Distract & Conquer

I dipped my toe in the mainstream entertainment media this morning, checked out a few minutes of Good Morning America, found it more tolerable than usual because Diane Sawyer was on vacation. Diane gives me a pain in the ass, though she doesn’t irritate me as much as Katie Couric.

Anyway, this morning Bush was on, jabbering to the press about his recent trip to Baghdad, and how great things are turning out over there. Yes, Bush checked into the Green Zone – the only territory in the entire country that is reasonably safe – and met a few hand-picked Iraqis, posed for photo-ops, and generally did his level best not to make a fool of himself. After all, this is an election year and Bush’s approval rating is hovering around 37%. Most Americans have finally woken up to the fact that the Iraq Invasion/Occupation is a total failure, with 2,500 Americans killed, thousands of Iraqis killed or maimed, and billions of dollars poured down the shithole.

Never one to stress about inconvenient facts, Bush was still beating the dead dog, mouthing “stay the course,” and “remain until we succeed,” and so on. In short, the usual unconvincing blather.

The sputtering heads at GMA then announced the results of a recent poll which indicated that those Americans surveyed are concerned about Iraq, immigration, gay marriage and abortion, though not necessarily in that order. That a fairly large number of Americans list immigration, abortion and gay marriage as their chief concerns is testament to how thoroughly the Right controls the agenda and debate on our fruited plain.

Why should the average American give a rat’s ass about abortion and gay marriage when the wages of working people are stagnant, when health care is a disaster, when gasoline prices are at record highs (at least in this pampered nation; Euros have paid even higher fuel prices for years) and official government policy is to transfer as much wealth upwards as it can? The answer is that gay marriage and abortion are simply distractions.

Distract and conquer, that’s the Rovean mantra. The people are ignorant, so busy scratching for the crumbs left by the wealthy that they don’t realize how thoroughly we’re screwing them. While they argue about gay marriage we steal them blind! If that’s not pure genius I don’t know what is! He He He He. They don’t call me Bush’s brain for nothing! I am the man! All we have to do to manipulate those dipshits is raise the specter of legalized gay marriage and willy-nilly abortion on demand. It’s like taking cookies from a toddler. And when a few of them start to see the rough outlines of our grand scheme, all it takes is repetition of our mantra, like “small business,” “tax relief,” and “American competitiveness.” It’s so easy that it should be illegal. He He He He.

And the Democrats, the supposed champions of the working class, well, they can’t find their asshole with both hands. It’s as easy to hoodwink them into playing by our rules and debating in our language as it is to fool the “people” into thinking that abortion is more important than the economy. Yes, distract and conquer. I live for this!