×
In context of a post on post-war Japan, Steve Clemons writes:
Bush needs to be careful of trumpeting too much about our experience democratizing Japan -- as we were frequently on the side of the anti-democrats. To some degree, Japan democratized despite our promotion of a profound model of structural corruption there -- and the Japanese public and civil society institutions deserve credit. But Bush, as of late, has been warping this history.Read that first line again -- "Bush needs to be careful of...". I've used it myself, Bush better watch for this or that, because he's flagrantly rewriting history/ignoring evidence/contradicting reality. I was wrong. Bush needn't be careful at all. Who in our press is going to stand up and correct the historical record? Is it you, Nedra Pickler? You, Ron Fournier? You, Dana Milbank? You, Judith Miller? Of course not. As Digby is fond of saying, we've entered a full-fledged Foucaultian state of competing discourses, and Steve's -- ours -- takes much too long to explain. Journalistic objectivity has bred a mutant offspring of political speech completely unmoored from reality. Remember The Matrix? How the original Agents were powerful but bound by the laws of the realm? And how Agent Smith unfastened himself from those pesky constraints and his increased power was in danger of ripping the whole construct apart? It's that way now, and the result has been reality checks aren't nearly as useful as body checks. It might be that once this breed of hollow Republicans is plastered across the boards, the reality-based discourse that we miss can be restored to the political realm. Until then? Bush better be careful because Iraq is devolving into an Islamic Republic where women are oppressed and Shari'a law reigns, because he won't be careful to respect history.
