Are You a Bush Believer? Take the Test
Imagine that everything Bush said in his SOTU is completely true.That's right: Go on an irony fast. Forget fact-checking. Don't discount his speech as spin. Don't see it through the prism of political motives and framing devices.
Instead, take it all on face value. The false dichotomies aren't false; the straw men aren't straw; the "some say" and "others say" bogeymen really are lurking under our nation's bed.
Imagine that the tribute to Coretta King isn't cynical opportunism; forget that Harriet Meier might have been the one in the black SCOTUS robe.
Really believe that the slogans actually mean something, that the anecdotes and cameos aren't manipulative, that Saudi Arabia is making great strides on the road to freedom, that it's genuinely "responsible," as the President said, to make his tax cuts permanent.
Ok, so you've put your head in the position of a true believer. The President's not telling you a bedtime story.
He's actually telling you the truth. This is not a pseudo-event; it is Real. This is as historic and as momentous as it gets. This is a night that transcends partisanship, unites us as citizens, and engages us in the great conversation of American democracy.
Now if you can really manage to do that, who are you?
A resident of Pluto?
A flatworm?
A writer for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page?
To truly believe in Monday night's Tinkerbell, it's not enough to be one of those solons on the House floor clapping wildly. Politicians are all card-carrying members of the Sorcerer's Guild. They know far too much about blue smoke and mirrors to take W's words at face value.
Nor is it enough to be some pundit high on Mehlman's talking points and the red light of a tv camera. Those gasbags are powerful entertainers, but they know better than to actually believe the crap they spout.
Nor is it even enough to be Cheney or Rove. They're way too canny to fall for their own palaver. Even Barbara Bush is too tough a cookie to think that W really is doing a heck of a job.
No, to take the SOTU as gospel, you've probably got to have the mindset of someone who still thinks that Saddam planned 9/11. Or that Iraq won't descend into civil war the moment we leave, whether it's in six months or six years. Or that spaghetti grows on trees.
I'd add, or you'd have to be a nine-year-old, but none of the ones I know is capable of that kind of naivete. Once you've seen The Simpsons, it's pretty much impossible to recapture the Teletubby frame of mind that's Bush's ideal audience. [Marty Caplan @ HuffPo]
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST OF US...
Did you try to watch the speech? But of course that can't really be done. It's not possible. Everyone attempts to. Everyone is dutiful. But everyone is just faking it.
You sit there, and before you know it, you drift away. That's the truth, and it's true even when you're watching Presidents you like -- the State of the Union is just one of those awful rituals that cannot be conquered.
And all that standing up and sitting down. It's so Japanese. Soon you find yourself wondering what it would be like to be there, in the Congress, and have to figure out every 45 seconds or so whether you would dare stay seated for a reference to the American military or Coretta Scott King.
You drift back to the speech itself, and the President of the United States is using the word "victory" and talking about some utter cock-and-bull story that 9/11 could have been prevented if we had had the ability to listen to two telephone calls made by guys whom we couldn't even nail when they were taking lessons in crashing planes.
I repeat, it cannot be watched.
So you drift off again, and soon you find yourself noticing at all the things you look for on the Golden Globes. Mrs. Bush in her little pink suit. Hillary, who, no matter what Chris Matthews said afterwards, was not chewing gum. (I vote for a lozenge.)
All those congresswomen in their amazing shades of blue and blue-ish and teal and teal-ish and aqua and aqua-ish. And that strange new governor from Virginia and his eyebrows and Gore-like hand motions.
Then, finally, the formal part is over -- the speech itself, the opposition reply to the speech -- and all the blah-blah afterwards begins. You attempt to focus once again, hoping you will discover whether anything has been said.
And it's very interesting: everyone on television sounds as if they have actually absorbed the State of the Union speech -- which is, may I say yet again, not remotely possible.
And this is perhaps the worst moment of all: you realize that you've spent the last two hours attempting to watch a parallel universe that is entirely based on invented truth, and what's more, it's running the country. [Nora Ephron @ HuffPo]