<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="country-region"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="State"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="place"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Comic Sans MS";
panose-1:3 15 7 2 3 3 2 2 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Comic Sans MS";
color:black;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:normal;
text-decoration:none none;}
p.printconsortiumnews, li.printconsortiumnews, div.printconsortiumnews
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
p.articlemaintext, li.articlemaintext, div.articlemaintext
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>I can’t figure out if Bush is so deluded that he’s bought his
own con and really believes he’s upholding his duties as outlined in the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region></st1:place>
Constitution or if he’s deliberately lying with a smirk on his face and
playing people for fools. What do you guys think?<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Kris<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Bush's Clever Cognitive Dissonance<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>So, George W. Bush sees himself as the great defender of the U.S.
Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>by Robert Parry<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca">Global Research</a>, November
18, 2007<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="http://consortiumnews.com">consortiumnews.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=printconsortiumnews><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In <a
href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071115-14.html">a Nov.
15 speech</a> to the right-wing Federalist Society, the President embraced the
Constitution’s checks and balances as a vital protection against tyranny.
And he demanded that federal judges act as fair referees, not political or
ideological partisans.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>To many Americans who have been aghast at Bush’s
six-plus years of trampling the Constitution, such pronouncements might
represent a textbook case of “cognitive dissonance,” a
psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension when one’s stated
principles are at odds with one’s actions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>For Bush, however, this divergence of words from
behavior may be closer to the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, when
the monarch strutted about in invisible garments while his terrified subjects
kept quiet about his nakedness.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In this case, the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State> press corps reported on
Bush’s speech as if the President were entirely sincere and left out
contradictory facts.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>For instance, there was silence about how Bush
prevailed in Election 2000 by getting five partisan Republican justices on the
U.S. Supreme Court to stop a recount of votes in Florida that – if it had
been allowed to tally all legally cast ballots – might well have put Al
Gore in the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Instead, the five Republican justices cast aside any
sense of neutrality – and their own principles about avoiding federal
interference in state decisions – to hammer together a twisted ruling
that halted the recount and gave the election to George W. Bush. [For details,
see our new book, <em><i><font face="Times New Roman"><a
href="http://www.neckdeepbook.com/">Neck Deep</a></font></i></em>.]<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet, in his Nov. 15 speech, Bush declared how
important it was for judges to act as honest umpires.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“When people see the umpire rooting for one
team, public confidence in our courts is eroded, the sense of unfairness is
heightened and our political debates are poisoned,” Bush said. “So
we will insist … on judges who call the game fairly.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bush also declared that he was committed to the
original intent of the Founders as expressed in the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Tonight I will discuss a judicial philosophy
that is based on what our Founders intended,” Bush said. “The
President's oath of office commits him to do his best to ‘preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>.’ I take these
words seriously. I believe these words mean what they say.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>‘Plenary’ Powers</span></font></b></strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet, even many conservative legal scholars, such as
former assistant attorney general Jack Goldsmith, believe that Bush and his
inner circle have stretched the wartime powers of the President far beyond what
the Founders intended or the Constitution allows.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bush has asserted “plenary” – or
unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the
indefinite “war on terror.” In Bush’s view, that means he can
ignore the rights that the Constitution grants to both citizens and other
branches of the federal government.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>While the Founders envisioned “unalienable
rights” for all mankind, Bush claims that he can even waive <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">habeas corpus</font></i></em>, a principle dating back
to the Middle Ages requiring the government to present evidence of a
person’s guilt.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><em><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Habeas</span></font></i></em> was a right that the
Founders considered so fundamental that they embedded it in the body of the
Constitution. But Bush’s former White House counsel and Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales once told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “There is no
expressed grant of <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">habeas</font></i></em>
in the Constitution.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Gonzales’s unorthodox view – which left
Republican Sen. Arlen Specter sputtering in disbelief – also wasn’t
just theoretical. Bush and his administration have locked up people, including
American citizens, while denying them their day in court. [See
Consortiumnews.com’s “<a
href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/011807.html">Gonzales Questions <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Habeas Corpus</font></i></em></a>.”]<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bush also has formulated military commissions –
first unilaterally and then through legislative action – that represent a
parallel legal system operating outside the rules of the U.S. Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In effect, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 casts
aside not only <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">habeas corpus</font></i></em>
but the Sixth Amendment, which grants the accused “the right to a speedy
and public trial, by an impartial jury” and the right to confront one’s
accusers. By contrast, in Bush’s system, there is no guarantee of either
a speedy or a public trial. Secrecy dominates in a process run by <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> military
officers whose careers depend on the favor of the Commander in Chief.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The military commissions also would apply not only to
foreign “unlawful enemy combatants” but to “any person”
who aids the enemy “in breach of an allegiance or duty to the <st1:country-region
w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>,” presumably a reference to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> citizens.
[See Consortiumnews.com’s “<a
href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/101906.html">Who Is ‘Any
Person’ in Tribunal Law?</a>”]<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In his warrantless wiretapping program, Bush also has
brushed aside the Fourth Amendment, which requires that the government
establish “probable cause” before it can conduct searches of
Americans. In his wiretapping operation, Bush ignored, too, the specific legal
requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bush’s approval of harsh interrogation tactics,
including simulated drowning by “water-boarding,” also has made a mockery
of the Eighth Amendment and its ban on “cruel and unusual
punishments,” not to mention federal statutes prohibiting torture.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Unitary Executive</span></font></b></strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Still, Bush’s Nov. 15 speech talked glowingly of
the constitutional “checks and balances” as a guard against
tyranny. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“When the Founders drafted the Constitution,
they had a clear understanding of tyranny,” Bush said. “They also
had a clear idea about how to prevent it from ever taking root in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Their
solution was to separate the government's powers into three co-equal branches:
the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. …<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Each serves as a check on the others. And to
preserve our liberty, each must meet its responsibilities – and resist
the temptation to encroach on the powers the Constitution accords to
others.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But for the past six years, Bush has asserted his
right as “unitary executive” to ignore any law that he chooses by
asserting his "plenary" powers and attaching “signing
statements.”<br>
<br>
In effect, if one examines Bush’s claims of unlimited executive power
– and overlays that with a “war on terror” of indefinite
duration – a fair conclusion is that the President has, in effect,
eliminated both the "checks and balances " and the “unalienable
rights” that the Founders enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Under Bush’s theories, constitutional rights can
be selectively denied by one person, him.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet, in his Federalist Society speech, Bush was the
rock-ribbed protector of the Founders’ dream of a constitutional
Republic. He chided his political opponents for their more flexible
interpretation of the Constitution.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Advocates of a more active role for judges
sometimes talk of a ‘living Constitution,’” Bush said.
“In practice, a living Constitution means whatever these activists want
it to mean. They forgot that our Constitution lives because we respect it
enough to adhere to its words.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>But what Bush has sought in key federal judicial
appointments, including his Supreme Court selections of John Roberts and Samuel
Alito, are judges who will predictably assent to Bush’s extraordinary
assertion of presidential powers, regardless of the words in the Constitution
or the intent of the Founders.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Cognitive Dissonance</span></font></b></strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In a broader sense, Bush’s Nov. 15 speech
reflected what has been a core rhetorical device of the modern American Right,
the clever use of cognitive dissonance – the confident assertion of
positions that fly in the face of reality.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>I first encountered this tactic in 1981 when President
Ronald Reagan sought to frustrate the intent of government policies from the
1970s by appointing individuals who were hostile to those goals but who claimed
to embrace the same principles.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>For instance, Reagan disdained President Jimmy
Carter’s emphasis on “human rights” but instead of making a
complete break, Reagan appointed Ernest Lefever as the State Department’s
human rights pointman.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Though Reagan and the Right hailed Lefever as a
champion of human rights, the nomination foundered after critics, including his
own family members, presented evidence of his racial prejudices and fondness
for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">South Africa</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
apartheid government.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>(After Lefever’s nomination was pulled, Reagan
turned to a more astute practitioner of this technique, a bright and aspiring
neoconservative named Elliott Abrams.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In dealing with environmental issues, Reagan took a
similar tack. Instead of directly challenging environmental policies enacted
during the previous decade, he appointed right-wing
“environmentalists” who talked about their love of nature while
quietly dismantling regulatory protections.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>What the Right – and especially the neocons
– drew from these experiences was that the Washington press corps could
be tough when contesting some narrow falsehood or a slight hypocrisy, but would
ignore audacious misrepresentations, at least when they came from Republicans
backed by aggressive right-wing media attack groups.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Bush has proved to be a master of this technique
because he shows even fewer scrupples than the average politician in making
claims that are at clear variance with the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>For instance, in his last two addresses to the United
Nations General Assembly, Bush has hailed the U.N.’s Universal
Declaration of Human Rights although its tenets are in contradiction of his
claims that he can kill, kidnap, detain, torture and spy on anyone of his
choosing anywhere in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Nevertheless, Bush displayed a well-founded confidence
that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
press corps wouldn’t challenge him on these obvious hypocrisies –
and he was right. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “<a
href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092507.html">Bush to World: Up Is Down</a>.”]<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Indeed, one of the most successful features of
Bush’s presidency may be his ability to exploit cognitive dissonance to
avoid accountability for his actions. While Bush doesn’t blush when his
actions belie his words, the American political system can’t seem to
cope, incapable of either reconciling Bush’s dishonesty or enforcing any
accountability upon him.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The national press corps and other <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State> institutions – like the
emperor’s subjects in the old fable – try as best they can to
ignore the obvious.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articlemaintext><em><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in
the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep:
The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons,
Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at </span></font></i></em><a
href="http://www.neckdeepbook.com/"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman">neckdeepbook.com</font></i></em></a><em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The
Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> and Lost History: Contras,
Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to </font></i></em><a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Neck-Deep-Disastrous-Presidency-George/dp/1893517020/ref=ed_oe_h/105-6934069-6141258?ie=UTF8&qid=1189519378&sr=8-1"><em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">Amazon.com</font></i></em></a><em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">. </font></i></em><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<i><span style='font-style:italic'>Robert Parry is a frequent contributor to
Global Research.</span></i> <a
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=Robert&authorName=Parry"><i><span
style='font-style:italic'>Global Research Articles by Robert Parry</span></i></a></span></font><b><font
size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:bold'><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>