Long Day's Journey After Election Night
by Norman Solomon
Dissident
Voice
November 8, 2002
With Republicans gaining control of the Senate, few analysts
doubt that 9-11 set the stage for George W. Bush to lead his party to victory.
Fourteen months ago, in the national media vortex, a president widely perceived
as simple-minded and problematic suddenly became inspirational.
The massive violence boosting Bush’s authoritative aura
came in two basic configurations. For U.S. media, the threat of horrific
violence aimed at America quickly became the overarching problem of the new
epoch. In another category, the Pentagon’s awesome capabilities to inflict
horrific violence rapidly emerged as a central part of the touted solution.
In such a media atmosphere, a president eager to unleash
the nation’s military prowess could hardly fail to gain in stature. Bush
ascended to the political stratosphere. Much less often mentioned were the
media dynamics that rocketed him there.
The violence of 9-11 and the pledged U.S. war on Iraq are
media bookends for the story of Bush’s trajectory to the GOP triumph of
Election Day 2002. In the closing months of this year’s campaign, the specter
of an overwhelming military assault on Iraq effectively swept aside other
issues -- notably the economic well-being of Americans -- that could have meant
big trouble for Bush’s party on Nov. 5.
While most Democrats on Capitol Hill voted against Bush’s
war resolution last month, party leaders such as Sen. Tom Daschle and Rep.
Richard Gephardt eagerly went along with the war promoters. When the nation’s
media spotlight fell on them, Daschle and Gephardt had nothing of value to say.
The president, and evidently most journalists, liked it that way. Here was
bipartisan unity; the loyal opposition, dutifully serving as the caboose on a
war train.
But even on its own craven terms, the can’t-beat-’em
join-’em approach of harmonizing with the mediaspeak chorus was a dismal
failure: America gets two Republican houses of Congress. And, almost certainly,
a horrendous war with Iraq.
About 180 degrees from all the craven blather, a new
documentary provides chilling context for what has occurred and what is to
come. Michael Moore’s film “Bowling for Columbine,” now showing at a small
number of theaters across the country, is everything that the media-pandering
statements along Pennsylvania Avenue have not been. The movie focuses on
realities of violence and fear in the United States.
In his latest film, Moore ventures where very few
mainstream American journalists have been willing to tread. He looks at links
between enthusiasm for guns that are small and enthusiasm for guns that are
huge -- weapons that fit in the palm of a hand or on a person’s shoulder, and
weapons that are launched from jet bombers and aircraft carriers.
This country’s “gun culture” has many facets. The victims
include people randomly shot dead with a handgun or an assault rifle. But the
media-framed issues of gun control do not extend to the big guns of the
Pentagon.
Major media outlets don’t go there. Moore’s documentary
does. “Bowling for Columbine” is a brilliant movie, adroitly confronting our
society’s ongoing spirals of murderous violence.
Oh, we have our reasons; our fears and hopes. Those who
kill usually do. A domestic cornucopia of violence, the United States
simultaneously wields what is, by far, the world’s most powerful arsenal: the
Pentagon, our tax dollars at work.
Long trapped between the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein
and lethal actions of the U.S. government, Iraqi people are in Uncle Sam’s
crosshairs. With violence, George W. Bush and GOP leaders find the reliable
promise of adulatory media coverage and enormous political leverage. Terrorism
and war strengthen their hands.
These days, one of the few prominent TV pundits challenging
the momentum toward U.S.-taxpayer-funded slaughter in Iraq is MSNBC’s
Chris Matthews, who offers some clarity about President Bush. “I’m afraid he’s
riding the tiger with all these hawks around him,” Matthews said on Nov. 6,
“and I’m afraid he can’t stop them.”
At this point, there is no evidence that Bush wants to stop the hawks. He’s one of them. And the fawning media coverage in the aftermath of Election Day can only embolden his zealotry. Strike up the band, send out the troops, start yet another war in the name of righteousness. Those who mourn will not be ready for prime time.
Norman
Solomon's latest book is The Habits of Highly
Deceptive Media. His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.
Email: mediabeat@igc.org