Bush, Pundits & Dems FEIGN "CONCERN" For Nat'l Security - David Sirota

[kpete]

DAVID SIROTA

Bush, Pundits & Dems Feign "Concern" for National Security

READ MORE: Iraq, 2006, New York Times, George W. Bush

With the termination of the Dubai ports deal, President Bush now says he is "concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, especially in the Middle East." This line has been parroted by the punditocracy, which claims that legitimate questions of national security are "ethnic profiling" (aka. "racial profiling"). The hypocrisy is as thick as a milkshake - Suddenly, we're expected to believe George W. Bush and the pundits who pushed the Iraq War deep down really cares about the messages America is sending to the rest of the world. What an incredibly insulting joke.

Where was this so-called "concern" when Bush authorized the use of torture? Where was this "concern" when Bush decided to ignore the Geneva Conventions with respect to detainees? What about the "broader message" we sent to the world when Bush deliberately fabricated the perception of an "imminent threat" of WMD and used that perception as a justification to invade Iraq? Or, what about the "broader message" that Bush sent when he cracked a joke immediately after telling the press 30,000 Iraqis - many innocent bystanders - have been killed since the war began? Or what about the "broader message" that continues to be sent when Bush holds White House events to publicly fawn all over the most oppressive dictators on Earth? What kind of message does that send to the millions of ordinary citizens oppressed by those same dictators?

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The truth is, George W. Bush and the neoconservative opinionmakers that dominate today's news are people who have no "concern" for what the world thinks. Bush is a guy who has tried to slash funding for public diplomacy and foreign aid, and who most recently appointed Karen Hughes as America's top international public diplomacy official, despite the fact that her only experience is serving as a Republican political hack. He's the guy who thinks that reaching out to the world on foreign policy means insulting the world's intelligence by simply repeating over and over again that everything is going perfectly in Iraq. And incredibly, the neutered pundits and reporters, desperate to stay in good graces with their White House masters, has disgustingly interpreted Bush's contempt for the world as "toughness," no matter how much that attitude has actually weakened America's national security.

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The public, in short, is seen as a nuisance, votes to be bought/manipulated on election day with huge amounts of corporate cash funneled to candidates by the insulated party operatives in Washington - nothing more. It is a sad state of affairs - one that clearly calls into question whether America is watching the final death throes of its proud democratic tradition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/bush-pundits-dems-feig_b_17157.html