Sick Puppies and the Gomer Pyle U.S. President

[kskiska]

By John Chuckman

The title is not part of my usual vocabulary, but sometimes an expression fits so perfectly that it becomes irresistible. And so it is for the authors of a neo-con "manifesto" on foreign policy. The Gomer Pyle of American Presidents recently was presented with a plan to reorder much of the world, a plan intended to build on his remarkable achievements in Iraq and Afghanistan, spreading resentment and future mayhem against Americans across the world.

Have you ever noticed how many of those odd people, the American neo-cons, use the rhetoric of nineteenth century European radicals? You'd be hard put to count all the references to "revolutionary," "radical," and "manifesto" in the American Right's industrial-scale output of pamphlets and tracts. This practice may have started as a marketing gimmick, the catchy application of a term from an unexpected context, but this kind of language is far more revealing than its authors realize.

Hitler was partial to just this kind of language. That lover of fire engine-sized roadsters, cane and cape at the opera, and tea with elegant pastries always used such terms to describe his political movement when he strutted in public with whip and jackboots.

One of the authors of this "manifesto" is David Frum. After years of dutifully churning out his quota of words for one of America's well-endowed, right-wing propaganda mills styled as academic institutes, Frum's big moment came with his elevation to presidential speechwriter.

Knowing the quality of Bush speeches, you might think that being dismissed as a speechwriter would be impossible, but Frum managed the feat. He or his wife, the case is not clear, committed the sin of speechwriter lèse-majesté, letting people know he wrote the original version of what became the "axis of evil" expression. You are never permitted to know such things. You are supposed to think such stirring words sprang directly from the head of President Pyle. When Frum or his wife bragged of his contribution to history on the Washington cocktail circuit, they found themselves packing their bags before the hangovers had lifted.

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