(Photo: Reuters/Larry Downing)

by Scott Thill

Considering how much closer America is to an Orwellian panopticon than it was in previous years, it has been a pretty good year for American dissidence. Michael Moore took a double-barrelled swipe at ignorance, greed and violence in both his startling documentary, Bowling For Columbine, and his raging best-selller, Stupid White Men. But media critic, NYU professor and political satirist Mark Crispin Miller -- author of The Bush Dyslexicon, as well as the potent Boxed In: The Culture of TV -- had just as big a year. The Bush Dyslexicon -- a riotous yet sobering study of the Bush administration's could-give-a-fuck diction and rhetoric -- drew back the curtain on not just the White House's general apathy towards earnest analysis, informed knowledge and the Great Unwashed in general, but also on the media machine that continually looks the other way as Karl Rove's political evangelism sets about turning back the clock on every major sociopolitical gain since World War II. And, as Miller says in this interview, just because Bush's linguistic screw-ups are hilarious doesn't mean we should be laughing: we should recognize when we're being duped. And not forget to get mad -- and even -- when we are.

With over one hundred new pages of material on the post-9/11 presidency, the paperback version of The Bush Dyslexicon is a must-read for anyone interested in the curious convergence of dirty politics, media manipulation and the rollback of freedom everywhere. So we can't wait to see what Miller's latest off-Broadway teach-in -- "Bush are 'Us'", showing through January and onward at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre -- or his upcoming study of advertising iconography -- this time it's the Marlboro Man for Yale University Press -- will be like. One thing is for certain: we hope it hurts. A lot.

Scott Thill: I've seen The Bush Dyslexicon -- as I have Stupid White Men -- in the "humor" section of many bookstores, as if it was filled with lame cartoons or softball satire. Is this troubling to you, given the seriousness of the subject? The prevailing theme of the book for me is that while some of these slips are hilarious, the last thing we should be doing is laughing.
Mark Crispin Miller: What I hope for is that people find the book both funny and eye-opening. I don't mind people laughing at the comic passages -- such comedy is mostly pretty dark, of course -- but I do wish that bookstores wouldn't stick The Bush Dyslexicon back in the "humor" section. Thus exiled to the entertainment sphere, the book misses many of its proper readers.

ST: One interesting point raised in The Bush Dyslexicon's new pages on 9/11 is that the Bush administration's foreign policy team -- whether derogatorily referring to their Pakistani allies as "Pakis", calling their bombing campaign of Afghanistan Operation Crusade and so on -- is largely uninformed and shortsighted. How do you feel this ineptitude has informed our current crisis with North Korea? And do you think the Bush administration actually believes, as Colin Powell recently stated, that the "Axis of Evil" inclusion has nothing to do with our current brinkmanship with North Korea?
MCM: Mere parochialism is one thing -- and the Bush team is as parochial as they come. Only they would use the word "crusade" in opposition to Islamist adversaries. Likewise, at the very moment when he's trying to mollify mainstream Islamic world opinion, Bush says, at the World Pork Expo (on June 7): "We ought to be selling our hogs all across the world!" These people are so provincial, and so arrogant, that they can't help but breach the proper etiquette with every move they make. Cheney calls the Pakistanis "Paks," Bush's daughter goes to see the Pope in blue jeans -- it's basically the same pig-headed thing. But there's far more to it than insensitivity per se. The Busheviks all suffer from a sociopathic inability to see things as the other party sees them. Such suppleness is crucial to diplomacy -- which is why Bush et al. can't do it. They are disastrously unable to perceive the impact of their own behavior on the other people of the world (including their own dissident fellow citizens). They tromp all over the place, kicking in doors and smashing windows, making threats and calling people ugly names -- and then they're absolutetly stunned when anyone responds in kind.

This is exactly what has happened with the North Korean crisis, which is entirely Bush's fault. After bluntly sabotaging the negotiations between South and North, and calling North Korea's dictator a "pygmy" and "a spoiled child at the dinner table" (projection, anyone?), Bush and his goons are quite amazed to find that North Korea's getting restive, talking tough. Far from seeing the direct connection between their own actions and the enemy's response, the Bush team just blames Clinton, which is their usual move (and also sociopathic). This is not to say that North Korea isn't very dangerous. They are indeed, which is precisely why they ought to have been handled differently -- handled, that is, as a rational government might do. And this more reasonable approach would recognize exactly what the Bush team (and the media) cannot apprehend: that North Korean paranoia has its roots in the Cold War, when the US routinely threatened to annihilate that state with nuclear weapons. To point this out is not to make excuses for that hellish garrison state, but merely to address historical reality. The world is full of homicidal paranoids whose crazy rage is based in part on memories of actual ordeals or fears of extant danger. If you don't try to understand that fact, you can't get anywhere with such regimes (since, notwithstanding Rumsfeld's lunatic assertion, there is no way for the US to strike at North Korea militarily).

Dictator du jour. "A more reasonable approach would recognize exactly what the Bush team (and the media) cannot apprehend: that North Korean paranoia has its roots in the Cold War, when the US routinely threatened to annihilate that state with nuclear weapons." (Photo: Reuters/Chien Min Chung)

ST: Not that we really want to agree with the Iraqis, but speaking of North Korea, what do you think about the glaring hypocrisy illustrated by our monomaniacal pursuit of regime change in Iraq -- where we have inspectors on the ground who have found zero evidence of WMD, etc. -- while we emphatically pursue diplomatic solutions with North Korea -- who we know has WMD even though we have zero inspectors on the ground? Do you think the Bush administration is considering how such stances reflect on a more general American attitude toward that we deem foreign or Other? Isn't this symptomatic of the general apathy the United States (the "ugly Americans") has toward anything outside its borders?
MCM: Certainly. This brings us back to your first question. A rational government would recognize that others all throughout the world must be bewildered by so bald a double standard -- but then a rational government would never set up such a standard in the first place. North Korea's aggressiveness, and Bush's lame response, have made quite clear that all Bush wants is to invade Iraq again. North Korea may be more dangerous in fact, but there's no oil there, and it simply doesn't figure in the grand eschatological design of Bush's theocratic circle. Pyongyang isn't even in the Bible! So Bush and his associates have felt free to dump upon its rulers with impunity. If, however, we move a little bit beyond the current moment, with its psychotic over-focus on Saddam Hussein, we have to recognize that North Korea does figure in Bush/Cheney's plans. If you read Rumsfeld's planning documents, for instance, you find that an eventual war with China is still in the cards -- and always was. As the pure products of America's Cold War, Rumsfeld and his cohorts never gave up on the Manichaean fantasy of Armageddon, with the "free world" squaring off against the "slave world" of Communism. Their aim -- just like that of Lenin and his pals -- is nothing less than "world domination." They're only starting with the Middle East, not ending with it. Once they've pacified the Arab world, with Israel as our proxy, and once they've settled Venezuela's and Colombia's hash, they plan to go back East, big-time. They won't ever get to that point, though, because the prior stunts they're pulling now are so immensely dangerous. War is, above all, unpredictable. They'd know that if they'd ever fought in one, or if they just had a wee bit of imagination.

ST: What are your thoughts on the role of Colin Powell in the Bush administration? Powell would never be so lazy as Cheney in referring to the Pakistanis as Pakis, yet he seemed almost hamstrung trying to get Bush to work with the U.N. on Iraq and elsewhere. Would our foreign policy be that much more bellicose without his presence? And is he a lame duck when compared to guys like Rumsfeld and the practically absent Cheney?
MCM: I think Powell has some sway, and to some extent I'm glad he's there, because he understands that certain brutal US actions will eventually redound to the grave disadvantage of our soldiers. He urged the military not to junk the Geneva Protocols down in Guantanamo, for example -- because he grasps the fact that, if WE violate those rules, the foreign captors of our troops will see no reason not to violate them, too. Having said that, though, I do believe that Powell is, on the whole, a phony, and that his being part of Bush's team is only making things worse in the long run. If you take a long look back at his career, you find that, in a crunch, he always sides with the war party after dithering awhile. He first surfaced at the time of the My Lai massacre -- as a spokesman for the Army. And, let's face it, all he's done so far is back Bush/Cheney's plans for war, and even helped "legitimize" it by appealing endlessly for UN "approval." That "approval" was not genuine, however, but the fruit of bribery and coercion. All it does is let the president pretend that his attack will not be unilateral. For that we should thank Colin Powell?

Persona non grata? "Let's face it, all Powell's done so far is back Bush and Cheney's plans for war, even helped 'legitimize' it by appealing endlessly for UN 'approval'. That 'approval' was the fruit of bribery and coercion. All it does is let the president pretend that his attack will not be unilateral. For that we should thank Colin Powell?" (Photo: AP/Pablo Monsivais)

ST: Another very interesting point raised in The Bush Dyslexicon's new material is the possible mischaracterization of bin Laden's 9/11 attacks as a test of, as Bush says, our honor and character; you argue that bin Laden was trying to enmesh us in another "Crusade" in the Middle East. Given Bush's usage of the term "Crusade", as well as the fact that he has said that "We have no king but Jesus", do you think the Bush administration understands or cares about the ramifications of such religious jingoism? And is the hubris we are currently experiencing (everyone seems to be talking about the war in Iraq as if it's already over) giving us a false sense of security? I recently talked to a friend of mine in the military and he told me that the one war America's not capable of being overwhelmingly successful in is a hand-to-hand city war, much like the one we'll fight in Iraq.
MCM: First of all, there is good reason to believe that this next war will not be any cakewalk. Let us bear in mind that the Gulf War, despite the copious hype, was really not successful. Sure, Saddam Hussein pulled out of Kuwait -- but he might not have invaded in the first place if the US had forbidden it instead of tacitly inviting it. In any case, the real aim of Desert Storm was to weaken Hussein's grip without allowing Iraq to come apart. At that goal it failed completely. Most of those troops massacred by coalition forces were expendable, as far as the Iraqi tyrant was concerned -- they were conscripts who didn't even want to be there. Meanwhile, nearly all of the "elite Republican Guard" escaped and most of Iraq's heavy artillery is still intact. While the first UN inspection team did do away with most of the Iraqi nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal, the fact is that Iraq's true military strength is still formidable. And since Bush/Cheney is envisioning a real invasion on the ground, and not just a protracted bombing campaign, it's irresponsible to take the view that this will be -- to use Donald Rumsfeld's happy term -- a blitzkrieg. I'd say that such complacency up at the top has much to do with the insane conviction, on the part of Bush and others in his circle, that God is backing us on this one. For all his loutishness, Bush really is convinced that God has chosen him -- Dubya -- as his great scourge on earth. Bush thought that God had chosen him to vindicate his father against Clinton/Gore, and to fight the "war on terrorism," and to trounce Saddam Hussein. Bush's fractured language is shot through with hints that he subscribes to the eschatological program of the Christian right. This is sincere, unfortunately -- not mere "religious jingoism." In his mind, it has no "ramifications," but simply is what's right.

ST: You're pretty fair about the so-called "fair and balanced" Fox News: you say they're not afraid to argue with you over these issues, yet I would argue that they are causing more harm than good in their continual propping up of the Bush administration at every turn (to say nothing of their self-reflexive ad slogans). Has it got to the point where television news has become so irrelevant that outlets like Fox News (run by Willie Horton mastermind, Roger Ailes) escape blame for their cheerleading, even though they trumpet about fairness and balance? Is there even a point to blaming TV for anything anymore?
MCM: You're right about Fox. They have more guts than CNN, but it's only because they don't have anything to prove, and are solid in the ratings. Although we shouldn't over-estimate the importance of that fact, since high ratings for news shows on cable television are not comparable to ratings for the network news. Even for a relative powerhouse like O'Reilly, we're talking about maybe 1,500,000 viewers, tops, as opposed to close to 20 million for Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. The media machine is so right-wing that there is little point in trying to demonstrate it anymore. A lot of people see it already, and more and more will soon perceive it, while the incorrigible ditto-heads will never, ever see the truth. Of course we must keep speaking up, to try to counter-balance what the right keeps saying, but such mere argument is finally not enough.

The only solution is political: a mass movement that demands true media reform -- anti-trust measures, re-regulation, the creation of a genuinely public broadcasting system, revisions of the tax code to enable independent newspapers to thrive, and so on. Unless there is a program to reform the media, and bring the system more in line with what the Founders had in mind, we're all through as a democracy. This is not to say that TV oughtn't to be blamed for anything. TV's influence is pernicious -- but it's also incomplete. I find it encouraging that Clinton remained personally popular despite the rightist/media jihad against him, and that Gore won the election in the face of similar opprobrium and ridicule, and that Ralph Nader managed to attract so many voters even though there was a media blackout on his drive, and that Americans don't trust Bush/Cheney or support this war, despite the media's failure to report the truth about what's going on. The media, like the government, is now not answerable to the people. Just as the media's parent companies respond only to their advertisers, not their readers/viewers/listeners, so does the government (Democrats and GOP alike) respond not to the citizens but to the biggest donors. Money rules right now. This land is not your land and mine, but a plutocracy. And people know it, despite the endless propaganda on TV and radio.

Shut that trap! "What Bush does is routinely, as if systematically, screw up when speaking of compassion or idealism, altruism or democracy -- while going wholly lucid when his theme is punishment, war, death." (Photo: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

ST: Bush's clever appropriation of televisual strategies and rhetoric has helped him escape everything from the Enron debacle to blame for this oppressive economic recession. Is he the new Teflon president? And how can any condemnation or evidence of his administration's incompetence or ineptitude stick in a society like ours that privileges canned response over earnest analysis? This is a guy that almost got away with putting Kissinger in charge of the 9/11 probe, after all, yet his popularity (and the Democrats inexplicable inaction) has given the Republicans the Senate.
MCM: Bush isn't popular. The latest polls from CNN/Time -- which neither Time nor CNN would put up on its Web site -- show Bush at a 55% approval rating, and a 37% disapproval rating. More people distrust than trust Cheney, moreover, and people's trust in Bush is not that great. Also, Bush gets low marks on nearly all his programs -- economic, environmental, you name it. When sitting anxiously at home with memories of 9/11 in their heads, people get that phone call from a stranger -- asking, "Do you approve of the job the president is doing?" -- a lot of them respond out of plain fear. They want to believe that Bush knows what he's doing, they want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and they want not to seem disloyal. This is how the regime rules -- how, indeed, it has to rule: by terror. It cannot win legitimately, because its interests are the interests of a very small minority. So it requires eternal war. Bush Sr. too was never liked, and only had high ratings after Panama and Desert Storm. Let me add that there's much evidence of systematic voter fraud on 11/5/02. It is by no means clear that the races in Georgia, Florida, Texas and Alabama were entirely honest. The new electronic voting machines are mostly owned by private interests -- Republicans, in fact -- that will not allow the publication of their programming codes "for proprietary reasons." That's totally unacceptable in a democracy.

In any case, let's not accept the White House spin that Bush scored a clean triumph in the midterms. The GOP's national vote margin was in the low five digits -- and we don't yet know how much of that was based on fraud. As for the "teflon" coating Bush, it is no different from the "teflon" that once coated Ronald Reagan. No one's born with teflon covering him -- it is the media that applies such coating, by diligently not reporting anything that might degrade the politician's image. If we had a free press in this country, this Bush would already be contending with impeachment.

ST: Like most of the statements in The Bush Dyslexicon, this slip from Bush smacked of foreshadowing: 'We are resolved to rout out terror wherever it exists to save the world from freedom!' But like many of his other dyslexic (and prophetic) statements, the Office of Homeland Security and the nomination of convicted felon John Poindexter to the Orwellian Information Awareness Office has made that slip of the tongue feel like a promise. What are your thoughts on the rollback of civil liberties under Bush's watch?
MCM: The Bush/Cheney junta has now undertaken nothing less than the repeal of all our constitutional freedoms. Habeas corpus, attorney/client privilege, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly -- all are now at grave risk. What's happened lately here in the United States is very similar to what happened right after the burning of the Reichstag in Germany in early 1933. A few strokes of the pen gave Hitler total power, in order to "protect" the homeland. Today, George W. Bush is close to the enjoyment of a highly un-American prerogative: the imperial right to have you put under surveillance, to keep you from air travel, to have you thrown in jail -- indeed, even to kill you "pre-emptively," if he himself, George W. Bush, should suddenly decide that you're a "terrorist." Remember, throughout Clinton's terms many of his high-strung critics kept comparing him to Hitler, and spreading rumors of black helicopters buzzing residential neighborhoods throughout the land, etc. Where are those people now? U.S. democracy is under siege -- a predicament that should arouse all genuine conservatives as well as libertarians and liberals. Anyone who's willing to accept this crackdown isn't a "conservative" in any sense, but only an authoritarian, if not a fascist.

Bush himself consistently reveals his own fascistic impulse through his off-the-cuff remarks. The one you quote from my book is just one of many. He admires the Chinese way with journalists, "jokes" often that his job would much easier if this were a dictatorship, and otherwise betrays a powerful loathing of democracy. Here, by the way, is a remarkable Orwellian bit from Bush, uttered on Oct. 31, 2002, when he was on the stump in South Bend, Indiana: "And it's a dangerous world. There's still an enemy that lurks out there that just -- they're killers. It's the only way I can describe them. They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers. And so we got to do everything we can here at home to protect you, and we are. There's a lot of good folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level working hard. Listen, any time -- we understand the stakes now, and any time somebody's thinking about about doing something to America and somehow we're reading their thoughts, or reading their mail, we're moving on 'em. We're disrupting 'em. We're denying 'em. We absolutely refuse to let these terrorists have their way. (Cheers, applause.) We're going to do everything we can to shut down -- to shut down their capacity to hurt us."

Yes, that's what he said: "reading their thoughts."

BUY THE BUSH DYSLEXICON HERE

ST: With such slips of the tongue carrying more meaning than the stuff he doesn't fuck up, shouldn't we be focusing on such miscues with greater intensity? Someone recently criticized our Wordsmith section here on Morphizm as being pointless: "We should all give the guy a bit of slack on his garbled speech. How many of us could talk (or lie) non-stop for a living without butchering a few sentences?" Although I didn't see the person write that, I assumed it was done with a straight face. The Bush Dyslexicon has met with similar shoulder-shrugging, as if one's speech is simply a product of a harried schedule and not the primary medium in which everything they are trying to communicate is delivered. Do you feel such a stance is somewhat dangerous, especially as it regards politics and culture?
MCM: Let's pretend that we are not the citizens of a democracy, but someone married to a person who has certain striking verbal limitations: S/he can't ever say "I love you," for example, and is forever cracking hostile jokes. Whenever s/he tries talking tenderly, s/he makes ridiculous mistakes -- but when s/he's pissed, and threatens you, s/he's perfectly clear. That wouldn't be significant? You wouldn't take note of the pattern there? If not, you're living in denial, and may pay dearly for it in the end.

The fact is that Bush does not just "butcher a few sentences." If that were the case, there'd be no point in looking closely at his errors. What Bush does is routinely, as if systematically, screw up when speaking of compassion or idealism, altruism or democracy -- while going wholly lucid when his theme is punishment, war, death. Now, given the convergence of that verbal tic with this administration's policies, both foreign and domestic, we would be crazy not to listen carefully to what Bush has to say. If words have any meaning, we'd fail ourselves as a democracy if we were simply to ignore the violent and anti-democratic drift of this man's casual speech.

07 January 03