{"id":22,"date":"2006-01-06T11:22:45","date_gmt":"2006-01-06T16:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/06\/think-tanks-as-military-bases\/"},"modified":"2006-01-06T23:31:12","modified_gmt":"2006-01-07T04:31:12","slug":"think-tanks-as-military-bases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/06\/think-tanks-as-military-bases\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Tanks as Military Bases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">George W. Bush exploits captive audiences as well as any president. During the last four years, he has ritually gone to military bases to uncork his biggest inanities regarding foreign policy. There are some howlers that can only be tossed out in front of an audience forbidden to laugh. No one in a military audience can heckle without having his career ruined. Thus, there is no danger of the television clip of the president\u2019s speech being marred by non-groveling responses. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">But, given the number of absurdities that the Bush administration feels compelled to emit, there are simply not enough military bases within the District of Columbia.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">The Bush team has found something almost as good &#8211; maybe better: Think tanks. When Bush needed a craven audience for a speech just before he invaded Iraq, Bush went to an American Enterprise Institute dinner &#8211; where his absurd rationales for the war were received as divine truths. Attorney General John Ashcroft kicked off his 2003 Patriot Act Salvation tour, replete with denials that the government was carrying out warrantless wiretaps, at AEI. Vice President Cheney hustled his hokum in recent months at both AEI and the Heritage Foundation.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">Think tanks have become as servile as military bases, as far as applauding lies from the highest level of government. A decade or two ago, some people expected think tanks to revolutionize politics in Washington, bringing ideas and principles to sordid political clashes. Instead, at least some think tanks have become mere props for politicians.<\/font><\/font><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\"> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">I deal with the role of think tanks in the corruption of Washington in my new book, <strong><em>Attention Deficit Democracy<\/em><\/strong>.<\/font><\/font><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\"> <\/font><\/font><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\">\u00a0<\/font><\/font><font size=\"3\"><font size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<p \/><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George W. Bush exploits captive audiences as well as any president. During the last four years, he has ritually gone to military bases to uncork his biggest inanities regarding foreign policy. There are some howlers that can only be tossed out in front of an audience forbidden to laugh. No one in a military audience [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20,10,19,9,18],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ashcroft","tag-bush","tag-cheney","tag-lese-majeste","tag-think-tanks"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Think Tanks as Military Bases - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/06\/think-tanks-as-military-bases\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Think Tanks as Military Bases - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"George W. Bush exploits captive audiences as well as any president. During the last four years, he has ritually gone to military bases to uncork his biggest inanities regarding foreign policy. There are some howlers that can only be tossed out in front of an audience forbidden to laugh. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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