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January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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January 31,
2002
Bush: The Great
Transformation
The Thing About Old 43
By David Vest
Ten things we don't need polls to tell us about
George W. Bush, who has suddenly been transformed in the public
eye from Bumbling Dubya, illegitimate usurper, to Old 43, Our
President.
1. "I don't care. I like the guy." Show
people a list of outrages perpetrated by the Bush administration
in its first year, and most of them are likely to respond with
the moral equivalent of a shrug. Yes, you and I know better and
this is a sad state of affairs that we must all view with alarm,
etc. etc. It also happens to be the case, and we had better start
dealing with political reality. The reality of the present moment
and the foreseeable future is that people in the aggregate like
this president, whatever they may think of his policies.
Old 43, smirk and all, is infinitely more likeable than his father,
who was never accused of being a "man of the people."
More importantly, Bush II is not personally disliked on a large
scale, as was Bill Clinton. People admired Clinton, feared him,
loathed him and lusted after him, held him in awe or in contempt,
but few actually appeared to have liked the man.
2. Bush's personal failings only seem to make him
more likable. People enjoy mocking him for his verbal ineptitude,
his lack of depth, his inability to eat a pretzel and watch football
at the same time, but they don't hate him for these defects.
He comes across as human in a way his father's stiffly-controlled
hysteria never was able to do.
Clinton's weaknesses appeared all the more appalling (and damnable)
against the background of his formidable strengths. We wondered,
how could anyone so brilliant have been so miserably stupid?
Bush's perceived strengths emerge from all his shortcomings as
a pleasant surprise. He's better than we thought, whatever we
thought.
3. Because we like him, we're going to let him
get away with stuff we wouldn't tolerate from others. This will
be true long after Cheney has been tossed to the investigators
and the last Enron executive tries to cut a deal.
4. The more we like him, the smarter he seems.
Whoever debates him in 2004 is going to have to knock him out
to beat him.
5. Bush is every bit the politician Clinton, who
should know, warned us that he was. Clinton was extremely lucky
to have made his first race for the White House against the father
and not the son. As Bob Herbert put it in the New York Times,
the Democrats now find themselves "placed in check by a
fellow who was initially viewed, at best, as a political lightweight."
6. They had better start taking him seriously,
if they aspire to anything more than the right to say "I
told you so."
7. There really is an awful lot of addictive behavior
in that family. We don't care, we still like him. Who doesn't
have an irresponsible cousin or uncle who can get away with murder
and still be the family darling? And this just in from a Texas
source: "You know, I think I'd drink and take whatever pill
I could get my hands on, too, if I had to grow up in that family."
(A view evidently shared by Dubya.)
8. The more he leans toward the center (and stiff-arms
the religious right), the more we like him. He understands this.
Only Nixon could go to China, etc.
9. The job approval rating is bound to fall. But
not necessarily because we won't still like him. It's amazing
how much of the glow of "The West Wing" seems to have
rubbed off on Bush, of all people.
10. It's the economy, stupid. Granted, people could
care less about the economy when they're running for their lives
and scared to open the mail. Even that envelope with the tiny
tax refund in it. But sooner or later the dust and fear die down.
England gave Churchill the boot the minute the Second World War
was over.
The city of Houston used to feel much the same way about Ken
Lay that the country now feels about Old 43. Then reality broke
through, like a scene from GLAMOUR: A WORLD PROBLEM, and perception
was no longer reality. Find someone who likes Ken Lay now.
David Vest
is a regular writer for CounterPunch, a poet and piano-player
for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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