August 30, 2006

BY FORCE OF FANTASY: THE PLAME-WILSON FAIRY TALE

        Samuel Johnson, when confronted with Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter, kicked mightily at a stone from which his foot rebounded and said: "I refute it thus". More than 200 years later, the poet Richard Wilbur offered the perfect post-Modern reply when he wrote: "Kick at the rock Sam Johnson/Break your bones/But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones."
        The Valerie Plame tale should be regarded for what it is-a post-modern fable, ideally expressive of the mode of thought current in media wordsmith graduates of our Ivy League liberal arts faculties. From the very beginning, the rocks of facts making up the story were secondary. It was, for the Bush haters on the left, a cloudy cloudy PoMo narrative, a moral fable about a brave man, Joe Wilson, fighting the evil Bush regime and forced to defend his woman from the scurrilous efforts to punish him by revealing her secret CIA identity. Who cared that the facts were otherwise, that Joe Wilson was a self promoting failed diplomat, and his wife, not only not undercover, but well known as a CIA employee by many in the Beltway elite. In fact, not a single fact of the story invented by the Bush haters turns out to have been true.
        Horsefeathers predicts that the 'Plame outed by Bush White House' fantasy, even if shaken by facts, will ultimately prevail among its adherents. The perfidy of Richard Armitage and Colin Powell,(see Fess Up, Mr. Armitage.) concealing the knowlege that would have rendered the months of grand jury investigation unnecessary, should qualify them for the Benedict Arnold award. It tied up the office of the Presidency for months in unnecessary legal procedures, cost the brilliant geopolitical strategist, Scooter Libby his job, and forced Karl Rove to worry about barely remembered events of absolutely no consequence. As the endless repetition of the fantasy became the media's nightly theme, the President's personal ratings declined, robbing him of the necessary charisma to be the war leader we needed. He became a duplicitous Nixon like figure willing to create and use an 'enemies' list. Leading the list was Joe (No Yellow cake in Nigeria) Wilson. The fantasy narrative will turn the facts into cloudy, cloudy stuff, because the liberal Bush haters need it. Facts are too threatening, unless wrapped in a narrative security blanket.
        Prediction: Armitage will be presented as a hero for his role in restraining the hell bent on war Bush administration. Even though he was the first to leak Valerie Plame's identity to the press, he will be hailed for his role in unleashing a special prosecutor to look into the 'illegal' activities of the administration. Scooter Libby will continue to be villainized as a Neo-Con who seized on the Plame leak to cast doubt on Joe Wilson and to smear his and her reputation. And on and on, because the fantasies of the left are infantile defenses they need to ward off their actual cowardice and submissiveness to our enemies. They don't rely on facts but on wishes. This is the real hidden truth of the left-liberal media and educational elite: they are moral and physical cowards, who unconsciously yearn to submit to a bin Laden or Zawahiri. They can pretend however, to be fiercely aggressive---vs. President Bush! They're like an adolescent boy who rages against his father's way of life, knowing full well he doesn't risk next year's tuition. These bold adolescents can safely say and imply the most awful things about the President. Just because the facts disprove their every claim, those facts are not as stubborn as the wishful fantasy that only Bush is to blame for our troubles in the world. Yes indeed, the hard rock of truth must yield to the cloudy, cloudy stuff of stones.