Ask Auntie Pinko
January 31, 2002

Dear Auntie Pinko,

Why does the Bush Administration, via Lynn Cheney and others, castigate college students and their professors for having the audacity to suggest that it was American foreign policy in the Middle East that created bin Laden, and by extension 9/11, when James Dobbins, Bush's own man in Afghanistan, acknowledges exactly the same thing to the rest of the world?

Steve,
Los Angeles, CA

Dear Steve,

Auntie Pinko would like to point out, as gently as possible here, that holding Mr. Bush's administration to any rigorous standards of consistency in their public utterances is, perhaps, just the tiniest bit disingenuous - or else naïve and idealistic. Every administration, Republican or Democratic, is rife with examples of the old Forked Tongue Syndrome. It's hardly possible to raise a family of adolescents without some inconsistencies in behavior vs. utterances, much less govern an entire nation full of contentious, diverse, opinionated people.

That said; there is something that sticks in my craw when Ms Cheney and other administration spokespeople express their outrage and disapproval of those who point the finger of guilt squarely at the mirror of American policies and actions. Why is this so much more insidiously disturbing than, for instance, taking a public stand in favor of promoting environmental protection, and then blocking or vetoing the sections of international trade treaties that would hold us to environmental protection standards?

As Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, the last of the Progressive Republicans, said so eloquently of the Presidency, "It's a bully pulpit!" But the word "bully" has two meanings. "Bully" as slang meant "strong, great, wonderful, good, grand, etc." When a contemporary of Mr. Roosevelt's did something particularly noteworthy, he might have observed "Bully for you!" without any implication that the person had inappropriately exerted force upon a weaker or disadvantaged opponent.

For that, of course, is the other, more standard meaning of the word "bully." When the powerful use their power to coerce the powerless, the word "bully" is applied in a less complimentary way. And when a Presidential administration turns the bully pulpit into a bullying pulpit, with the clear goal of suppressing Constitutionally protected dissent, there is something peculiarly distasteful in the phenomenon. Whether it is their intent or not, it looks like the thin end of a wedge aimed at dislodging First Amendment protection from those of our citizens who disagree with government policies.

Mere hypocrisy or expediency, repugnant as it may be, cannot compare with the menace implied by such an application of the bullying pulpit.

Auntie Pinko does not expect Ms Cheney or other members of Mr. Bush's administration to refrain from expressing their opinions just because the power of the Presidency invests them with a special potency and national visibility. That would be unfair - we expect our leaders to have feelings on issues and to express them. And if Ms Cheney simply stated to the media "I disagree with those who feel that American policies contributed to the tragedy of 9/11, and I am outraged that anyone could draw such conclusions," her utterance, while arguable, would be above reproach.

But by taking a stand about what opinions educators, writers, etc. "should" hold or express, and by involving themselves in efforts to promote "proper" or "correct" syllabi for educators, a member of a Presidential administration crosses the line, and becomes a bully.

Thank you for asking Auntie Pinko!

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