Abu Ghraib: "Father of the Raven"

I'm writing this as Bush delivers his sixth State of the Union Address. In January 2001, I made it a few minutes through his first inaugural and bailed, largely because I simply couldn't stand that squinty-eyed smirk. Not so soon after Bush v Gore. Later, when he began to add condescending explanations of the obvious to his small bag of oratorical tricks, I stopped even trying. (You know the bit of shtick I mean: He uses a word any seventh-grader knows, then leans forward with a pitying smile, makes a chopping movement with his left hand, and smugly explains to the questioner what the word means. One imagines he's explaining it just as it was just explained to him a few minutes before air time; he's got that "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" glow on his face.)

I used to be a great one for watching Inaugural addresses and State of the Union speeches and suchlike. Probably goes all the way back to the 1971 SOTU (long before we were calling them SOTUs, in fact). My pals and I were assigned to watch it by our high school econ teacher, and today I still remember bits and pieces of the six "Great Goals" Nixon enunciated in that speech: "The wealthiest nation in the world should be the healthiest nation in the world." And: We must "preserve and enhance our natural environment." Interesting for the idea of a Republican president who gave a crap about health care and who wasn't the mortal enemy of the environment, but otherwise, just a couple of little sticky-notes clinging to the cardigan sweater of my brain.

Then, for many years, I taught courses in political rhetoric and public address, so I was taping them for class use. This was back in the day when conventions were, if no longer the object of gavel-to-gavel coverage, at least something more than the unwatched and unwatchable pageant that the networks rightly ignore today. (Remember Ted Kennedy, on the second or third night of the 1988 Democratic convention, leading a gleeful crowd in the chant "Where was George? Where was George?")

But that was over a long time ago. The last State of the Union I watched with any enjoyment was Clinton's final one, in 2000. He was obviously having a great time, knowing he could no longer set a legislative agenda but nevertheless firing progressive policy ideas out there, one after another. I remember watching it at the time, and thinking: You know, he'll never have this much fun again for the rest of his life.

No doubt about it, though; this has been a tough week for the Forces of Light. The Senate Republicans confirmed Bush's nomination of "Strip Search Sammy" Alito to the Supreme Court today, a mathematical inevitability despite (or, arguably, because of) the hastily planned Democratic filibuster attempt. Americans can go to sleep tonight in the comfort of knowing that, by 2008, jurisprudentially speaking, America will be firmly re-planted in the 1920s, if not indeed the 1720s.

And tonight, Bush gets another chance to change the subject from Republican corruption, Plamegate, the Iraq debacle, the Palestine debacle, the Iran debacle, the hollowed-out economy--and, of course, his own dismal job approval numbers--by thumping another "reform" designed to undermine another popular body of liberal/progressive legislation (this time, it's health care) and reminding us that everything changed since 9/11.

While I'm sure Junior enjoys looking down on the Congress and the Supreme Court tonight from his podium tonight--an architectural metaphor that surely gratifies his "Sun King" ambitions--the idea that he has to continue the fiction of actually needing either of the other two branches of government to carry out his policies is probably galling to him. I imagine he'd rather step out on a balcony somewhere, wearing Ray Bans and a Michael Jackson-esque military costume, and intone, "Arise, my people, and look upon me."

So the Alito confirmation, ghastly as its consequences will be for our country for a generation, is a done deal. And the SOTU is little more than kabuki theater. (And it's only Tuesday. Is this a great country, or what?)

I'm trying to find comfort in the fact that Attorney General Gonzales will shortly have to account to the Senate Judiciary Committee for having--apparently--lied through his capped teeth about the NSA wiretap program to Committee during his confirmation hearings last winter. (The head of the NSA may also have some 'splainin' to do.) Russ Feingold has called Gonzales out on it already.

With a little luck, Gonzales, the chipmunk-cheeked Albert Speer of Bush's New Reich, may also one day have to account for having laid the theoretical groundwork for America's emergence in the 21st century as a torture state. I've already written about the special way that power corrupts within the Bush administration; let's take a moment to consider how that poison flows throughout the system of our nation. This is from "Judgment Days: Lessons from the Abu Ghraib courts-martial," by JoAnn Wypijewski, in the February, 2006, Harper's Magazine (emphasis added):

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, people wondered, Why did they take pictures? During jury selections at Fort Hood, at least one battle-creased sergeant would always abandon euphemism and say, If you're going to do something like that, why would you photograph it?  The simplest explanation is the best. They took pictures because they could. Soldiers in Iraq take pictures like crazy, especially, I was told, where signs instruct them not to. They take pictures because they're bored or want souvenirs. They take pictures of people they arrest (an abrogation of the Geneva Conventions), of fighters they kill (ditto), of bodies they desecrate (a war crime). They email them home or send them with photos of their wives to a porno website or string them together and add sound to make commemorative videos.

And there you have it: Limitless power finds what's worst in you and magnifies it. Gonzales provides the theory of torture, Cheney the enforcement, Rumsfeld the supervision, Bush the front--and the Army Reservists eventually tried at Fort Hood moved it from theory to practice. It's a surprisingly straight line from the paneled Executive Branch offices in DC to the stinking, sweaty Iraqi dungeons.