The Giant Republican Blame-Away Machine

[Miss Authoritiva]

The Giant Republican Blame-Away Machine

By Miss Authoritiva

"All governments…fall afoul of the same stupidities…. The variable is the character and quality of the excuses."
-- Lewis H. Lapham

A tearfully departed George Tenet and a defiantly sincere Richard Clarke. That's all we have to show for horrific breaches of national security, nose-thumbing foreign policies, two botched wars, and looted government finances. Otherwise, nobody even vaguely associated with the Bush Administration has been given a single demerit point.

Did anybody check the back of the Bush II inauguration program for a legal disclaimer?

Well give the devils their due. You have to admire how the Bush Administration has pulled it off so far. (Reassuring foreshadowing: But their very success is going to be their undoing.) Of course, they didn't invent the art of savvy, preemptive self-exoneration, but oh how they have used it, turned it inside out, and used it again.

In government, rule number 1 is never to look into anything unless the widows and orphans refuse to go away. The Bush Administration got cornered. Even so, the split-decision findings of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate probe into the government's epochal intelligence failures proved rule number 2: if it's not a total loss, it's a win. The spin was spun. The fault, dear citizens, lies not in the Bush Administration but in the disasters and catastrophes themselves.

So how did they do it?

Simple really. The Bush people completely eliminated the human element. That's it. All bad events are self-caused. Shit happens. We have moved way beyond the days of "mistakes were made." This is the 21st century after all; mistakes now make themselves.

You know, looking back we should have seen it coming, especially when Bush's military records expunged themselves and Florida votes voided themselves. Thus, with the giant Republican blame-away machine finely calibrated:

__Wars start themselves.
__Institutions fail themselves.
__Deficits create themselves.
__Intelligence misinterprets itself.
__Projections miscalculate themselves.
__No-bid contracts award themselves.
__Detainees torture themselves.
__Funds misappropriate themselves.
__Leaks leak themselves.
__Assertions falsify themselves.
__Recommendations ignore themselves.
__ _____________________________.
__ _____________________________. (Add your own entries to the list!)
__ _____________________________.


After more than 3 years of nonstop cranking, the giant Republican blame-away machine has flooded the market with standardized excuses, mass produced rationalizations, and customized absolutions. The downside of all this self-exoneration grows more obvious every day: no one ever appears to be in control. Not a desirable image for a commander-in-chief and his lesser chiefs, is it? And there is wicked irony to savor here too. Bush and Cheney have paid for their no-fault insurance with the very thing they were trying to save: their electability.

[bain_sidhe]

1. My entry...

__Wars start themselves.
__Institutions fail themselves.
__Deficits create themselves.
__Intelligence misinterprets itself.
__Projections miscalculate themselves.
__No-bid contracts award themselves.
__Detainees torture themselves.
__Funds misappropriate themselves.
__Leaks leak themselves.
__Assertions falsify themselves.
__Recommendations ignore themselves.

Bush & Cheney f*ck themselves. :evilgrin:

[Miss Authoritiva]

3. Ouch -- I missed that one.

But I have since thought of:

Pretzels choke themselves.
Bikes crash themselves.
Freudian slips slip themselves.

[mfritz]

2. my politcal cartoon on this subject

With apologies to Bill Keane, I made this crummy political cartoon about this topic (fingers crossed, first attempt to put an image in a post)



Pick one, or invent your own:
"Who turned the surplus into an enormous deficit?"
"Who let all the manufacturing jobs move overseas?"
"Who hyped the pre-war intelligence?"
"Who let Osama bin Laden get away?"
"Who let the polluters rewrite our environmental laws?"
"Who outed that CIA agent?"
"Who saddled our schools with a massive unfunded mandate?"
"Who exploited the 9/11 tragedy for political gain?"
"Who overthrew the democratically elected president of Haiti?"
"Who rushed our soldiers into war without body armor?"
"Who put that Mission Accomplished banner up on the aircraft carrier?"
"Who let the Enron thieves escape justice?"
"Who gave Halliburton all those fat no bid contracts?"

MF

[Miss Authoritiva]

4. "Who would never disparage Vietnam War heroes?"

Sorry -- got tricky with the negative phrasing there.

Love the caption list. Meshes well with my list of Bush-Cheney self-exonerations. Thanks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Distracting alerts announce themselves (n/t)

[Miss Authoritiva]

6. Commissions stonewall themselves.

Suggested by my spouse-type person, who felt he's too computer illiterate to type it in himself.

[Miss Authoritiva]

7. Also see SoCalDem's terrific Blame-Away "ad" at this link .

Minty Fresh Blame Away

[arwalden]

8. Multisyllabic Words Mispronounce Themselves.

[Miss Authoritiva]

9. Self-obvious.

Swift Boat Liars launch themselves.