Clues in Real Time

The other night on Real TIme with Bill Maher featured two conservatives, former drug czar Asa Hutchinson and a women named KellyAnne Conway (a scary looking women who I imagine to be the love child of the one-night stand between Ann Coulter and Skeletor from the cartoon He-Man) and from their "performance" I can only gather that speaking the truth about Iraq will only be met against the GOP's strategy of balancing truth with fantasy.

First, when Bill asked (paraphrasing) 'Why should I still be clinging to hope about Iraq after what I have been reading these past months' (and in Bills case, he is someone that has championed the positives in Iraq) Hutchinson basically said 'When we started our country’s democracy it was an experiment and so is Iraq's democracy, and the world hopes now as it did when it watched our democracy flourish, that Iraq succeeds.'

What an apple pie piece of wholesomenss that is. Umm, umm. Just compare over there with over here and you get a shining city on a hill where you can still smell the thanksgiving turkey and hear the football game. Yummy that’s good Americanized democracy over there isn’t it? You see, you just add one part fantasy with one part America – a value that must never have a negative in front of it - and you get a total wash over comparison that avoids the real question.

Not to say that there isn’t a speck of truth there and a speck of similarity between those points, but it is like comparing apples to really soft, yet perky, breasts. Both are curvy, amazing to look at and delicious, but the similarities end there.

For starters, Americans fought to free themselves from tyranny and expelled an occupier. Why do conservative talking heads always forget this painfully ironic piece of information? Second, and I hate to repeat myself, but America expelled the occupying force!!! Hello? Sooner or later, you get sick of the powerful people with the tanks, even if they did "free" you. I take it that process rapidly accelerates when 100,000+ of your civilian population is killed by the ‘freedom fairies’ while they’re spreading their ‘freedom dust’ (both Maherisms). There's also the point Maher pointed out, "Franklin's people had not gassed Hamilton's people."

But the charade continued with Conway jumping in to add more sprinklings of pixie dust… ‘They have it better over there than we did…’ which I am guessing would have segued nicely into an uproarious jibe along the lines of ‘at least the Iraqis don’t have to deal with the French like we did, yuk, yuk’ had Chris Rock not interrupted with “Why is gas so expensive?”

Rock and Maher laughed this one over for a few seconds and after Rock said he would be on the Surreal World because of the dent in his wallet caused by gas prices, Conway noted,

“Jeez, you really are Jews… ahh… in a different way.”

The “different way” was to clarify that she was not referring to the show’s opening skit about the pullout of Gaza and its moving company “Ju Haul,” but to the stereotype of Jews being cheap. Isn’t that soooo funny? I mean, I certainly think calling someone who objects to paying $3-a-gallon for gas a cheap Jew in 2005 is downright hilarious. Does she go on tour? Will she tell jokes about Irish drunks and ignorant blacks, and ooh, even better, blonds that sound fucking moronic?

Then, sticking to the GOP playbook of closely following up stereotypical name-calling with a trip to Factlesschusetts, she starts spouting talking points about how wonderful Iraq is. She began praising how great it will be for women in Iraq, and in following up the ‘they-have-it-better-than-we-did’ cartoonishness, compared it to how women had no rights when our country first started, when Maher correctly interrupted her by noting that this independent-Iraqi-women- fantasy is in fact the exact opposite of what is really going on, as noted by anyone who has closely looked at the constitution and its theocratic overtones. Maher said ‘Excuse me, but five years ago women in Iraq had a somewhat equality to men and now they are taking a step backward. We are not promoting a democracy, we are promoting a theocracy.’

And then it happened. When the conservatives had their backs against the wall staring at nothing but painfully ugly truths, they went with their old standby of completely undermining the truth of their opponent's point by exaggerated distraction in the form of Asa Hutchinson saying “Now you’re promoting Saddam Hussein.”

This is of course absurd and it was the furthest thing from what Maher was doing because he actually thinks it is reprehensible that women were actually “freed” from a dictator only to lose freedoms!!!

But, as always, what do conservatives do when faced with such situations? They panic and cowardly react by completely exaggerating to the point of lying. If the lie distracts you, well then, Mission Accomplished. If this sounds familiar, that’s because you have heard it before…

People that think a woman’s body should not be governed by the state are babykillers. That’s it, no discussion. No nuance. No grey.

People that want a clean environment are treehuggers. Forget the warnings and look at those crazy hippies.

People that are furious that we took resources away from finding Osama to fight a war based on lies are liberal crybabies. Do not look behind the curtain...

People that find out they have been lied to are flip-floppers.

Generals that tell the president that he is not using enough men for the postwar plan are fired. All other generals tell the president what he has given them is the perfect amount of men, and this in turn becomes is the point made to attack those that continue to call for more troops.

If you are a grieving mother who wants to know why the Commander-in-Chief takes five week vacations while waging a senseless war, you are a "crackpot."

Calling the post-war planning a disaster is supporting the enemy. You are either with us or with the terrorists.

Asking why the famous “$87 billion for our troops” never seemed to get to our troops in the form of armor for Humvees is aiding the insurgents. You go to war with the "army you have not the army you want."

Calling for our troops to come home is admitting defeat and a bad sign to the terrorists. Plus, everything is lovely in Iraq. They love us because we liberated them. It is just going to take us 3 months to train your son to go over there to and spend 3 years giving the same training to his Iraqi counterpart. Everything's great!

And, in line with the simplistic idiocy of my favorite GOP sponsored bumper sticker that read “Kerry Is Bin Laden’s Man/Bush’s Mine,” asking why thousands died and hundreds of billions was spent so theocratic rule could take over and strip women of freedoms is “Endorsing Saddam Hussein.”

Isn’t second grade logic wonderful?

But, this is going to be the strategy for 2006, just wait. The clues are right there for anyone thinking of running against this fantasy of this administration. Criticizing failure will equate to endorsing Saddam, and if you dare complain about how high gas prices are hurting the American working family, well then, you're just a cheap Jew.

Update: Frank Rich writes another brilliant piece with some similar observations:

When the Bush mob attacks critics like Ms. Sheehan, its highest priority is to change the subject. If we talk about Richard Clarke's character, then we stop talking about the administration's pre-9/11 inattentiveness to terrorism. If Thomas Wilson is trashed as an insubordinate plant of the "liberal media," we forget the Pentagon's abysmal failure to give our troops adequate armor (a failure that persists today, eight months after he spoke up). If we focus on Joseph Wilson's wife, we lose the big picture of how the administration twisted intelligence to gin up the threat of Saddam's nonexistent W.M.D.'s.