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This Summer, the Worm Is Turning

By Susan J. Douglas

On ABC, young blonde wives demand to know why their husbands have no free speech rights.
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Ah, this is the life. To be on vacation near the ocean, sunning on the beach by day, and, by night, hearing Hardball’s Chris Matthews, of all people, repeatedly liken Bush to Ted Baxter, the obtuse anchorman on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show. As I eat fried calamari and striped bass, I get to see Matthews, hardly a friend of progressives, hammer Team Bush over their serial lying about weapons of mass destruction and yellowcake. Was Bush such a clueless puppet, sputters Matthews, that he simply read whatever Cheney or Rumsfeld put in front of him and told him to sell to the nation? Why, I must be in Margaritaville.

Since Team Bush came to power, those of us lucky enough to have the time and money to go on vacation have tried to escape from, or forget, however briefly, the totalitarian and imperialistic schemes of our in-house American Taliban. Nonetheless, it was difficult to shake the sense of doom unleashed by the forces of darkness, and some of us spent previous vacations looking longingly at maps of Canada, fantasizing about where to move. A supine media reinforced our sense that we were exiles in our own land.

But this summer, the worm is turning. The inside story of how and why so many in the press have finally begun to ask hard questions remains to be told. But cracks in the edifice are everywhere. And while, understandably, we on the left are prone to seeing the political glass as always half empty—or less—it is summer, things are falling apart for Team Bush, and we need to appreciate that, for now, the glass is starting to look half full.

As the days pass, my vacation gets better all the time. First off, Jamie McIntyre of CNN, clearly weary of denials and evasions, reads the dictionary definition of “guerrilla war” out loud at a Rumsfeld press conference to drive home the point that whatever the administration says, our troops are, in fact, engulfed by a guerrilla war. I can barely believe my eyes when, after a day of sun and surf, I turn on ABC News to see Jeffrey Kofman’s now infamous interviews with soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division in Fallujah who had been told three times they were going home, only to have their reprieve rescinded. “If Donald Rumsfeld were sitting here … what would you say to him,” Kofman asks. “I don’t know if I can really say that on camera,” responds one soldier. Another was more forceful, “I’d ask him for his resignation.” I nearly drop the tequila—is ABC really airing this? Even better, Good Morning America replays the interviews the next morning.

The next night, when ABC News learns that the army might discipline those soldiers who spoke out, the network airs portions of the interviews yet again, and then puts on some of the soldiers’ middle-America, young blonde wives who demand to know why their husbands suddenly have no free speech rights. Then, cut to adorable African-American kids holding up signs asking when their daddies are coming home. Peter Jennings closes the segment by quoting a commanding officer who said, “We are in Iraq to defend democracy, not to practice it.” Jennings gives a slight but telling grimace.

In this same week I can read, on the beach, The Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt write about the “Fog of Deceit” and demand an investigation into Team Bush’s “pervasive pattern of exaggeration and distortion.” Next I can turn to The Boston Globe’s truly brilliant op-ed piece by James Carroll ironically titled “Bush’s War Against Evil” that makes clear how all-out campaigns to allegedly purge the world of evil have always deeply corrupted the crusaders, leading to “the most ignoble deeds.” He asks whether “ridding of the world of evil,” as Bush promised, justifies torture, the killing of children, the “launching of dubious wars,” and the “militarization of civil society.” Of Bush, Carroll writes, “there is nothing at the core of this man but visceral meanness.” After that, I can flip through a Time magazine whose cover shows Bush giving the State of the Union address under a huge headline reading “Untruth & Consequences.”

Even the latest Harry Potter book takes on the consequences of creeping totalitarianism. Harry and Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, insist that the Dark Lord Voldemort is back, and is recruiting followers to his evil cause. But the Ministry of Magic, in total denial, refuses to believe this, and sends a “high inquisitor” to the school to silence dissent, suppress certain kinds of knowledge, and identify and punish traitors. The official newspaper, The Daily Prophet, tows the Ministry of Magic line until its deceptions can no longer stand scrutiny. Millions of kids, through the book, feel the infuriating injustices of autocracy. And in theaters, the movie Seabiscuit sneaks in paeans to FDR and the importance of government social welfare programs in between dramatic horse races.

Yes, the Dark Lord is still president. Ann Coulter’s book is still on the bestseller list. But maybe in the wake of Jayson Blair’s plagiarisms, the Private Lynch fictions, Bush’s inadvertent admission of how highly he regards the lives of Iraqis (and even our own troops) by daring Iraqis to “bring ’em on,” and the mounting evidence of repeated bald-faced lying, the press and others in the media will rediscover that portion of the body known as a spine. I know one thing—I and millions of others are having a much better summer this year than those hunkered down in the “beloved ranch” in Crawford.

Margaritas, anyone?

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Susan J. Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women.

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  • Reader Comments

    Having just relocated into the South East Missouri from Central Illinois I must say your articles are a bit of fresh air ... given the fact that this area new to me, is “Rush Country”.

    The hypocrisy with which our mainstream journalists present their works is making me more ill with each word I read, and every moment I watch.

    It is SO frustrating to see otherwise intelligent people blindly follow the hype that is spun by the journalist puppets who by design (of corporate media) have become wage-slaves not questioning their editors and directives. These individuals are NOT true reporters, rather drones following orders, writing and speaking as directed.

    If in fact our soldiers are not allowed to speak freely, how are we as a public going to protect our freedom by knowing if in fact the truth is being stated honestly or deceptively.

    I did not care about Clinton’s sex life, but I do care about where MY country takes us in the world of humanity. No one person is MORE important than another, NO human life is worth more than another. Killing people in the name of peace? Give me a break, the only difference between them and us is the ocean that separates us.

    The same people who made a huge deal about sexual lies, are now fabricating lie after lie. A lie concerning sex that has no harm to the rest of the public means nothing to me. Any lie involving death and or destruction of property DOES concern me.

    The media should act in the interest of the members of society, rather than conforming to the interests of money.

    Posted by Terry Meadows on Aug 11, 2003 at 9:04 PM

    I believe that if the media were to continue delving into the fabrications and distortions of the Bush regime, impeachment of that empty shell of a human being would surely follow. Bush has tainted the office of the presidency in a way that would make Nixon blush. Republicans scramble to cover their tracks with new reasons for the invasion as their old ones are quickly discovered to be fiction rather than fact. The media owes the public factually based reports, not just pre-digested columns prepared for them by the administration. Many of them are no more than spokesmen for the administration, but some still possess a conscience, and are now begginning to see the light. Unfortunately, the dyed-in-wool- republican media will always justify administration policy (Limbaugh,O’Reilley, FoxNews etc.),and fail to ask tough questions, because to question would make you un-patriotic, and we all know that righteous republican media outlets will goose-step in line with Bush and Co. regardless of where that may lead them.

    Posted by jj on Aug 12, 2003 at 7:51 PM

    Has the media rediscovered its spine, or has the message come down from the media top that the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney “team”—inextricable Iraq mess, unstartable economy—has become a liability?

    Posted by Arthur Mitzman on Aug 16, 2003 at 9:18 AM

      What has been ignored in all this is the changed character of the press. Rent the movie “Front Page” (Grant/RRussell) and you see the 4th Estate as it once was. Gritty, pushy, hardscrabble—part of the people.
      Today’s press (I live among them in Georgetown) are divas, lunching with lobbyists and politicians, collecting rich honoraria from universities, councils and clubs. Co-opted, the lot of them. Can you picture George Will scaling a boxwood with a pencil behind his ear? Mort Kondracke caught without a Hermes tie? Please.
      Such people do not ask hard questions of the establishment because they are PART of it. Bush press conferences are polite preppy scrums.
      Last year the Sidwell Friends School auction solicted bids on an “Evening of Pundocracy” with Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff. Which way to the vomitorium!
    We have reached a pretty pass when our only popular adverse commentary is in ONION, a satire magazine.

    Austin in DC

     

    Posted by ATS on Aug 17, 2003 at 2:23 PM

    Ms. Douglas story seems to suggest that the coporate media-is turning against the war; sees what Bush has engineered in the way of a national security state; and is about to “blow the whislte.” What planet is she on? The corporate media continue to dumbfound the American public, where they cannot confuse them. A casual listen to NPR- “the liberal/progressive” radio network- will perhaps serve to enlighten her: whether its NPR ace reporter Scott Simon abjuring his Quakerism to support the war, or Cokie Roberts and husband trumpeting the conservative agenda- while masking their reportage as progressive journalism. The media has evinced a servility so deep that the Borgias appear egalitarian in comparison. Lets not get all smary over the occasional corporate attempt at “fair and balenced” reportage. In short, Ms. Douglas manages to confuse the spin with the reality. The media has already been “embedded” in all senses.. don’t try it with the public.
    Warren Leming

    Posted by warren leming on Aug 18, 2003 at 2:58 PM

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Appeared in the September 1, 2003 Issue
Also by Susan J. Douglas
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