By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
“The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven’t seen them since.”
— Gore Vidal (1925-2012)
The road to hell, it is said, is paved with good intentions, and each of those paving-stones is cut from a block of rationalization. Rationalization, which is the crafting of a plausible explanation to make something seem reasonable, has a wicked stepchild: justification, the defense of actions one is ‘forced into’ by the facts at hand (proven by clever rationalization.) Humans have used this combination — rationalization and justification — for all manner of self-interest, including hatefulness and cruelty, since time began. Listen for just a moment to the political rhetoric of the day and you will feel the flames lick at your soul.
Perhaps the political ads routinely turn your stomach, and the one where Romney sings “America the Beautiful” makes me snort, chuff and mumble profane words every time I hear it. They play that over and over here in the Pea Patch, and it makes me not only cover my ears in distaste but wonder WHY the man sang it all the way through. Because Barack got a national high-five for giving us a taste of Al Green and the Mitt-bot didn’t want to be outdone? In the black/white world he inhabits, perhaps so. I can’t tell what goes on in the minds of his campaign handlers. Heretofore, rationalization has required a modicum of truth in order to lend itself to political justification, but not lately: now they just make shit up. Seriously. They do.
After weeks of skewing Obama’s record, misquoting and taking his statements out of context, Romney has now declared that his campaign has taken “the high road,” not attacking on personal attributes but only on policy. Hmmmm! How un-Rove-like of them, and hardly credible given their list of high-rollers and their multimillion-dollar advantage. While some might think this more of the peculiar Republican delusion that’s been branded “truthiness,” boldly believed despite all signs to the contrary, this is more likely a calculated position: justification for a renewed assault on the prez. Apparently, Obama’s critique of Bain Capital and Romney’s brass-knuckled wealth-building techniques was considered a personal attack, simply beyond the pale of modern political warfare. The religious right took it in stride, knowing Obama to be both demonic and a socialist/Muslim implant, but the business class took real umbrage, considering it a vicious attack on the sweatshop capitalism they seek to re-establish as the latest version of “America, land of opportunity,” circa 1898.