Uncle Frank's
Diary
Number Eighteen
Exploiting Experience:
Politician and Poet, Two of a Kind
A few mornings past I slogged downstairs at 5 a.m. I couldn’t sleep.
I made a cup of instant, then sat on the couch in the living room with
Dave the Cat. Dave snuggled up against my side and tucked his head under
my arm. I turned on the TV and flipped around the cable news channels to
see if it would be safe to go out that morning.
The George W. Bush World Trade Center ad came on, the one with actors
pretending to be firefighters, pretending to be among the people that
Bush pretended he would support when he pretended that his
administration would be unstinting in its efforts to help New York City
recover from the WTC attack.
There’s no pretense about the Bush Gang’s eagerness to retain and
expand its power, or about using New York City and the memories and
images of the WTC disaster to further the Liar-in-Chief’s ambitions to
win, at last, a presidential election.
When asked why real firefighters didn’t appear in the ad, a Bush flak
said it was because actors were cheaper and easier.
Well, sure. Everyone knows that the men and women who risk their
lives running in and out of burning buildings are ‘way overpaid, anyhow.
Why would a busy Bush operative want to waste time tracking down a
couple of firefighters just for the sake of authenticity, and give the
greedy schmucks an opportunity to make even more dough for easy work?
The Bush Gang is full of people pretending to be what they aren’t, so
fake firefighters fit right into the scheme of things.
Nevertheless, many think the Bush WTC ad a little on the crass side.
A little exploitative. A little vile. A little loathsome, base,
opportunistic, crude, and cruel. Families of WTC victims, in particular,
tend to moderation in their delight at the piece.
A Tale of Two Ads
Out on an errand at lunch, I made the mistake of turning on the car
radio. I punched the button for WJR from Detroit, long ago one of the
nation’s great mainstream radio stations. WJR once relied on home-grown
talent and a community focus; now it serves as a brainless relay station
for the likes of the ineffable Laura Schlessinger and America’s favorite
junkie, Rush Limbaugh.
I caught Limbaugh in mid-guffaw. He was roaring in amusement over
some pathetic guest’s contention that John Kerry’s Vietnam-based ads are
qualitatively different from Bush’s WTC exploitation trip.
This is the standard Righty line on the ad flap: Bush’s use of World
Trade Center imagery is the same as Kerry’s use of Vietnam imagery.
What’s your problem, huh?
The problem is that it isn’t true. Kerry’s ‘Nam ads exploit his own
direct experience, and capitalize on his own heroics. Bush’s WTC ad
exploits other people’s experience, and attempts to capitalize on other
people’s heroism and suffering. Kerry takes credit for what he himself
did; Bush takes credit for what others did.
One would think that even Rush Limbaugh would be able to see that.
Maybe the Oxycontin’s effects linger longer than we previously thought.
The ad flap reminded me of a line I came across in Nietzsche many
years ago. Most of what Nietzsche wrote leaves Uncle Frank baffled, but
this statement came through loud and clear: “Poets treat their
experiences shamelessly: They exploit them.”
Politicians do the same thing. But at least those with a shred of
integrity exploit their own experience. Unlike George W. Bush, they
don’t appropriate someone else’s as though they had a peremptory right
to it.
Still Coming Soon: I Hate Him! I
Hate Him! I Hate Him! (In which Uncle Frank Struggles to Express His
True Feelings About George W. Bush)
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Graphic by Karen McGinnis |
P.O. Box 1580