♣ I recently read an artacle on Rudy Giuliani in which the former New York City mayor, like artful pols before him, used the “hates America” scam against a rival. The man seemed sure that like the rest he could put the thing over and the ploy was aimed directly at the president. The ex-mayor claimed Barack Obama hates America. Forget whence the alleged emotion was said to derive or at that rate just exactly when, how or why.
I wouldn’t dream of printing all the trumped up details. I won’t be shill for cheap, dense, shallow and odorous falderal, for lame, primitive, overused falderal like the “hates America” scam on any account no matter the source or the target. The American public has all too often borne the wiles of duplicitous pols presuming to glean falsity in the hearts of their opponents. The mere suggestion that Obama hates America and that some sagacious pols have the power to divine that hatryyttsrsea the man it is preposterous. It’s rhetoric so concerted and transparent it can only ring asinine from the tongues of those who belch it, must pain the ears of the discerning when they hear it.
More the fib has lain acrid in the mouths of those who know better ever since its ill-planned inception. Here Giuliani repeats it for the umpteenth time however. A vile scrap, harsh and inedible, a bite that swallowed square from the start, this certain food for thought far exceeds the limits of bad taste. It’s tough, slimy, full of rind, well past its shelf life. Partaking of the swill is kin to getting a dish of crow from one who can’t taste, one sharing a meal he should be eating alone, one fit to draw tang from nothing well enough to glean that on the menu tonight is roadkill, for dinner this evening is turned, moldering, indigestible crow, lousy, decimated, mashed by the tread a thousand tramping motorists.
Barack Obama hates America? Rudy knows. Rudy sees. Rudy can tell. It’s all so clear to Rudy, ah Rudy, the great Rudy, man, myth, legend, The Majestic Giuliani, crystal gazer, seer, psychic, soothsayer, sage guide, guru of the American political heart. In this mean-spirited, boldly presumptuous claim the ex-mayor appears to be charging voters, like hordes before, with believing a pol would never spew such salient rot if it weren’t undeniably true and unless he himself were truly insightful, prescient, maybe psychic, certainly firm in his deep devotion to party, bold in engaging its foes. Wow! All this cheese in a single pronouncement. No wonder Republicans love it. So, it seems that among the benighted Rudy just can’t lose. Some stubborn part of his thick and gooey crud is bound to stick.
At the heart of this brutal, baseless, untenable albeit cunningly scandalous statement lies a metaphor for the dregs to which politicking has sunk of late. The ruse invokes precisely what’s wrong with American politics nowadays. This rash claim, though soft inside, remains misleading, quite deceitful, very powerfully effective in smearing even the most resilient of public figures in less discerning quarters.
At the core it’s libel and slander. It’s textbook propaganda. It’s the rash and groundless charge of a desperate man designed to portray the accuser as keen, intrepid hero, the accused as loathsome, despicable cad. It’s a vicious lie, an egregious wrong inasmuch as it’s been fabricated to lionize a demon and demonize a lion, paint a betrayer of trust patriot, a statesman traitor.
It’s a bowl-faced lie at that, having been plotted quite knowingly, willfully, calculatingly. It’s a deliberate lie that’s been justified through smug rationalization without a tenuous fiber of obvious compunction, the plotter boldly embracing the deed for the loathsome sham it is. Politics, after all, mimic warfare by certain accounts and the proverb says that all in war is fair–even defrauding the American public I guess.
We could always believe, of course, that Giuliani and his ilk really do possess a rare perspicacity or genuine clairvoyance that make them alone privy to the otherwise cloistered hearts of rivals–and wouldn’t they bristle to know it. This is just what they want. It’s precisely what their shooting for. The schemers would all do well, however, to mark how little psychic skill it takes for the average American voter to spot lies and sophistry, the pretense of extraordinary insight or flagrant attempts to assassinate the character of a colleague.
Conjuring up a maelstrom of sound and fury, of course, as the magician with his stock smoke and mirrors, the charlatan easily hides the fact he’s not prescient, obscures the fact he’s irreversibly prone to spouting wild innuendo keenly calculated to slur his opponents, bold insinuations measured for effect instead of tame statements based on some semblance of truth. So it follows then that endlessly, in lieu of fresh ideas, the will for change or sound solutions to tough problems, we the public, the American voters are subjected to a merciless pummeling by trumped-up charges, a brutal squashing by senseless, off-topic attacks and low blows, a cruel dicing up by absolutely the cheapest of all cheap shots. It ought to go without saying and yet, sadly, it must be said: The American people deserve much better than this.
At whom is all this nonsense directed anyway? What impoverished manner of vapid demographic is inclined to trust this thinnest, nastiest, most disingenuous of all political language? Is anyone else nearly as tired as I of hearing this altogether absurd, inane, worthless and dishonest rhetoric bantied about, used to death in place of any viable discussion, real discernment or direct speech in public officials’ assessments of each other, used to death in place of insights into the crux of pressing issues which absolutely beg for resolution, used to death by those too dense and ill-informed to know how outright silly, terribly wasteful and clearly devoid of all veracity such sedimentary muck as the “hates America” scam is to begin with?
As if Barack Obama suffers the strain endemic to the office of President out of some sort of spite. As if he could hate the very nation he aspires to lead. As if any American enters public service because he hates his country. As if any politician has a gift with which to grasp his rivals’ hearts when in fact he’s lucky to grasp the very folly in a suggestion that he fosters such a gift in the first place, lucky if he can grasp, much less resolve, the grave problems which confront him every day as an official to begin with.
Rudy, gimme a break. Be a mensch not a witchdoctor. Get some new advisors. Do something, do anything only slough off the psychic demonizations, please. Spare me this emptiest of puerile, shopworn rhetoric. I’m a grownup after all.
–♦©M. D. Phillips–awincingglare.com