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President Bush, Please Send James Cameron to Mars
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| President Bush, Please Send James Cameron to Mars |
| 01.20.04 (8:06 pm) [edit] |
Here at the Filmsnobs Web Journal, space is normally reserved for massive spectacles of pop culture where entertainment and politics collide. But tonight, President Bush's State of the Union address promised to do this very thing: The incumbant's chance to strike down, with great vengence and furious anger, the images of the spineless pussies flogging around the Iowa caucuss. However, the White House proved that even a day is beyond their contemporaneous skills because the speech delivered was a response to an expectancy. Bush got up and re-argued his position on Iraq...for twenty minutes. It's almost like Rove scheduled the Union address right after the caucuss just to deflate Gov. Howard Dean, an anti-war zealot and sure-bet winner of the Iowa caucuss.
As we all know, the two top precinct getters of the caucuss were US Senators who VOTED FOR THE IRAQI RESOLUTION. Never mind that the Address was designed as a purely political vessel (a move Clinton never did forthright), this was as responsive piece of defensive rhetoric as Bush has ever delivered. Bush has always focused on plans and ideas in these national addresses. Were these ideas crazy and borderline criminal? Sure, but they were packaged and produced to appeal to the mass audience as well as anything Bruckheimer could produce. Tonight was a different President Bush: a cranky speaker whose sole purpose was to perform a death blow on Howard Dean, his campaign's ideal opponent. Is this really what a President with a 60% approval rating does? Is this what a President who believes that his unilateral foreign policy is the right thing does?
Yes, I guess so. Or this could be in fear of the fact that he must continue to conceal a domestic policy designed to rally the base but could very easily frighten the 20% of voters who favor neither party. The gay marriage amendment was implied, No Child Left Behind was buried behind shots of an increasingly angry Ted Kennedy, and his health care segment was bogged down in baffling policy speak. In his book, "Had Enough", James Carville analogized the Republicans to Creole workers in his home town that would compliment customers in English only to curse them in Creole. Carville wrote that Republicans speak in warm terms but use a harsher tone when it comes to the actual policy. Despite the right's assurance that health insurance is best left to the HMO's and this will lead to a healthier and happier country, Bush rattled off some very technical language about saving accounts and tax credits. Geez, I've taken classes on this shit and I didn't really fully understand it. How is this going to resonate in the Rust Belt? His hope of a pro-war response to the anticipation of a hippie Iowa vote unmasked that harsh policy-speak.
But why would they even have to be this desperate this early? Are they worried that one day, people are going to wake up and realize that they have no job, that their kid is getting shot at in Iraq for no real reason, and that the President of the United States is worried about beating Al-Queda to the Moon? The issue of a manned mission to Mars is an interesting thing, considering all of the problems we face right now that aren't Mars-related. It's easy to say this is merely a leftover from Bush 41's file, but this could be a pretty cool distraction. We could send Oscar-winner James Cameron to film the endeavor and Fox News could start a Mars-related offshoot that plays footage endlessly. And if it doesn't work, then the worst thing that the US loses is a [i]True Lies [/i]sequel.
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