After announcing his plan to revolutionize Social Security with personal savings accounts, President Bush’s first step to try to secure passage of his bold plan was to take direct aim at the knee caps of five Democratic senators from red states. Employing statesmanship techniques he gleaned from his own autographed copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince, George decided that a little old-fashioned blackmail ought to do the trick. Long ago, he gave up on salesmanship or math, which might have made it easier for larger numbers of the public to follow the clouded logic of what he was proposing.

The obvious threat is “if you want to keep your job in the Senate, vote for my plan.” Grab a man by his job, and his heart and mind will follow. What’s Bush going to do if this strategy doesn’t work, though? Try kidnapping their children?

What’s been downright spleen-warming is to see the concurrent pro-Bush plan responses, which have ranged from vivid personal attacks to dark profane dismissals with a not short pause for bloated greedy declarations. When you come to think of it, it is perfectly in keeping with the way the plan was publicly presented. We are back to the pitch that says “this is your money, you ought to be able to blow it on your own” approach to national finance. The original genius of Social Security was that it worked. This got some people permanently upset because all they could focus on was that some of “their” money was being used to help someone else just in the same way that down the road they would be eligible for similar help and would receive it whether they needed it or not. It should be no surprise to anyone that the people who now support Bush’s plan are the ones who probably will not need Social Security. Of course they would want to have control of all that they perceive as “theirs.”

I am going to apply the Peter Principle of unintended consequences and speak as your hypothetical employer as Bush’s policies of greed take deeper and deeper hold on the American imagination, and I will likewise lower your cumulative pay, since I know you will need less and less of it to fulfill any broken social contracts might still be clinging to you. I also know that the money I am paying you in the first place is “mine” anyway. Right? In fact, I’ll just eliminate all the benefits packages it has taken decades for you to procure, since in the spirit of “tough” that is sweeping the nation, I’ll just say “tough” to you, too. This is a vision of America that has people holed up at home behind cookie jars filled with their “pocket money” and staying perpetually online sending demanding and harsh instant messages to their financial advisers. Each basis point downturn of the their portfolio would be cause for another padlock or handgun purchase.

At every fork in the road, Bush has decided to take the partisan and unilateral course instead of attempting to put an end to the rifts that keep things both nationally and internationally in a state of malaise. He has not allowed his good sense or conscience to enter into the equation. Everything is fine just as long as he maintains enough “base” to keep him in power. Then there is the complete destruction of language which he indulges in. Forget about his goofy pronunciations, syntactical errors, and complete lack of something intelligent to say at key moments. There is something going on that is far more insidious, if not dangerous.

First, there is the phantom aspect. He claims “mandates” that aren’t there. He claims “coalitions” that aren’t there. He sees trained anti-insurgent Iraqi forces that aren’t there. Second, he has learned that if you get specific, you can get in trouble, so the best route is to remain as vague and generalized as possible. That way you can maintain a posture of plausible deniability (more Machiavelli) should something go wrong. Third, he latches on to big words that virtually every breathing human would have to claim as their own to be the major flagships of his policies. His latest vessels are “freedom” and “liberty.” How can you argue with these two beach balls of happiness? Julius Caesar probably claimed he was bringing freedom and liberty to Gaul. Outlaw Pancho Villa wanted freedom and liberty for Mexico. When the Romanovs were shot, the bullets were all engraved with “freedom and liberty” (in Russian, of course). The end has always justified the means whether of not it has really justified them.

Certain words will have to be retired for awhile once Bush has had his way with them. They will have to put into a dark closet until they can regain some renewed meaning somewhere down the road, and we can use them again without cringing. And here I was longing for a little taste of freedom and liberty this afternoon, but I guess I’ll have to settle for a little ice cream for the time being.

Bart Whiteman
Bartwhiteman@aol.com