A mediated Bush

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I’m currently reading Mediated by Thomas de Zengotita, a brilliant examination of “how the media shapes your world and the way you live in it,” as the subtitle goes. It’s one of those multilayered books that deserves multiple readings, so poignant and profound are its aphoristic meditations on the state of our culture and our subservience to the forces of representation and mediation.

Zengotita’s overall understanding of human being can be summed up with the memorable line he introduces at the end of the introduction: “We are all method actors now.” Which is to say, we are all performing the personal roles that come from forming individualized identities out of a seemingly infinite supply of choices with which the postmodern world presents us.

I cannot do the book justice here. My recommendation is to read it. And then to read it again. It is one of the most important books of our time because it is a book that gets our time.

And what does it have to do with Bush? In his chapter on politics – all politics is identity politics, he finds -- Zengotita examines the particular cases, inter alia, of Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The public reaction to Di’s death got it going, but Clinton is the “prototype” of the fully mediated politician, the politician as fully mediated performer. And then came Dubya (pp. 163-173). Here’s just a snapshot of what Zengotita has to say about him:

When George W. Bush plays his role as protector of the ‘Merican people, you can see he is performing. If you watch as he runs through those lists of evangelical/Manichean truisms, you will see he is performing the simplicity he thinks of as his principal virtue. He actually recites (rush of words, pause and stare; rush of words, pause and stare) little bromides like “We are a good people,” “Our enemies hate us for who we are,” and “Our cause is just,” and his eyes light up after each nugget is delivered, as if he is proud to get his lesson right. It is as if he were hoping to ingratiate himself with parents he disappointed.

Which is the basic plot of his life’s story…

All his life, Bush has been protected by his birthright from the consequences of pretensions he might not have been able to live up to, standing alone. Invulnerable because of his position, he became tough and confrontational, but without risk…

That accounts for the spoiled-bully quality in Bush. He is driven to assert himself constantly, looking for the resistance that would test his mettle if it were ever there. The compulsive teasing, admonishing, nicknaming – the symbolic subordination of people around him, people with no choice but to collaborate with his humor at their own expense – these forms of dominance can never be entirely convincing. Hence the aura of puppetry around him, arising from the repeated deployment of mannerisms that have never quite settled in.

And here’s more:

Bush took up the tropes of world-historical leadership after 9/11 in the same way he assumed his Texas-style manhood. He practised them as diligently as he followed his workout schedule, one day at a time, never deviating, with Laura presiding, you may be sure – for it was she who first set him on the straight and narrow. And he was sustained in this discipline by his cast of courtiers, all of whom understood their fundamental role…

After 9/11, Bush was animated by this emotional syndrome [the kind of sentimentality that motivates the revenge movie], and so were those who followed him. That current of feeling shaped his subsequent performance. Hence the baffling references to his “heart,” the maudlin bottom-line intensity with which he insists that he has one, that he feels with it or in it, that it cannot be questioned, that he is who he is because of it. Bush’s heart was elevated on 9/11 from a personal to a historic plane. He understood his role after that day in terms of divine election, don’t doubt that, and take it literally, no metaphor obtains. He experienced himself being chosen by God to lead a war on terror – a war against evil, a war to save the American way of life – in exactly the same way he once experienced his personal salvation: in his heart, where floods of feeling admit no doubt.

I should quote it all, it’s that good. If no one understands our time quite like Zengotita does, no one gets Bush quite like he does either. Indeed, this may very well be the best analysis of Bush there has ever been and may ever be.

Keep it in mind as you watch tonight. Bush will be performing the State of the Union – self-consciously and yet somehow also blissfully ignorant of the consequences. It will be yet more of the sad, pathetic act we’ve come to know so well these past several years, an act that has been so devastating both to his own country and to the world around him.

[Creature's Note: Again, Michael's words, my cut-and-paste. Michael seems to think I have nothing better to do with my time... just kidding, boss. Just kidding.]