What would you do?

by **JerkyLeBoeuf** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:54 pm

If you can stomach it, please pretend for a moment that you're Preznit Dubya. Thanks to a few muckety-muck do-gooders deciding to blow the whistle on you, your ongoing and highly illegal clandestine, warrantless surveillance of American citizens has been revealed, potentially exposing you and your infinitely corrupt administration to the most serious of legal consequences. Making things worse, you've been caught on camera in a bald-faced lie that underlines your full awareness of the criminality of your acts. What do you do? If this were any other time -- and if you were any other POTUS -- you'd either resign in disgrace and take that long walk to the helicopter, or you'd choose a suitably high-level goat to sacrifice on the altar of phony public accountability. I mean, we are talking about the Constitution, after all. But this isn't any other time. It's the post-9/11 era, a time when three simple digits (and an optional forward slash) combine to form a magic word that instantly transforms whoever speaks it into a blameless, holy creature whose crimes are the cushy pillows upon which gently rests the nation's fevered head. And you aren't any other POTUS. You're George Walker Bush, Grand Poobah of the Dark Christian personality cult that has completely assimilated the Republican Party, which currently controls the entire apparatus -- executive, legislative and judicial -- of the federal government. So I ask again… what do you do? The first thing you do -- apart from going after the whistleblowers with everything you've got -- is to deny everything. Accuse your accusers of being politically motivated liars and terrorist sympathizers. Let your crotch-snorting lapdogs in the right-wing gutter press pick up on your talking points and make of them a vast echo that reverberates back and forth across the media landscape, drowning out the tiny peeps of inconvenient truth that manage to squeak up through the corporate mainstream media machine. This will buy you some much needed time. When further evidence of your wrong-doing emerges -- as it inevitably will -- your denials and counter-accusations will begin to fall flat. That's when you have to start the process of confusing the issue. Muddy the waters by diverting lines of inquiry and changing the subject. The more jarring and brazen the cognitive dissonance, the better. Remember, you're just buying time, here. Here are a few examples: If you're asked whether you've had thousands of American citizens illegally placed under warrantless surveillance for the skimpiest of reasons, you could say: "Of course I'm going to continue protecting America from the terrorists!" If you're asked why the White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board --created by Congress in 2004 as per the 9/11 Commission's recommendations -- has never hired a staff or held a meeting, you could say: "Yes, it certainly is reckless to jeopardize our national security by leaking highly classified information about our vital intelligence gathering activities! The leakers must be brought to justice!" If you're asked why, three years into your massive illegal surveillance program, not a single "terrorist" has been caught because of it, you could say: "Nobody could ever have imagined that the levees would fail!" Once again, you must remember that this is simply a stalling technique with no hope of permanently closing the issue. Eventually, there will be revelations that you and your underlings will be unable to spin away. Then, at last, it will be time to break out the legal and rhetorical strategies developed for you by the same team of experts that brought us the invasion of Iraq, the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay torture manuals, extraordinary rendition and a whole host of other policies that future honest historians will forever associate with your nightmarish, illegitimate reign. It is important to play to your strengths. In your case, that would be stoking the flames of terror in the population at large. Leveling veiled threats about the typhoon of terror that awaits the American people if your critics don't stop pestering you about that "goddamned piece of paper" would be a good place to start. Also, try suggesting that the 9/11 terrorist attacks might never have happened at all if you'd only been free to conduct this kind of wide-scale, unchecked surveillance all along. Sure, it's pure bullshit. But that's beside the point. Oh shit… I almost forgot! Right from the get-go, it's important that you implicate as many people as you can. If at all possible, implicate those who are currently criticizing you. Say things like: "Congress was fully briefed! If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?", then chuckle like you just said something funny. This is an especially effective tactic because it lends credence to your accusations of political gamesmanship, and positions you as the victim in all this. Although your claims won't be "true" in the strictest definition of the word, don't worry about the media catching on; it will take months before they figure out you're full of crap, if they ever do. That should take care of the public relations aspect of your strategy for the time being. Now, it's time to tackle the legislative side of things by revealing your crazy-ass rationalizations to federal lawmakers. Referring to the authority vested in you by the Unitary Executive Theory, lay claim to powers never dreamed of by previous Preznits. Be forceful and resolute in your assumption of these Divine Rights. This might sound crazy, but a good first step might be to get your Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, to go before the Senate and argue that when Congress granted you authorization to invade and occupy Iraq, that they also bestowed upon you the absolute and unchecked authority to do anything -- up to and including the ritual sacrifice of newborn babies in the White House basement -- as long as you deem it necessary to waging your War On Terror. Throw it out there, and it just might stick. We are now approaching endgame. At this point, it is entirely possible that your desperate measures to sway public opinion will have failed. They may even have caused a trickle of so-called "righteous conservatives" to abandon their unswerving allegiance to you, which could, in turn, trigger the Lunatic Left to begin whispering about censure and impeachment. Even if your popularity plummets to sub-Nixonian levels, there is no need to panic. Always remember that you, sir, are the Man. The Supreme Court, the Justice Department, regulatory agencies, Congressional taskforces and Senate subcommittees… these are your playthings, safely stacked with a veritable panoply of compromised cronies and true-believing Manchurian Candidates who are ready, willing and empowered to do your bidding. You say you want them to block any proposed investigations into your crimes? How about getting them to change the laws you broke so that, from now on, you'll only ever have to notify a tiny cadre of "made men" about your surveillance activities? All you need to do is say the magic word. (for a link-rich version of the above article, go to www.dirtfiles.com)

What would you do?

What would you do?

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