The Coronation of King George

Did you catch the Coronation of King George Thursday? Here's the text, if you're masochistic in nature.

I didn’t get to sit and watch, as I was at work and particularly busy. I’m glad I was because whenever I passed by a TV monitor, I was surprised at how overwhelming a sense of despair I felt. The American public had plenty of information to tar and feather that guy, and send him packing. Instead, we re-elected him.

I actually got stuck in front of a monitor long enough to hear these lines.

"Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen," said Bush, who declared, "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling."

So if we're not imposing in Iraq, what the hell are we doing? When it's necessary to introduce Freedom to a people through the barrel of a gun, this should be your first clue that something's just not quite right with this picture.

But according to his speech, freedom has to be a matter of Iraqi choice. So, exactly which Iraqi chose that we import our Freedom there? Could we get a name, and an address? I suspect the actual Iraqi who requested Freedom went by the name of Achmed Chalabi.

No, what really happened is this. We invaded a sovereign country on the basis of an ever-changing series of reasons, killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed much of the country, and all, as King George would explain, in an attempt to bring them Freedom.

There's something going on here that's disturbing, and in no small amounts. It’s as though Karl Rove has figured out that there's no real stock in small lies. Instead, tell whoppers. Look straight into the camera and say things that are so amazingly untrue that no rational, intelligent, informed American could possibly believe them.

Then they do. In droves.

Throw in the words TRUTH and FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY a whole bunch of times. We the public, in true Pavlovian style, are infused with a near-religious patriotism when we hear those words. They have a power that's involuntary over many of us, eliciting a response of sobering trust in the listenter.

Then Bush throws in a reference to GOD, or DESTINY…and in reverential, church-like tones. And voila! A sizeable portion of the country interprets his words, his look, his delivery, his message...as somehow being connected to God.

AMERICA: you are brighter than this. You deserve better than this. Many of you have put your lives on the line for this country, and now Bush, this scion of wealth and privilege, is standing on the shoulders of your sacrifice, preaching to the world in lofty terms as if he’d earned the right to even understand their meaning.

I know that this changing-too-fast world is a scary place, that it's damnably daunting and it’s not easy to know what direction to go. But let me give you a tip: THIS direction is the wrong one!