The Magic Show Rolls On

by Rich Miles

February 29, 2004

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

- H. L. Mencken

Ever been to see a really good magician? Someone like David Copperfield, or The Amazing Kreskin, or their ilk. You sit there mesmerized – Mesmer was a pretty good magician too, we’re told – and if the illusion is good, and the effects dazzling enough, the response most people will have, after the ooh’s and aah’s, is something along the lines of “How’d he/she/they do that?” We all want to know what the “trick” is, where the reality lies behind the apparently inexplicable sight we just witnessed, even though we don’t really want to know because knowing would destroy the illusion, and we love clinging to our illusions.

The answer to the question “How’d he do that?” is usually summed up in one word: misdirection. It’s a basic skill for the illusionist, probably a concept introduced on day 1 of Magic 101, drilled and polished and drilled some more, until it becomes the basis for every onstage action the magician does for the rest of his career. The concept is quite simple, really: if I can make you look at something eye- or attention-catching over here, then I can do something quiet and unnoticeable over there, which I will spring on you in a moment when I’m ready, and you will ooh and aah, and say “How’d he do that?”. And that’s why magicians are so reluctant to explain their illusions – because there’s really not much magic to them, they’ve just succeeded at getting you not to notice their preparations until they want you to notice them, and the real masters at this can even make you look foolish, and misdirect you if you try to blow the trick before they’re ready.

Why do I tell you all this, you’re wondering? Well, we do have a presidential election coming up soon, after all, and perhaps there are a few folks in the country who simply refuse to hear anything bad about our president, including my mother, and perhaps there are a few things that our president has done and continues to do that might benefit from a bit of additional scrutiny. Consider:

The right hand says “No Child Left Behind”, while the left hand (or vice versa) cuts funding for education, and leaves LOTS of children behind, and then the other hand denigrates those who point out this inconsistency, and the OTHER hand (you keeping count?) offers a new budget with further cuts for education.

The one hand says “Healthy Forest Initiative”, while the other hand proposes clear-cutting national forests and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

One hand says, “Clean Air Initiative”, while the other proposes to reduce federal limits on toxic emissions by corporations.

One hand says “Cut taxes, and make those tax cuts permanent” (a sure vote-getter, in most elections), while the other hand says that the huge federal deficits created by those tax cuts will stimulate the economy and wipe themselves out. Then the new budget proposed by the prez makes the deficits even larger. And no one in the administration ever even addresses the fact that our children and grandchildren will be paying these bills.

One hand says, “Let’s not have another 2000 election controversy – let’s reform voting mechanics, and get electronic and Internet voting up and running”, while the other hand quietly tries to push a bill through Congress to make it mandatory for ALL states to use the unreliable and extremely tamperable electronic voting machines made by a company whose leader was a big supporter of the prez in 2000 and beyond. That one hasn’t gotten passed yet, but the very act of trying to get it passed should give us pause.

One hand screams, in every single speech he’s given in the past two years or more, “Terror terror terror TERROR”, while the other invades a country that had little or nothing to do with terror anywhere but within its own borders.

Why are we letting GW Bush get away with this? Are we really so filled with fear that we will let a president steal the country out from under us, as long as he makes empty promises to fight terrorism etc. etc? Yes, terrorism is a continuing threat to our national security – but so are huge, unresolvable federal budget deficits. So are cuts in funding to education. So are all the things our patrician president has lied to us about, and so few have tried to call him to task for these lies and evasions. And those who have often have their impertinent questions simply ignored. No politician in living memory has used the “I don’t like the question, so I’m going to ignore it” tactic more – Ronald Reagan cupping his ear as if he hadn’t heard the question, as he got on board the helicopter, probably doesn’t count, because he probably couldn’t hear it. GW hears them, and still ignores them.

Do we really want to know what Bush can do in four more years, when he hasn’t even the small restraint of having to get re-elected to tone him down? Think about that – I mean, really think about it.

The only nugget of good news, or at least good speculation, that comes to mind at this time, is that, depending on your point of view Bush either won the election by a very small margin, or had to resort to stealing it to win it. In my wildest dreams, I can’t imagine that very many people who voted for Gore in 2000 are going to switch to Bush in ’04 – and I can easily imagine a substantial number who voted for Bush switching to the Dems this time. So if he won by a whisker last time, perhaps he will lose by the same whisker this year. After all, the Bush family has so many proud traditions – why not add one-term presidencies to the list? I mean, Poppy did it.

Politically Motivated? Yeah, What of it

by Rich Miles

Feb. 26, 2004

At least there’s some humor in this grim political season. I can’t help laughing when I read yet another statement from the White House, or some other Bush partisan, that this or that action by the opposition was “politically motivated”.

Let me clue in those poor souls who are so clearly lacking in a sense of irony that they can make such statements with a completely straight face: most of the “attacks” (read: uncovering of inconvenient facts) are indeed politically motivated. But that doesn’t make them wrong. Consider:

We still don’t know – despite the release of all those smudged copies of pay records and honorable discharges and so on – if our “War President” ever even served the time he signed on for in the Air National Guard, while his less-well-off cohort was off in the jungles of Vietnam, sweating and dying for our country’s misguided foreign policy. But to continue bringing up the matter, and seeking real information or eyewitness accounts of his presence in the wilds of Alabama is “politically motivated”.

Mr. Bush himself has backed away from his loudly proclaimed promise that he (HE, mind you, not the nation’s economy) would create 2.6 million jobs this year, and has blamed the entire statement on some overzealous number-crunchers at the Dept. of Labor. But for that fact to be brought up in public conversation is “politically motivated”.

Ditto his claims that massive tax cuts will actually reduce the massive deficits – “politically motivated” if you bring up the obvious fact that the emperor’s budget and fiscal policies have no clothes.

He has blamed his acceptance of flawed intelligence – which he was allegedly TOLD was flawed before he used it – on the CIA. But to mention that he is the president, and therefore should have made absolutely sure before using that intelligence to justify sending our troops into combat is “politically motivated”.

And God forbid – pardon, no pun intended – you should question whether a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is right or wrong! To suggest such an abuse of our constitutional system is genuinely anti-American is, again, “politically motivated”.

One can go on and on – but the bottom line of this discussion is that the effort to defeat Mr. Bush in November is – you guessed it – politically motivated. There – we admit it, it’s out in the open, and now, can we just give that particular canard a rest? It doesn’t sting the way it’s supposed to any longer – in fact, I’m proud to wear it.

The real irony here is that everything – EVERYTHING, even the stuff that looks good at first glance – that the Bush administration and their off-the-books pit bulls do is politically motivated, and intended for no other purpose than to get Mr. Bush reelected (or should I say, elected for the first time, as I don’t acknowledge that he was elected in 2000 – he was appointed by the Supreme Court).

So lest I go on to book length in this little screed, let me just say it once and for all: yes, the “attacks” on you are “politically motivated”, Mr. Bush. And our political motivation is to get you out of office in November. No amount of whining by your minions will alter the fact that we are deeply angry with you out here in the Heartland. So angry, in fact, that a lot of us, some Republicans included, are going to vote for anyone but you, even someone who has told us unequivocally that he will raise our taxes, to pay for your fiscal irresponsibility over the past three years.

I read a satirical quote the other day, that was attributed to George W. Bush. He probably never said this, but it does seem to describe his attitude rather succinctly:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time – and those are the ones we need to focus on”.

Politically motivated? Damn right.