The "I Woke Up Screaming" Chorus

Needed to put in my echo to Arthur Silber's recent post, "I Wake Up Screaming," on the ease with which Bushnev's propaganda team put over the magical memo al-Zarqawi graciously left behind about al Queda's woes, which conveniently mirror Bushnev's talking points about how Iraq is going. The whole thing is great, but here's the "tah-tah-tah-TUMM":

[O]ur criminally incompetent media have learned next to nothing from their numerous errors during the propaganda onslaught about Iraq, and they still unthinkingly parrot administration talking points. So when the administration decides to ratchet up the Iran propaganda, the media will transmit and amplify the lies just as they did before.

And when the hysteria reaches a certain point -- with cries of "appeasement" and "cowardice" targeted at all those who even question the government line, causing most of the administration's opponents (and almost all Washington Democrats) to slink away in fear and shut up -- the public may well finally go grudgingly along. If there are no significant public voices to protest the administration's insanity, exactly who or what is the public going to rally around in opposition, even if they were so inclined?

All in all, it is quite a spectacle: we are supposed to be horrified at the depths of evil revealed by the insurgents' plans "to escalate the tension between America and Iran" -- when that is precisely what our own government is and has been doing with absolute consistency. And at this point, and after the record of the last several years and the constantly repeated lies from the administration on every imaginable subject, I trust no one will be heard to say: "Oh, but they would never do that! How can you even think that the administration would launch an attack on Iran, when that might be the start of a global nuclear conflict that would destroy life on a scale never seen before?"

If you had even the glimmer of such a thought, I have but a single response: You cannot be serious.

And I have only these questions: Why aren't more people screaming? Why isn't everyone screaming?

The Dems, of course, have already made clear that Iraq will not be part of any coordinated message in 2006, much less Iran, as he says. Had they initially been shrewd enough, as Gore and Feingold were, to lay down a foundational critique that bin Laden and Afghanistan needed to be resolved before Iraq and Saddam, even when they lost, they would have had history come back to them by now and immunized themselves from all this. That would have required foresight and wisdom. Instead, unless the situation in Iraq (and Iran) turns on Bushnev worse than now, they've already given away the edge. This leaves them completely open to the Repubs' strategy and reduces the advantage they currently have as the generic party in the 2006 election.

Which gets me to one last point. Tristero is so consistently right on that, when you disagree with something he says, you really do go back and wonder if you're screwed up. But his post today on how making Congress Democratic is "issue #1" by focusing on Bushnev, his incompetence, and all his screw-ups does not seem to take Silber's perspective enough into account. The media and the public can still be led by the nose, at least enough to pull enough votes (which are counted by unaccountable voting machines) to keep the Repub margins. And I also wonder, okay, you get a Dem House and/or Senate. The same type as the 2002 Senate version? The one that folded on Iraq, Enron, tax cuts for the rich, etc.? That's the one that resolves the damage done these last five years? At best you get just a pause, like in 1976 and 1992, not a reversal, with Jeb and little Jeb waiting in the wings to get everything back on path after the Dems get blamed for not cleaning everything up right.

Arthur, you mind if I sing backup?