Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

Boy, did that backfire! As I can tell you from experiences with my wife's family, and
particularly her Uncle Ray, New Englanders are a singularly cranky and short-tempered
group of people. Not being invited to a Teacher of the Year ceremony is just the type of thing
that would piss them off. Jeffords quit the Republican Party, throwing control of the Senate to
the Democrats.
Emboldened by Jeffords's example, the Washington press corps suddenly found its
pecker again. Stories critical of Bush's handling of the Teacher of the Year ceremony, of the
secret Cheney energy task force, and of the President's interminable vacations, began to appear
not just in the German media, but in some American papers as well.
Suddenly on the defensive, Karl Rove counterattacked with a series of photo ops of
the President reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to kindergartners. Which is exactly what
he was doing when Operation Ignore came to an abrupt and disastrous conclusion.
After being chased around the country by imaginary terrorists for nine hours, Bush returned
to Washington and addressed a jittery nation. Far from comforting the American people,
the President, who appeared to be genuinely terrified himself, further unsettled the country
by stammering through a pallid and perfunctory statement.
Nine days later, having overcome his panic, the President capped an astonishing recovery
by delivering an inspiring speech to a joint session of Congress. It was only in retrospect
that I realized that the skillfully crafted address contained the seeds of a Manichean
view that divides the world into good and evil. Us and them. Black and white. American and
"other."
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the American people put aside their differences
over, for instance, whether cutting a billion dollars from the Environmental Protection
Agency was a good idea or not, and got behind our president—as well we should have. After
winning a swift victory in Afghanistan with Bill Clinton's military Bush's approval rating
shot up to an unprecedented 112 percent.
The media's testicles instantly shriveled and retracted back into their abdominal cavities,
making a slurping sound as they did so. Afraid to appear unpatriotic or treasonous, even
left-leaning periodicals like the Daily Worker, the Young Spartacist, and The New York Times
wrote glowing articles about the President.