Frank Rich vs. The White House Propaganda Factory

Here's my review of Frank Rich's THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD" that I posted on Amazon today.

There's a new twist on Amazon -- people can leave comments on reviews. The first comment I got was from someone who claims that the United States is practically the only democracy left, then called me a "bad American" and "Bushophobic." Read my review and see if you agree!

That's Showbiz!, September 19, 2006

In THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD, Frank Rich amply proves that in these United States, we no longer have a functioning democracy but instead a taxpayer-funded theatrical enterprise which serves up to an increasingly restless public endless variations of cynical melodrama designed to scare the American people into submission, neutralize opponents, and surreptitiously realize big profits for its investors in the military-industrial-energy complex.

As long-time theater critic at the New York Times, Frank Rich is clearly better suited to seeing though the stagecraft of the Bush administration than the so-called "hard news" reporters like those in the stage-struck White House press corps. Reporters like the New York Times' Judith Miller, for example, who swallowed the Nigerian yellow cake uranium melodrama hook, line and sinker, and credulously fell for one red herring after another.

Hypnotized by their front row access to the White House melodrama and the threat of losing it, Rich argues that hard news reporters were played for suckers in the run up to the war by the morality play presidency of George W. Bush. The White House press corps became invested in the story, Rich argues, perpetuating the story line and profiting from it in the form of a rapt readership, and high ratings. The apocalyptic story line of a smoking gun that would become a mushroom cloud was just too sensational to pass up.

Rich wrote in an editorial a week before he went on sabbatical to write his book: "The highest priority for the Karl Rove-driven presidency is...to preserve its own power at all costs. With this gang, political victory and the propaganda needed to secure it always trump principles, even conservative principles, let alone the truth. Whenever the White House most vociferously attacks the press, you can be sure its No. 1 motive is to deflect attention from embarrassing revelations about its incompetence and failures."

As much as I am grateful for Rich's book and his columns -- one of the last voices, along with Paul Krugman's, of the Times' once-proud bourgeoisie brownstone liberal tradition -- I find myself shaking my head at the notion that the Bush administration might be "embarrassed" by its "incompetence and failures." One can only be embarrassed at incompetence and failure if you believe you have been shown to be incompetent or to have failed. But since this production is designed only to line its investors' pockets with loot, and has been doing so very nicely, there is no reason for embarrassment.

The Bush troupe, cynically directed by Karl Rove, while not capable of embarrassment, is, as Rich points out, very good at sniffing the political winds and sensing what its audience needs. As Rich says, depending on the situation, Rove will put on a new performance to draw attention elsewhere, and/or shine a harsh interrogatory spotlight on those who dare to respond to their latest offering with a sigh, a snort, or a Bronx cheer. Rove is particularly adept at creating villains as foils to an heroic Bush. While it's nothing new -- the divide and conquer melodrama has been big box office for Republicans and conservatives since Joe McCarthy came up with the formula back in the 50s - Rove has refined the stagecraft, sharpened the script into soundbites.

Recall if you will Bush's "inability" to admit to making any mistakes in his Presidency a few years ago under questioning at a White House press conference. Many commentators saw that as an example of Bush's unwillingness to examine a new set of facts, draw new conclusions and make new plans. But, in fact, Bush was playing his role of heroic common man perfectly, "catapulting the propaganda" over the heads of elites to his real audience - those true believers who embrace with all their hearts the Rovian melodrama of the strong, tough hero.

The problem with a steady diet of melodrama, of course, is that after a while the audience begins to lose interest. At some point, as Mr. Bush's poll numbers suggest, the tear-jerking and fear-jerking no longer work. The Manichaean plot becomes ever more apparent and the players are at last revealed as stick figures, as puppets, as empty ciphers in the service of the deus ex machina.

Perhaps even Mr. Bush has at last grown tired of the limited role of cock-sure, tough-talking, God-loving hero, the stock character he and director Rove artfully recycled from movie westerns, dime novels and tall tales: recently Mr. Bush told Brian Williams of NBC that he read "three Shakespeare's" and "The Stranger" during his summer vacation.

The final tragic message of THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD is that the curtain on this base melodrama could have come down years ago had only the "reviewers" in the American press corps and the Congress been doing their jobs for the American people. Frank Rich has done his job from the very beginning of this longest running melodrama in American political history. Thankfully, he continues to do so.