Culpability and the Bush Years

By Dennis Loo

Yesterday the NYT's Bob Herbert wrote an Op-Ed ("Add Up the Damage") about Bush in which he called for "a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country."

The column received, by my reckoning, an exceptional response in online comments, about twice the norm for Op-Eds that I have seen, and recommendations for Editor's Selections multiple times greater than the norm.

The most recommended, by 1463 readers, was the following:

Mr. Herbert,

You wrote:

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Well, perhaps that question should be asked of Judith Miller and the rest of the staff at the Times. Perhaps, that question should be answered by all members of the mainstream media. You were all complicit in the deceit. Yes, the Bush administration played on the fears and false patriotism of the citizens but where was the press? The press/mainstream media was cowering in a corner...afraid to appear as if they were not supporting the troops. The Times was afraid of The Post and television and cable news was afraid of Fox news. No one wanted to lose readers/viewers by questioning any of the rash statements made by the Bush administration. You went along with it. The press made a choice. You chose cash over courage. You abdicated your responsibility as members of the fourth estate. Where is this mentioned in your article? You assign justifiable blame to Bush and to the people but where in your article do you accept blame for your actions and your lack of actions?

This is the problem with the press. You keep score of your own game and by your reckoning you are never to blame...

— M. Fox, nyc

* * *

M. Fox makes an excellent point, one obviously shared by many, many NYT's readers that the media are deeply implicated in the crimes of the Bush regime.

The unlawful, immoral, unjust invasion and continued occupation of Iraq by the US could not have been carried out without the active collusion of Judy Miller of the NYT, the editorial leadership at the Times, and the rest of the major media.

When the so-called liberal - and iconic - NYT said that WMD were in Saddam's hands, and when the NYT failed to ever utter the words "international law" in any of this, which if they had done so, would have made it immediately clear that WMD or no WMD, attacking a country that has not attacked you is the gravest war crime of all, then people who would otherwise have known better and smelled a rat, went along cheerily since if the Times and Post and CBS were saying it, it's got to be true!

The fact that so many of the Times' own readers feel this way says something.

What M. Fox doesn't mention - brought up by other commenters - is the equally shameful, criminal role played by the Democratic Party (and fellow GOP members who claim to uphold the rule of law) in facilitating and allowing the predations and tyranny of Bush and his gang.

Which brings me to my main point in this post, thinking as I am right now about the year 2008 and the prospects for 2009: what is worse than what Bush and Cheney have done (only a fraction of which most Americans are aware of since the media has not deemed it worthy to tell people the full story and it's only available in books such as mine and a number of other fine ones and on the Internet and in the alternative media - such as Glenn Greenwald's columns) is that Bush and Cheney have been allowed to get away with it.

It is one thing when a tyrant or dangerously incompetent person comes to power, it is quite another for the rest of the political leadership class and the opinion-makers of the society to shield that tyrant or incompetent. Their doing so means tolerance and compliance by the system with the tyrant or incompetent.

As at least some - I didn't read all of the over 700 comments on the NYT's website in response to Herbert's piece - point out, what Herbert still won't do and what the NYT's has consistently refused to do, is utter the dreaded "I" word - impeachment. When a gang of leaders declare themselves above the law, launch wars that have killed over a million to date, steal two elections, openly commit felonies including spying on all of us, overrule Congressional laws via hundreds of signing statements and Executive Orders, commit treason by outing the wife of a critic, diddle while thousands are needlessly killed in a hurricane that everyone on the planet knew was coming, carry out torture as policy, abrogate habeas corpus, suppress science and deny the dire threat to the planet of global warming, and the other leaders and institutions let them, then we and the planet are not just victims of a bad administration for two terms: we are allowing a precedent to be set that undermines the rule of law and gives dictatorial powers to the Executive Branch for the use of any future president.

I'll say that again since it bears repeating: Bush and Cheney have overridden key precepts of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and international law. They have been and are being allowed to get away with it. That means it becomes the new standard. The so-called war on terror gives any public official the power, in other words, to do anything and everything they want, including torture and murder, as long as they say the magic words: "national security" and "terrorism."

Finally, and this isn't the most important point by any means, but it's a telling one, and I'm bringing it up here in part because I'm an educator and have first hand experience with this. Another commenter at the NYT's site, also an Editor's Selection, recommended by 549 readers, wrote as follows:

" Perhaps the only reason why Americans haven't stormed the White House with pitch forks and torches is our belief that W was at least successful in his No Child Left Behind education reform. However, the truth is, NCLB is W's biggest delusion of all.

"As a 17 year veteran of public school teaching, I can attest that NCLB is as devastating to America's future as his failures in the economy and the Middle East. Perhaps more so. It will take decades to undo the damage he has wrought on American public education. Gone are inspiration, innovation, creativity, and the joy of learning. In their place are teaching how to take tests, conformity, and the prosaic memorization of facts with little real world application. Furthermore, he has turned his back on the necessary funding for this catastrophe, leaving schools like mine in desperate financial condition.

"If W's true education agenda has been to strengthen parochial and private education by handcuffing public schools, then NCLB has done exactly what he wanted. Where's my pitch fork?

— Michael Pogue, Cincinnati, Ohio"

Teachers in public high schools say that "I don't have time to teach" because they're so busy getting students ready for the next test.

I have noticed in the last few years a distinct decline in my students' ability to use inferential reasoning. They have been too much schooled in the view that what education is about is memorization and being told what to think. Their curiosity and basic intelligence is no less than I have seen in any other cohort, but they have not been well-educated and NCLB is a major culprit in this.

Obama, unfortunately, is a big fan of NCLB. A populace that cannot think for itself and must rely on others to tell them what to think is a populace more ripe for the pickings of tyrants.

I do not fault, however, the American people first and foremost for the rise of Bush and Cheney and the neocons. Bush and Cheney are immensely unpopular and actually lost both elections by millions of votes. (See my book Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, and you can also read online my 2005 essay "No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election" which won a Project Censored Award).

Bush and Cheney only took office through fraud and through the cowardice of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party leadership.

Had Gore in 2000 called upon his supporters (and supporters of the idea that all votes should be counted) to march outside the Supreme Court while the Court was plotting to give the presidency to the loser, do any of us think that that wouldn't have made a difference?

If the New York Times had no derided as "spreadsheet wielding conspiracy theorists" those who pointed out the massive evidence of fraud in the 2004 election, and instead given coverage to even some of that evidence, would this not have made a difference?

The future of this nation and the world rests, to an exceptional degree, today in the hands of not Barack Obama, but in the hands of the American people. Obama has said repeatedly that he doesn't want to impeach Bush and Cheney and therefore prosecutions for these war criminals are not going to come from an Obama administration UNLESS enough Americans protest - I'm talking several millions - and force it to happen.

(A black junior senator in his first term doesn't suddenly become a viable candidate for president, doesn't get the necessary publicity, and doesn't get elected unless 1) there is massive public sentiment for change (even the GOP ticket talked about "reform") and 2) he has the backing of very powerful interests in this country who want to forestall and channel the anger at Bush, Cheney and Congress and this system into avenues that won't result in any real or fundamental change).

Real change begins with one person who decides that he or she cannot stand by and watch as infamous atrocities and injustices are carried out in their name. These are not things that you can pawn off on others to take care of by merely voting for a candidate or by saying that it's in someone else's hands or that somethings got to be done, but none of these other people are doing anything so why should I?

It's something that you must take a personal, public stand on because it's the right and necessary thing to do, regardless of what your neighbors or your newspaper or your public officials say or do.

The shoes thrown at Bush by the Iraqi journalist Montather Al-Ziedi are worth a thousand New York Times' Op-Eds decrying what Bush and Cheney have done but failing to call for prosecutions.

Wearing an orange ribbon everyday that provides public testimony to your opposition to torture and to unjust wars of conquest is one way that we can do what Al-Ziedi so bravely did.

Would that we had journalists with his kind of courage! We need not only more courageous journalists. We also need more courageous citizens.