Pretty Words vs Reality — the Sequel

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria deftly lays out the disconnect between Bush's feelgood inauguration address and how the President practices his professed belief in liberty-for-all:

"When democratic Taiwan stood up to communist China last year, Bush publicly admonished it, siding with Beijing. When brave dissidents in Saudi Arabia were jailed for proposing the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in that country, the administration barely mentioned it. Crown Prince Abdullah, who rules one of the eight most repressive countries in the world (according to Freedom House), is one of a handful of leaders to have been invited to the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. (The elected leaders of, say, India, France, Turkey and Indonesia have never been accorded this courtesy.) The president has met with and given aid to Islam Karimov, the dictator of Uzbekistan, who presides over one of the nastiest regimes in the world today, far more repressive than Iran’s, to take just one example."

That's what journalists call the nut graf. That's really the whole piece right there.

But of course, this being Newsweek, the criticism has to be padded with pleasant fluff so as to not make it seem the magazine is actually calling Bush a hypocrite. So we're also treated to the cooing, customary claptrap that makes you suspect it was added later, by Zakaria's editors, for 'balance.' To wit: that the Bush speech was "written for the ages"; that it contained "style and substance" (Really? Substance?); and that Bush's presidency aims to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" (Yes. Nowhere more so than at home, where the comfortable are surely feeling mighty threatened by continuing tax breaks for the wealthy, record bonuses on Wall Street, and boatloads of beluga and bubbly at Bush's $40 million inaugural bash).

What could have been a spiffy and inarguably truthful little essay is then further castrated to the point of incomprehension, thanks to this sissified excuse for an ending:

"The United States is right to push [international freedom] forward. The president is wise to articulate the path ahead. But we should also note the trends toward chaos, plague and poverty, which consume the attentions of much of the world. These are also great evils, and we should propose ways to lead the world in tackling them. That, too, would make for an interesting and important speech."

WTF? "Plague and poverty"? Do Newsweek editors know what a non sequitur is? Because, you know, it'd also be "interesting" if Bush spoke movingly about the plight of people with peanut allergies. Or if, I dunno, he started spending Sunday afternoons playing nerfball with Dick Cheney on the White House lawn. But that's not what we were talking about here, is it? The issue was whether we can trust a President who says one thing and does another.

Advice to Newsweek staff: Grow a spine. When you know the truth, speak it. When you have a point to make, make it — and let the chips fall where they may.

Comments

[dewar]

Rogier, just discovered your blog. I love the comedy -- Newsweek grow a spine!! That's a good one!

And I don't know if this is really Newsweek's fault. Zakaria is so intent on being taken seriously as a great and responsible thinker that he has to continually repress the insights that struggle to force their way out of him.