The bullshit of Michael Gerson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At Newsweek today, ex-Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson argues that Bush's SOTU address was not the predictable failure many have made it out to be. On the contrary, with expectations "driven down by exaggerated commentary," Bush "gave a speech that matched genuine outreach with ideological boldness".

Huh?

No, seriously. And there's more: Bush presented "a series of creative domestic initiatives". "On foreign policy," he "combined subtle analysis with a blunt appeal for patience". And his "explanation of Sunni and Shia radicalism exceeded the usual level of State of the Union sophistication".

The Democratic response from Senator Webb -- which at first I thought was flat but which upon reflection, removed from the shadow cast by Bush's irritation-inducing speech and the bad mood it put me in, I think was quite impressive, as good as such a response can be -- was worse than mediocre, in Gerson's view, a bad speech with mixed metaphors and liberal clichés.

There's as much bullshit here as there was in Liz Cheney's WaPo op-ed from Monday. But Cheney's piece was mere juvenilia compared to this drivel. I mean, does Gerson really believe this? There's such strained gravitas to his review of the SOTU, but no sane person could unironically lavish this much praise on it. Even if you don't think it was a failure, even if you like Bush, the most you can say about it, it seems to me, is that it was a competent performance. And perhaps it was -- competent, that is. And perhaps, still touched with partisan delusion, you think Bush said the right things. If that's the case, there's nothing I can say to you. Like Gerson, if not quite as eloquent, you're trapped in a prison of delusion from which not even killing and chaos in Iraq can free you.

Whatever the case, perhaps Gerson was watching the SOTU of his own imagination. It doesn't seem to be the one I watched.

For a couple of on-target reviews of the SOTU, see Dickerson (it was lame) and Kaplan (Bush still doesn't get it) at Slate. They pick it apart properly. Here's Kaplan on Bush's sophisticated "explanation of Sunni and Shia radicalism," that is, on a key point in Gerson's loving review: "He still seems to view the ever-mounting violence as reflecting a struggle between good and evil, freedom and tyranny. He fails to grasp the sectarian nature of the fight. (Does he really believe that the Shiites and Sunnis are the same—or that, besides the small minority of al-Qaida, they're 'totalitarian' in nature?)"

There was so much wrong in and with the SOTU. If Gerson's review is any indication, if it offers us a glimpse into Bush's mind and the minds of his minions, which I suspect it does, it's evident that a state of denial and delusion still prevails in the White House, as bad as ever.