IS GEORGE BUSH A DOG OR A TAIL?

WAGGING THE DOG

By Peter Fredson

October 28, 2005

There is an old refrain about “the tail wagging the dog.” For years it seemed that George Bush was in firm control of his power base. Anything George wanted George got. The entire Republican Congress took any request George made of them, did it with applause, and practically kissed his royal butt. Their incestuous union brought up another refrain about “They must hang together or they will hang separately.”

The Republican Party itself seemed almost synonymous with White Christian Evangelicalism, full of piety, prayer, and endless prating about morals, sexual acts, and invisible entities. There was a whole dog, indivisible, that wagged whenever George, seemingly the master, spoke into his microphone.

There was no doubt about who was running the country. It was a fairly compact group of neo-conservatives, exemplified best by trickster Karl Rove who decided that belligerence, bullying, domination, and preemption would give them some sort of world control.

The cowardly warhawks decided to exploit religion and patriotism, and gratefully accepted the ideology of the thousands (perhaps millions) of Christian supremacists with their absolute control of cash, votes and undying support in return for demolishing the separation of church and state. They have no compunction in using Biblical quotations as the basis for legislation and in altering the constitution to suit their religious beliefs (whatever they may be.)

For many reasons they chose George Bush as their poster boy, someone who would support their views on sex, life, death, heaven, angels and demons and give them full leave to impose their beliefs (whatever they might be) on the entire nation. George Bush would be their Emperor Constantine, who would wave his scepter and instantly every American would become a Christian by fiat.

In return for letting them put up Ten Commandment monuments, Pledges of Allegiance Under God, Prayer in public schools, and assorted symbols and icons, they would back George with every ounce of strength and every penny of income and every word of condemnation for sinful people opposed to the Bush administration.

Their blood-thirsty appetites were partially satiated with the invasion of Iraq, the murder by US troops of many thousands of Iraqi civilians, the destruction of homes and livelihoods, and the absolute domination of “inferior” peoples with a false ideology which could be salvaged by proselytizing. Their false god would be supplanted by a Bush version of a Biblical Jesus, or an Old Testament grumpy God who resembles the new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. And everyone would live happily ever after until the great Rapture would sort out the sinners from the Bush Republicans to populate the Falwell version of Hell.

This monolithic view of assorted cabals coming together for a grandiose project was rudely interrupted when George chose his secretary to be the grandest judge in the nation, someone who was wise in the constitution, our history, and respectful of cultural differences. His choice, chosen for religious conformation with his views, did not suit his ultra-conservative and neo-con backers. His choice not show sufficient kow-towing to religious exigencies...it was not definitely and firmly Christian-enough on key issues of abortion, privacy, personal choice, etc.

Suddenly the whole dog had a tail that wagged independently, and in effect wagged the dog. In their attempt to show disapproval of presidential choice without lengthy deliberation with religious and neo-con leaders, they showed that they would, in effect, dump George in a heart-beat. They were willing to dump the entire Party and Republican Congress to ensure that their beliefs be paramount.

For the first time in five years a few Republican senators became aware that their fate was not just in George’s hands, but in the hands of leaders of the Far Right. For the first time the Republican senators had a foreboding that not everything was going according to plan.

Although criticism of Bush is delicately phrased, there is no doubt who is master of the dog. The neo-con Christian dominionists and reconstructions hold the key to all future elections, cash and support. Without them, the Party will wither and die, because the Party depends greatly on Far Right support. There is no provision to get around this support, as it was massive, firm, and available.

But nothing lasts forever.