Conscious Choice: Election Season Spin

January 2004 | Editor’s Note

Election Season Spin

As we go to press, Saddam Hussein has been captured — a feat to be celebrated for sure as it leaves no doubt now that this murderous thug will never be able to abuse people and power again. But I can’t help but wonder how the Bush administration will play this event during the long 2004-campaign season. After all, the ostensible reason President Bush declared war on Iraq was not because Saddam was an evil despot but because of his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And since the WMD never materialized, the premise for invading Iraq was groundless. Further, since there’s no connection whatsoever between Saddam and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the case for going to war becomes indefensible.

So having had to soft-peddle these points for months on end, the Bush administration finally has a stunning opportunity — with Saddam’s capture — to raise its popularity ratings. They can spin the arrest into a pseudo justification for the war — with the intent of rallying public opinion and support in the November presidential election.

Informed progressive thinkers around the world have dismissed the search for WMD as simply an excuse to invade Iraq. In truth, they say, the war was all about securing Iraq’s oil reserves and privatizing the spoils, which is what we’re seeing today (ála Halliburton).

In order to direct Americans’ attention away from this detail, I envision the Bush administration mustering all its PR brilliance to portray Saddam’s capture as the reason for the Iraq invasion. Therefore mission accomplished! Now we just need to dust off and get out.

Yet lest we forget, there have been dozens of dictators as corrupt and ruthless as Saddam whose countries we did not invade, whom we did not apprehend, but did, in fact, support their tyrannical methods (see the Friendly Dictators). Iraq was no exception in the early‘80s when Iran was our enemy. Donald Rumsfeld himself traveled to Baghdad to meet and confer with Saddam.

So in the election season ahead, I’m looking forward to observing how the administration might "harness" Saddam’s capture and his subsequent trial. I picture a "speedy" trial snaking through the election season along with a compliant media replaying Saddam’s cruelties and recasting them as the reason d’etre for the Iraq invasion.

In fact, the media is responsible in large part for the situation in Iraq, according to presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, a visionary with a solid progressive record who has been against the war and the Homeland Security Act from the start. He contends that if the media had done its homework, President Bush would not have had the confidence to proceed. For a refreshingly frank discussion of our current political scene see the Kucinich interview.

Inside this Issue

You might call it taking back Lake Michigan. In an update of one of our most popular cover stories, "There Is No Ice Mountain" (August‘03), a Michigan judge has put the kibosh on Nestlé, which was diverting millions of gallons of water from the lake to supply its Ice Mountain brand bottled water. And for more Nestlé shenanigans, check out the companion piece, "Poland Spring’s Big Break."

So often living a "conscious life" brings with it perplexing questions about how to deal with gray areas in everyday life — whether it’s how to shop or invest responsibly or recycle stuff you no longer want. This month we are debuting, "Living Green," a new reader response column from Co-op America.

Endnotes

With this issue we say farewell to our first-rate associate editor, Beth Rasch as she moves on to explore other paths. We welcome Mandy Burrell as her successor. Like Beth, Mandy is a journalist whose professional sensibilities are aligned with her personal values, something we hold in high regard at this magazine. By the way, Mandy will be your point person when you have events that you’d like to submit for a listing in our Choice Events department. — Rebecca Ephraim

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