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12/15/2004: "Bush Has Been Reading Ann�s Latest!"

I�d planned to publish on �what you get when you talk to a Dittohead about the environment� but I knew that would have to wait when I looked at CNN last night and saw Bush awarding Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer (left to right in that order) There�s a photo here Like a bolt from the blue it hit me that Bush has gone out of his way to show to all that would see that he has embraced the Tao of Ann as formulated in her latest opus, �How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).� Here�s her creed, as has been spotlighted so many times here that I�ve just been doing a copy and paste for each new use: �Don't be defensive, always outrage the enemy, and never apologize to, compliment, or show graciousness.� Awarding those medals was the perfect demonstration of conformance to Ann�s creed! It very clearly communicates the Administration�s attitude towards the major topics for which it has been criticized. Bush�s gesture in awarding these medals exactly matches the famous gesture made by Nelson Rockefeller to his hecklers. link. Bush chose award of the Nation�s highest civilian medal rather than Rockefeller�s colorful gesture because it better matches Ann�s tao by being particularly outrageous and most certainly not defensive or apologetic. Here�s my parsing of the message Bush is sending. Order is important, for two reasons. The first reason is that the left to right sequence exactly corresponds to the sequence and context of events for which Bush has been criticized. First was Tenet, the poster boy for poor intelligence in the runup to 9/11 and the Iraq invasion - particularly the missing WMD. Franks is a stand-in for the decision to invade, and Bremer represents the occupation � Abu Ghraib and the insurgency that was nurtured by Bremer�s dissolution of the Iraqi Army. (If you didn�t believe me when I was saying it, note that even the interim Iraqi Prime Minister has been saying it!). The second significance of the order is that Franks is much taller than the other two, so putting him in the middle is the perfect in-the-large recreation of Rockefeller�s gesture!