My OperaBush and jokes.
Sunday, October 21, 2007 5:07:40 AM
Telling jokes, obviously, is an art. You want to gauge your audience, and not exactly offend people too much, while you play at their heartstrings. Or with their emotional responses, and so on. But more to the point - In some circumstances what you're looking for is to make people reflect on their thinking, and simply help them see an absurdity in their life. While at other times, you're telling a consistent story you set the tone and context in yourself.
So I wondered, what possible characterisation fits with this?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/10/17/bush/index.html
From this morning's White House press conference:
Reporter: Mr. President, following up on Vladimir Putin for a moment, he said recently that next year, when he has to step down according to the constitution, as the president, he may become prime minister; in effect keeping power and dashing any hopes for a genuine democratic transition there ...
Bush: I've been planning that myself.
No, let's be serious for a moment. What sort of joke is Bush telling here? He knows as well as anyone how the american political system works, and how little true power the president has unless he or she pays tribute to the establishment and the beltway. Something Bush has found out himself on several issues - he's dependent on a vast machinery below him that will enable his courageous choices from a set few limitations. And it's difficult in the extreme to truly act independently, even on exclusive areas like foreign policy, and so on. As we've seen with Iraq - not until several years into the war did anyone who drafted the policies actually have a hand at failing themselves, when Bush appointed political operatives to oversee the political transition in Iraq. Before that, the military had to change their mission- profiles - which went slowly and without much success - and so failed in the new strategy before even trying. So the only way the Bush- policy survived was in the media- world (among those who always print whatever it is the latest "senior hill staffer says", and on paper. And on the lips of various foreign policy shills, who treat the entire situation "intellectually" (for a lack of a better word), detached from actually considering the consequences of their authoritarian ideas and visions about "democracy". (Unless you count their success with it at home as qualification for ruining another country, of course).
So what is Bush joking about? One theory would be that he sees an "allegation" in the question as proof of the liberal media's prosecution of himself, and so thinks he is making a joke at their expense. I.e., "sure I'm the president, but I'm not going to do anything crazy like subverting the constitution". If so, this is telling. He would then see the activities of the White House so far as just the typical game being played - while actually stepping over the line and appointing political positions for yourself outside the usual "system" would be too much. In other words, either he's delusional, or else the restraints he puts on the office is typically of the sort that a very immature child in a position of power would suggest. That he's only truly breaking the oath of office when things are semantically changing the meaning. In this way: as long as the cookie jar is not touched (the actual cookie jar), you can take as many cookies as you'd like.
Another theory would be that he is actually a brilliant strategist, and are simply exploiting the media's meekness, and the liberal politicians' lack of spine to confront the president successfully - by making sure they repeat his joke in the usual narrow- minded silliness, which they will. Meaning that he's simply responding, as Bush always is, to the media- narrative in a very perceptive and predictable way. Like anything else he does, by shaping the narrative semantically. I.e., he's joking about appointing himself a special position in the political system, so therefore he is not a democratic fraud like Putin. Never mind the actual circumstances - because in short terms, this is how the narrative will be shaped. In the media and with the politicians. From left to right. In a semantically balanced and correct universe, where torture is not illegal because we don't call it torture, for instance. Or where the left and right split exists because of the label alone. Or where democracy exists because laws are technically still enacted. And where the law rules, because that is what the law must do, categorically - no matter what the actual case may be in some circumstances.
