{"id":293,"date":"2007-05-11T10:35:56","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T15:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/"},"modified":"2007-05-11T10:35:56","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T15:35:56","slug":"bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s Bizarre Bombast – & Slandering Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online<\/a><\/strong> today\u00a0the piece I did for them early this year on the anniversary of Bush’s second inaugural address.<\/p>\n

Flying to Dallas on a packed plane a few days after Bush’s second inauguration was memorable.\u00a0 I have not been immersed among so many true believers since the Pledge of Allegiance recitation at Boy Scout summer camp.<\/p>\n

\u00a0****************************<\/p>\n

Freedom Daily<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 February 2007<\/p>\n

The Second Anniversary of Bush\u2019s Worst Bosh
\nby James Bovard<\/p>\n

Two years ago last month, Bush gave his second inaugural address. As I watched the speech on television, I and perhaps millions of other Americans struggled to answer the obvious question about the speech: Is it puerile or is it merely tripe?<\/p>\n

Bush was hailed throughout the greater Washington metropolitan area for a speech that invoked freedom and liberty almost 50 times. The Washington Post headlined its report on the spiel, \u201cAn Ambitious President Advances His Idealism.\u201d The Council on Foreign Relations\u2019s Max Boot cheered that Bush \u201cis signaling basically victory or bust … no backing down.\u201d Liberal columnist Andrew Sullivan swooned, \u201cWho could disagree with the stirring, elegant and somewhat sweeping address the president just gave?\u201d Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, gushed that the speech was \u201cpowerful,\u201d \u201csubtle,\u201d \u201chistoric,\u201d \u201csophisticated,\u201d \u201cnuanced,\u201d and \u201cprofoundly right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Bush invoked freedom ad nauseam, none of his comments referred to restrictions on U.S. government power. Instead, they sanctified the president\u2019s right to forcibly intervene abroad wherever he believes it is necessary to \u201cspread freedom.\u201d Like Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium at the United Nations, Bush was shouting \u201cWe will bury you!\u201d to anyone whom he and his cronies label an enemy of freedom.<\/p>\n

Perverting freedom<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is important not to forget the doggerel that launched the Bush second term. His bombast looks almost as pathetic now as a newsreel of a 1935 Mussolini speech.<\/p>\n

He proclaimed, “So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”<\/p>\n

This speech was delivered eight months after the Abu Ghraib photos hit the street and after many documents and other evidence of the torture scandal had floated to the surface. Yet, regardless of his embrace of torture, the American media still treated Bush as a hero of liberty because of his flowery words.<\/p>\n

Bush, sounding like an editor at the New Yorker, declared, \u201cOur goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.\u201d Supposedly, foreigners would not even recognize their own voice without intervention from Washington.<\/p>\n

Bush declared, “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”<\/p>\n

But Bush has used Americans\u2019 tax dollars to bankroll many of the worst oppressors in the world. And he has rubbed Americans\u2019 nose in the hypocrisy by labeling dictatorial regimes as \u201cfreedom-loving\u201d in one White House photo opportunity after another for visiting heads of state.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, he could still strut about the supposed great victories he had won in Afghanistan and Iraq: \u201cBecause we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.\u201d Even at that time, there were clear signs that most Afghans had merely had a change of oppressors, and the rising chaos and bloodshed in Iraq was a far cry from what Americans recognize as freedom.<\/p>\n

The speech included the usual pyromania: \u201cBy our efforts, we have lit a fire as well \u2014 a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.\u201d His praise for \u201cuntamed\u201d is ironic, given his passion for discretionary power across the board.<\/p>\n

Bush issued a revolutionary challenge to every government in the world: “We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.”<\/p>\n

He is correct that freedom is \u201ceternally right.\u201d But that does not confer upon him or other U.S. presidents the right to appoint rulers in other nations on Earth. The notion of American uniqueness has gone from a point of pride to a pretext for aggression.<\/p>\n

He declared, \u201cThe leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them.\u201d Yet the more Bush trusts the people, the more he wants to spy on them. His \u201ctrust\u201d of the American people did not dissuade his administration from seeking to build the Total Information Awareness network to track every purchase, trip, or phone call that people make. The Homeland Security Department epitomized the Bush administration\u2019s \u201ctrust\u201d of Americans when it warned 18,000 local and state law-enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who \u201cexpressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.\u201d Perhaps Bush simply trusts people not to object when the feds destroy their privacy.<\/p>\n

He concluded with a final lunge:\u00a0 “America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength \u2014 tested, but not weary \u2014 we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.”<\/p>\n

And since the U.S. government proclaims liberty everywhere, it is entitled to pay bribes to foreign journalists (as the Pentagon does in Iraq) and interfere in foreign elections (as the National Endowment for Democracy does almost everywhere except Canada).<\/p>\n

Freedom vs. power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s speech epitomized how idealism can provide a license to kill. Unfortunately, many Americans still have not looked beyond the president\u2019s words to recognize the masses of foreigners who have died because of his intervention. (The British medical journal Lancet estimated that the invasion of Iraq has resulted in more than 600,000 dead since 2003.)<\/p>\n

Hearing George W. Bush constantly invoke freedom is like hearing Bill Clinton praise chastity. The Bush team has made so many power grabs at home and bankrolled so many dictators abroad. And yet Bush still seems to believe that citing freedom can sanctify everything he does and every war he intends to wage.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom\u201d has become merely another invocation to sanctify power. The more often Bush praises freedom, the more deference he expects to receive. He uses the word \u201cfreedom\u201d as an incantation to lull people to sleep \u2014 to douse any concerns about his latest expansion of government power, his latest deployment of U.S. troops, his most recent executive order. He maximizes confusion over freedom in order to minimize resistance. In ancient Rome, as long as the emperor praised the Senate, the republic was presumed to be safe. In contemporary America, as long as the president gushes over freedom, the people\u2019s rights are considered safe. And the more a politician praises freedom, the more leeway he has to destroy it.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s invocations of freedom are especially suspect, since he talks and acts as if presidential supremacy is the highest freedom. In an interview published a few days before his second inauguration, he was asked, \u201cWhy hasn\u2019t anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments [in Iraq]?\u201d<\/p>\n

He replied, “We had an accountability moment, and that\u2019s called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I\u2019m grateful. ”<\/p>\n

Thus, in Bush\u2019s view, Americans had a single \u201cmoment\u201d in which to assent to his policies or oppose them. Since slightly more assented than did not assent, Bush felt entitled to do as he pleased in Iraq and everywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpen the door to freedom! Put a strong man at the helm!\u201d was the campaign slogan for National Socialist candidates in the 1932 Reichstag elections. The fact that Nazi politicians invoked freedom to win votes did nothing to protect people from their subsequent tyranny. \u201cStrong leader\u201d is also a favorite Bush phrase. He has used the term \u201cstrong leader\u201d in more than a hundred speeches since taking office and, as the Washington Post<\/em> noted, this \u201cwas the subtext of his 2004 campaign strategy.\u201d Vultures of doom are not circling Washington simply because Bush used the same \u201cfreedom and strong leader\u201d theme used in 1930s Germany. But it is a warning that political naivet\u00e9 and craving for a strong leader can be a fatal combination.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Washingtonians were not the only ones to get snowed by Bush\u2019s rhetoric. Two days after Bush\u2019s second inaugural, I was stuck in a middle seat of a flight from D.C. to Dallas. I wedged in between a chubby little 14-year-old boy and a tripwire-tense Air Force enlisted man.<\/p>\n

The kid asked me, \u201cDid you go to the inauguration Thursday?\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled and said no. I asked whether he did. His eyes lit up, his face awoke, and he declared, \u201cYes!\u201d He told me he was from Bush\u2019s hometown, Midland, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you think of the speech?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved every word of it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you think it is a good idea for the U.S. to be spreading freedom?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh yes. We have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you concerned about going to war to spread freedom?\u201d I asked nonchalantly.<\/p>\n

The Air Force dude erupted, \u201cDon\u2019t listen to him! This guy hates America! This guy hates our president! Don\u2019t listen to a single thing he says!\u201d After his foam dried, we exchanged a few words and his hinges nearly failed him as I calmly recited a few Bush and Cheney WMD falsehoods.<\/p>\n

Nearing landing, the boy asked a question or two about my views. My replies were fairly tame but he squinted and said warily, \u201cYou sound like you hate the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled. \u201cNo. I don\u2019t hate the government. I just think its power should be limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

His suspicions of me remained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat should government be doing? What is its main purpose?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

The kid paused, struggled briefly, and then replied, \u201cKeep people under control.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the new American vision of freedom that Bush seeks to impose around the world. This type of freedom does far more to empower politicians than liberate citizens. If politicians can redefine freedom at their whim, then they can raze limits on their own power.<\/p>\n

Just because a president\u2019s comments are insipid does not mean they are innocuous. Americans cannot preserve their rights if they take their political reality from the person with the most to gain from subverting freedom.<\/p>\n

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today\u00a0the piece I did for them early this year on the anniversary of Bush’s second inaugural address. Flying to Dallas on a packed plane a few days after Bush’s second inauguration was memorable.\u00a0 I have not been immersed among so many true believers since the Pledge of Allegiance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[22,659,6,10,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-bovard","9":"tag-bush","10":"tag-bush-betrayal"},"yoast_head":"\nBush's Bizarre Bombast - & Slandering Texas - 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\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bush's Bizarre Bombast - & Slandering Texas - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today\u00a0the piece I did for them early this year on the anniversary of Bush’s second inaugural address. 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Flying to Dallas on a packed plane a few days after Bush’s second inauguration was memorable.\u00a0 I have not been immersed among so many true believers since the Pledge of Allegiance […]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2007-05-11T15:35:56+00:00","author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Bush’s Bizarre Bombast – & Slandering Texas","datePublished":"2007-05-11T15:35:56+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/"},"wordCount":1863,"commentCount":10,"keywords":["Attention Deficit Democracy","Attention Deficit Democracy","Bovard","Bush","Bush Betrayal"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/","name":"Bush's Bizarre Bombast - & Slandering Texas - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-05-11T15:35:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/11\/bushs-bizarre-bombast-slandering-texas\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bush’s Bizarre Bombast – & Slandering Texas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. 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 & 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. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}