The WMD Cracks at Bush's Roast: Why It's Not OK

Plaid Adder

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Thu Mar-25-04 03:08 PM
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The WMD Cracks at Bush's Roast: Why It's Not OK

Edited on Thu Mar-25-04 03:14 PM by Plaid Adder

I've been thinkin' about this...I have myself made many a "where are the WMDs?" joke over the past several months, and they have also been made all over the airwaves and the talk shows and whatnot for a long time now. So I could see how Bush's handlers might have thought that it was safe for him to get up and make fun of the whole thing; after all, 'laughing at himself' is something that he has always been rewarded for, although even pretty early in his career I stopped finding it funny. My first DU article ever was about that very thing, in fact:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/01/07/26_yale.html

So, just as a theoretical problem, since the nature of humor is always an interesting thing to speculate about, I pose the question: what makes it OK when someone else jokes about the lack of WMDs, and sick and wrong when Bush does it?

Let us take an example of someone who is *not* Bush who is making WMD jokes...for instance, myself, long ago back when I was still in my song-parody phase. This isn't particularly good, but it's useful as an example because it is about the exact same thing Bush was spoofing; it was written in May of 2003, after Powell's presentation on the WMDs he KNEW they had to the UN security council:

ME AND A. CHALABI
(adapted from "Bobby McGee," with apologies to Janis Joplin)

POWELL:

Busted flat with no intel, headin' into town,
Feelin' like an empty-handed cheat,
Chalabi called to wish me luck, noticed I was down,
Said, "Hey, I heard there's WOMDs in Tikrit."

I took out my PowerPoint and started cuttin'-pastin'
I was typin' while Chalabi sang the news
With Jack Straw slurpin' scotch in time, Chalabi's flappin' lips online,
We made that im'nent threat look good as new...

Chorus:
Freedom's just another word for no one left to dupe
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free
Feelin' threats was easy when Chalabi dished his scoop
And feelin' threats was good enough for me...
Good enough for me and A. Chalabi.

From the dumpsters of Basra to the toilets of Baghdad
Chalabi knew just where banned weapons were--
To all of that bad shit we just knew ol' Saddam had,
Chalabi's tips would lead us, we were sure.

Then somehow though we bombed Saddam, we let him slip away--
He's still lookin' for those weapons, and I hope he finds them--
Cause I'd trade in all my stars now for just one asshole who'd say
"I know there's nukes up that gazelle's behind..."

Freedom's just another word for nothin's yet been found
And nothin' is all Chalabi left me!
Ah, talkin' shit was easy 'fore we went in on the ground,
And talkin' shit was good enough for me...
Good enough for me and A. Chalabi.

The point of this is to make fun of Bush, just as Bush's roast speech was designed to do. What it does, that the roast speech didn't do, is make an argument about *why* they never found any WMDs, and suggest that it was because Powell et al. were so desperate for 'intelligence' that would allow them to support their rush to war that he would accept any cock-and-bull story Chalabi fed them. Which, as we now know, is true.

Bush's decision to use a "slide show" format could also be read as a reference to Powell's disastrous UN presentation (remember Powell showing us all the Powerpoint slides of the deadly trucks and ramps and rectangular buildings?), which in a way makes the entire speech a WMD joke. But when he inserts the actual references to that speech--the two "Nope, no WMDs here" slides--they are not put in context. They both interrupt unrelated banter (the first comes after a joke about Kim Jong-Il supporting Kerry, the second comes right after a joke about Bush forcefully giving an order about where they should all have lunch and right before a joke about Skull and Bones). The WMDs thing is being used as a running gag, something you can just drop in to get a laugh and then move right past. There's no explicit or implicit suggestion about _why_ they never found the WMDs; they're just asking the audience to find the search itself, and the fact that they never got results, funny.

So, one thing that grates about Bush using the WMDs thing for comic mileage is the total lack of reflection or self-criticism. He may be 'laughing at himself' but he's not laughing at the *real* flaws that got us into this mess: his own tunnel vision, his seriously warped priorities, his callous disregard for human life, his corrupt and callous advisors, and his willingness to manipulate the truth itself, plus the CIA all the branches of the U.S. government plus the UN and Britain in order to go on his wild goose chase. All that he's 'laughing at himself' for is the same thing he's always been 'laughing at himself' for: his own hapless stupidity.

It may seem strange that as the president of the free world he can get away with presenting himself as an inarticulate, incurious moron who can't do anything right; but the whole "there you go again, Ollie" shtick that he and his handlers have been sustaining throughout his career is part of what generates the otherwise utterly baffling sympathy and identification with Bush that his base seems to feel. Basically what they have been trying to sell him as is a better-looking, fitter, more 'presidential' version of Homer Simpson: sure, he's no scholar and he has no use for book learning and he can't talk too long without committing all kinds of grammatical and factual bloopers, but he's good hearted and everyone around him loves him anyway. For people who themselves feel like they're not smart enough, cutthroat enough, sophisticated enough, or powerful enough to succeed the way they wanted to succeed, that kind of self-deprecation works very well. He's what they would be like if they got to be President, and so they'll forgive him his Homerisms and his fuck-ups because he makes them feel like they could be president too, instead of making them feel inadequate and ashamed.

The reason this "aw shucks, I've gone and done it again, haven't I" hangdog thing isn't working for him now is that people have realized that it's kind of a problem that the President of the United States is either unable or unwilling to take responsibility for any of his actions. That's why the WMD jokes are not funny coming from him: he was the one who got us into this mess, and he's the one who should have prevented it. To have created this colossal waste of time, money, and human life, and then to stand back and go "I'm a bad, bad boy" and expect us to forgive him for it by laughing with him is not only ludicrous but infuriating.

That's what makes the real difference between him and someone like Jon Stewart: Bush had the power to stop this from happening. None of the rest of us did. I sure fucking tried; and so, no doubt, did Stewart; but the reason WMD jokes from Bush's opponents fall into the category of "black humor" is precisely the fact that we know we don't have any real control over what's happening to our country. There's a difference between the grim laughter of irony and the kind of yuks that Bush was shooting for by inserting those two comments into his speech. We're laughing because otherwise the pain will kill us. He's laughing because he thinks our pain is funny.

Anyway, that's my take on it: you should not laugh about your own crimes until you have acknowledged, repented, and made reparation for them. And we're all going to be LONG dead before we see Bush or anyone on his team do THAT.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder