The president is a Cryan' Shame--or perhaps a Buckingham

It seems the president has been talking a lot lately. As I was reading his speech in North Carolina (the one where reality so rudely intruded!), I realized that it is very difficult to come up with a critique of his remarks that is of any real value. The first problem is that he is 1) a delusional megalomaniac and/or a pathetic stooge with no concept of what is happening around him beyond the simplistic talking points drilled into him by his organ grinder handlers. The second problem is of course, the fact that we've heard it all before.

How many times have we pointed out the absurdity of his description of the "enemy," in which he lumps everyone from Shi'ite militias to the Sunni resistance to a handful of foreign fighters under the rubric of "terrorists" with a monolithic "totalitarian" ideology? Over and over, we've pointed out that his version of democracy is both a false god and a fool's paradise. First of all, "democracy" was the last thing the Bush administration wanted, as they sought to set up Ahmed Chalabi as a company stooge. The "elections" were a bastardized afterthought forced on the administration by Ayatollah Sistani.

"Democracy" as an ideal has been criticized at least from the time of Plato and it is no panacea. Plato questioned humanity's ability to seriously question their own situation and their basic assumptions. he doubted that people would do the necessary work to inform and enlighten themselves to participate in the process in a meaningful way.

H.L. Mencken was even more harshly critical of democracy, as he wrote that "democracy always seems bent upon killing the thing it theoretically loves. I have rehearsed some of its operations against liberty, the very cornerstone of its political metaphysic. It not only wars upon the thing itself; it even wars upon mere academic advocacy of it." He at various times referred to democracy as

"a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance,"
"a form of worship, it is the worship of jackals by jackasses."
"only a dream, it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and heaven" and finally as
"the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."

Should we also note that our system was not conceived as democratic? You may note that the constitution as drafted contained no right to vote, and included several anti-democratic provisions, such as the indirect election of senators and our old friend, the electoral college. Even Martha Washington described Thomas Jefferson as a "friend of the filthy democrats."

The president reminds me of one of those bands from the 60s and 70s that tour the summer festival and "Taste of [insert your town here]" circuit. Every night, they go out and play the same songs over and over again exactly the same way. The audience hears the first familiar chords and joins in to sing along. In this case, though, it's not "Kind of a Drag." These oldies but baddies are "9-11 9-11 9-11 9-11, Did I Say 9-11," "Stand Up, Stand Down," "Progress," "The Freedom March," and "That French Guy Alexis." The band is unable to come up with anything new and keeps replaying the same tired old songs over and over again.

And THAT is a Cryan' Shame.