A Party of Frauds? Glenn Greenwald with Theodore Hamm

[Joanne98]

by Theodore Hamm

In his first two books, How Would a Patriot Act? (2006) and A Tragic Legacy (2007), Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald took aim at the Bush White House. In his new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics (Crown, 2008), he goes after both the party and the mainstream media that propped up Bush. Rail editor Theodore Hamm recently asked Greenwald to outline his critique.

Theodore Hamm (The Brooklyn Rail): As one of many examples of right-wing hypocrisy, you observe that “In today’s America, war advocacy is a means of feeling tough and strong without having to actually be either.” In that sense, you see the neocons and other warmongers as heirs to John Wayne. Can you explain?

Greenwald: To this day, John Wayne is the prototype of the uber-patriotic, uber-masculine, uber-courageous Moral Republican Warrior. His imagery is the template that pioneered the brand and that the Right uses to this day to build up their political leaders. In 1995—18 years after his death—he remained the most admired film actor in America. The Los Angeles Times said that, even nearly two decades after his death, his image “exemplified the ideal American fighting man.” After 9/11, Peggy Noonan wrote a column hailing the return of “the Duke”—of “real men” who bellow: “Yer in a whole lotta trouble now, Osama-boy.”

Yet John Wayne was one of America’s biggest and most repugnant frauds—in exactly the way that most modern right-wing leaders are. At a time when virtually nobody avoided combat, Wayne did exactly that, using the most dishonorable means imaginable, throughout all of World War II. Because the most successful male actors, including older ones, went to fight, he was able to stay in Hollywood and become extremely rich playing war heroes. He spent the rest of his life glorifying every American war and accusing war opponents of being cowards, Communists and traitors. He crusaded for traditional American morality, attacking others whom he perceived to deviate, while he engaged in compulsive womanizing and adultery, repeatedly breaking up his own family, and wallowing in pill addictions. Before there was Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, George Bush, Bill Kristol, David Vitter, and even John McCain—there was John Wayne. One finds key parts of Wayne in each of them. To this day, he’s the role model for how the Right conducts itself and the methods they use to swindle the American public.

Rail: You argue that the political coverage of the mainstream media has been “Drudge-ified—that is, completely taken over by right-wing dirt-peddling and twisted gender-based caricatures,” and cite several examples of sleazy innuendo being treated as fact (e.g., the phony story in the 2004 campaign about John Kerry’s alleged affair with a staffer). No matter whether Obama or Hillary becomes the candidate, we can expect more of the same garbage. What’s going to lift our politics out of the gutter?

Greenwald: I think there are two primary tactics Democrats must start employing if they’re to undermine this right-wing/establishment-media monster. First, they have to confront it directly. Americans have increasingly come to despise the establishment press. They knew that they are serving no good purpose. They know that our political culture is broken—not on the margins but fundamentally—and the vapid, trashy political press plays a big role in that. Whoever the Democratic candidate is, when confronted with tidal waves of petty personality stories from the media, he or she has to argue that the media’s fixation with these issues is destroying our political process, preventing it from fixing the fundamental political problems plaguing our nation. While America is in a recession, mired in an endless occupation of Iraq that is devastating on all levels, and plagued by a Washington elite corrupt at its core, our political press spends its time asking about Obama’s bowling, Hillary’s cleavage, and John Edwards’ hair. Americans understand how stupid that is.

Second, Democrats have been extremely poor at engaging these “character” and personality-based electoral tactics. Many liberals are squeamish about using these lowly and ignoble tactics and think they should be ignored, so that they’ll “rise above” them. That’s an understandable sentiment, but it has to stop, because it’s fatal. Until it does, the Right in this country will wield a huge electoral advantage, and will be able to win elections completely irrespective of the fact that their policies and positions are despised by majorities, even large majorities of Americans. The point isn’t to start lowering oneself to that level and copying the worst parts of the Right’s behavior. The point is to neutralize what they do so that it’s no longer one-sided. If one country possesses nuclear weapons, a rival country wants to obtain them not to use them, but to render their use irrational, impossible. That’s what Democrats and liberals must start doing with these election rituals.
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/05/express/a-party-of-frauds

[alstephenson]

1. K & R

Good points.