It’s interesting how things turn out. It wasn’t that long ago that President Bush and the Republicans were crowing about their majority and what could be accomplished and how a new era had arrived that would transform the way we view government.
I believe they were correct only about the last part.
Our view of government has, indeed, been transformed. We’re having a war. We’re having terrible deficits. We’re having an anxiety attack over hurricane response. Incompetence seems to be blossoming all over. We’re having a festival of corruption charges.
Meanwhile, the problems that presented themselves as George W. Bush was taking office the first time around–health care, evaporating jobs as global markets shift manufacturing to low-cost countries, marginal education, looming international terrorism and a couple of others–are all still standing just offstage, waiting.
Defenders of the Bush administration will make an argument that statistics tell us we are just fine, that old folks will get help with medical prescriptions, lots of new jobs have been created, terrorism is being trumped and so on.
OK, Hurricane Katrina was a big mess, but look at how many media events Rita spawned!
We got our game back!
I don’t think so.
The Bush people were very good at hitting the spin button only a couple of years ago.
It doesn’t work so well now.
Why?
I don’t think it was good for the Democrats to hold the reins for so many decades after World War II, and I don’t think it’s good for the Republicans to be holding them now. For some reason, we have constructed a political system that has, as its objective, bold self-interest. What is missing in this unhappy time is any sense that our politicians are accountable for much of anything.
Sophisticated, venal hacks are still hacks.
It just takes the right collection of circumstances to make that apparent even to an oblivious nation that spends much of its time fantasizing about celebrities.
Watch closely as former Gov. George Ryan’s trial proceeds. Listen to all the details. Read everything you can about the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who has stepped down as House majority leader and is himself no stranger to queries about ethical behavior. Take a close look at what’s playing out as Mayor Richard Daley and his pals find themselves under an uncomfortably bright federal spotlight.
All the time, keep this firmly in mind: Most of this is hack theater.
I loved the way the Republicans dragged Michael Brown before a congressional committee last week so they could beat him up, point fingers and look very tough, which for Congress, amounts to reading a very badly written script that will play well on TV for a couple of seconds.
They do, indeed, believe we are fools and easily misled. We’re not that far from a congressional election and we should hold them to account for that.
There sat Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, while finger-waggling solons called him names and did their best to let people know they feel he could dent a titanium ball with a rubber mallet and isn’t that just terrible and haven’t you failed the American people …
To which Brown responded that Louisiana and New Orleans were so completely bollixed up during Katrina that, well, it was just their fault. Brown told them he had been at many a presidentially declared disaster, and my thought was, “I wonder if they were disasters before you arrived?”
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How this hack survived for even a week may seem to defy understanding.
But not really.
In a system that thrives on arrogance and dishonesty, hacks can survive in plentiful numbers right up until the moment something awful happens that draws them under the spotlight.
It is as though a tone-deaf chorister has suddenly been given a solo.
We lean forward in our chairs and await the wonderful and what we get is such a disappointment. At least we can throw rotten vegetables in that situation. (Wait, we don’t do that anymore? Dang. I have to get out more.)
That these awful elected reps would expect us to fall for this reflects an astounding lack of sophistication. Here’s the real story, Congress people: Your party put him there. Your party nurtured him. Your party, in fact, created him.
I believe I would apply the same standard closer to home.
In defense of former Gov. Ryan, for example, I will say this … nothing! You were in charge. Wear the shirt. Mayor Daley? Stop stuttering and acting as though you arrived in town just a few weeks ago and that you are simply aghast at what you have found: It has been all yours forever. You made it happen.
As for you and I, why are we such permissive parents?
We sat back, paid not much attention and let all of this play out. It’s time to step up and get very hard about politics again.
Wash the ideological clutter out of your heads and develop some standards.
You can make it better. Clearly, it’s unable to heal itself.
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Charles M. Madigan is the editor of Perspective and writes The Rambling Gleaner at chicagotribune.com/gleaner. E-mail: [email protected]