From The Washington Post, 6/6/6
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/05/AR2006060501282.html
Distracter in Chief
Spinning Phony Crises to Avoid Real Ones
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, June 6, 2006; Page A15
What uncharted realm lies beyond brazen cynicism?
A wasteland of utter shamelessness, perhaps?
A vast Sahara of desperation, where principle goes to die?
Someday George W. Bush and the Republican right will be able to tell
us all about this barren terra incognita, assuming they ever find
their way home.
The Decider's decision to whip up a phony crisis over same-sex
marriage -- Values under attack! Run for your lives! -- is such a
transparent ploy that even conservatives are scratching their heads,
wondering if this is the best Karl Rove could come up with.
Bush might as well open his next presidential address by giving
himself a new title: The Distracter.
Let's check in on what's happening in the real world:
Iraq has become a charnel house for the victims of escalating
sectarian slaughter.
On Saturday, a car bomb killed 28 people in Shiite-dominated Basra,
and hours later gunmen killed nine Sunni worshipers in a mosque.
On Sunday, on a road near Baghdad, assassins pulled travelers out of
their minivans, sorted them by faith, killed nearly two dozen Shiites
and let the Sunnis go.
Yesterday, men wearing police uniforms grabbed at least 56 people from
bus stations and travel agencies in Baghdad and took them away -- no
one knows why, no one knows where.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new government remains toothless and
ineffectual, despite his pledge to end the sectarian violence.
On Sunday, he failed yet again to reach agreement on who will run the
only two ministries that matter -- the ones in charge of the army and
the police.
The butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most prominent figure in the
armed Sunni insurgency and the most hunted man in Iraq, remains at
large and periodically manages to issue messages inspiring his
followers to continue their jihad. (Just like his hero, Osama bin
Laden.)
Yet the president spent his weekend radio address pushing "a
constitutional amendment that defines marriage in the United States as
the union of a man and woman."
Immigration, the last artificial crisis, at least is a genuine issue.
But the president and his allies did such a job of rabble-rousing that
the best outcome, at this point, is probably for Congress to deadlock
and end up doing nothing.
The National Guard is headed for the frontier, apparently under orders
not to do much of anything.
Immigrants are still marching north, employers are still hiring them
and self-appointed sentries are still patrolling the border, where
something really bad is bound to happen sooner or later.
Yet the issue of "profound importance" the president urgently wants to
highlight is "protecting the institution of marriage."
The diplomatic maneuvering over Iran's nuclear program, which looks
like the next crisis, is at a critical point.
Defiant words from Iranian leaders on Sunday rattled the world's
financial markets yesterday and sent oil prices soaring -- threatening
even the modest relief most analysts had predicted from $3-a-gallon
prices at the gas pump.
Just in time for summer vacation.
The president, however, would rather we all reflect on the fact that
"marriage is the most enduring and important human institution."
Not satisfied that he had gotten his message across in his Saturday
radio address, Bush gave another speech in support of a marriage
amendment yesterday.
It's almost surreal.
For one thing, the president has no role in amending the Constitution.
Proposed amendments must be passed in both the House and Senate by
two-thirds majorities, and then they must win approval from the
legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
The president doesn't have to sign it.
He doesn't even have to read it.
People who are close to the president are always telling us what an
essentially decent man he is, without a bigoted bone in his body.
But that doesn't square with all this demagoguery in support of a
measure whose only effect would be to write discrimination against gay
men and lesbians into the United States Constitution.
Bigotry, pure and simple.
But of course the president knows that there's essentially no chance
an amendment to ban gay marriage will make it out of the Senate --
that in fact it might not even get out of the House.
All he can possibly accomplish is to energize activists on the
religious right, who otherwise might be tempted to sit out the
November midterm elections.
It's risky to raise expectations you have no intention of fulfilling,
but maybe enough of the Republican base can be fooled by this charade
to make a difference in the fall.
Meanwhile it keeps us from talking about things that are real, and
that really matter.
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Yes, the writer has not covered all of the major crises the right wing
is hoping would vanish.
Harry
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