Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Party of Pinocchio

Remember the wooden puppet Pinocchio? Every time he lied, his nose grew longer. Pinocchio’s lie-driven nose growth is a more appropriate image for the current Republican party than the traditional elephant’s trunk. The party now seems a cartoon of itself, its body politic squeezed to death by its boa-constrictor nose.

Lies and disregard for evidence have marked Republican strategy for decades. It was lies about WMD that led to the Iraq war, lies about torture that condoned those practices of so-called “enhanced interrogation,” lies about Guantanamo, lies about rendition, lies about Bush/Cheney’s surveillance policy. The Bush/Cheney years demonstrated that lies repeated often enough are taken for truth. It’s a script from Karl Rove and Nazi chief Hermann Goering’s playbook.

“Of course the people don’t want war,” Goering said at the Nuremberg Trials, April 1946. “But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.” Sound familiar?

Of course, there’s a major difference between Pinocchio and current Republican leadership. Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy but Republicans don’t seem to want to be a mature party. Reality is inconvenient. They’ve gotten away with lies for so long, why change? Now the Pinocchio Republicans are in high gear spreading lies about Presdent Obama’s birth – he’s not a natural born citizen; and about a public option in health care reform -- it will kill old people, the government will take away your freedom to choose your doctors.

One could laugh. How could anybody believe such nonsensical claims? But the lies are dangerous because if believed, they will damage the nation even more and negatively affect every American for many years to come.

Media, with a few notable exceptions like Bill Moyers, Keith Olberman, and Rachel Maddow, only aid and abet the lies by spinning them as “news.”

During the Congressional recess, we can expect to be bombarded with more lies from Republicans and their pals in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The party of Pinocchio doesn’t seem to give a damn for evidence or accuracy. They’re out to stall, distract, subvert, and damage Obama’s presidency at any cost and they’re out to prevent any meaningful healthcare reform.

The consistent stream of “no’s” from the party has morphed into its grotesquely deformed proboscis. What’s needed in the 2010 election is a big nose job for the Republican Pinocchios! The millions of supporters who said "No" to Republicans last November have their voting scalpels poised.