bush hasn't flown a military aircraft since. As you'd think Junior's handlers wouldn't want to remind anybody, the Boston Globe pretty conclusively proved in May 2000 that Bush went AWOL for more than a year during 1972-73-arranging a transfer from the Texas to the Alabama Air National Guard, but never showing up for duty.
The commanding officer of the Alabama unit, Gen. William Turnipseed, unequivocally told the newspaper that Bush failed to report. Back in Texas, Walter Robinson wrote, "his two superior officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not perform his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, they wrote, 'Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report.'"
Having falsely assured the press that his Guard enlistment involved no preferential treatment (former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes has since admitted making phone calls on Junior's behalf) Bush also claimed to have done light duty in Alabama, but could provide neither documentary evidence nor witnesses.
This is a dead giveaway. As somebody roughly Bush's age with no eminent connections, I could easily prove my whereabouts, job or institutional affiliations at any time since entering kindergarten. The conclusion is inescapable: Bush took a powder.
Speaking of powder, there's been considerable speculation, based on what he says and doesn't say that Junior took may have experimented with the drug known as "Peruvian marching powder" or cocaine. His failure to submit to a physical exam coincided with the Pentagon's decision to begin drug testing. He's denied using illegal drugs only since 1974, by which time he'd returned to Houston and been granted an honorable discharge.
Does it matter thirty years later? Not much, unless you consider the lying important. Many people did things 30 years ago they wouldn't want in the newspapers. Even so, national media's eagerness to protect Junior from his youthful folly approaches the pathological. Amply documented, the Globe article was all but ignored during the 2000 campaign by a Washington press clique obsessed with made-up tales about Al Gore "inventing the internet" and such.
So does it matter that the Abraham Lincoln was only 39 miles out to sea, and that the Navy admits turning the ship so as to afford President Fighter Jock a backdrop of open ocean instead of the San Diego skyline for his speech? Or, as Paul Krugman points out in the New York Times, that Bush's posturing in military garb breaks an American tradition dating back to the Revolutionary War? Presidents George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower never did. Real soldiers, they emphasized their civilian status as commander-in-chief.
Not so ex-Lt. Junior of the Champagne Brigade. Meanwhile, cable TV pundits swooned. Bob Somerby's dailyhowler.com lampoons the way Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball" gushed over Bush's rugged masculinity. Casting the presidency in purely cinematic terms, Matthews doubted that a Democratic "casting director" could match Junior: "Nobody looks right in the role Bush has set for the presidency--commander-in-chief, medium height, medium build, looks good in a jet pilot's costume--or uniform, rather--has a certain swagger, not too literary, certainly not too verbal, but a guy who speaks plainly and wins wars."
The enraptured Matthews specifically derided Sen. John Kerry, who won the Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, and George McGovern, whose heroic exploits as a WWII bomber pilot are documented in Stephen Ambrose's book "Wild Blue Yonder."
Reality sucks. Welcome to the Virtual U.S.A.
:shrug:
