How an epithet becomes a compliment
© Mary Altaffer/AP
Washington, D.C., is
a world unto itself: inside the bubble, where politicians and their kept pundits endlessly massage each others' egos (and bank accounts), the world is America's oyster, to be greedily gulped and washed down with a swig of the Imperial City's most popular intoxicant -
hubris. Oblivious to the unwholesome spectacle of their ongoing public orgy, the Bourbons of the foreign policy establishment ignore growing hostility emanating from us peasants in flyover country - to their peril.
Let's look at the numbers. While the downing of MH17 has politicians in both parties calling for direct US intervention in Ukraine,
a recent poll of voters in battleground states has a pathetic
17 percent agreeing with them - and more than double that opposed. While the poll was taken before this latest ginned up "crisis," most Americans aren't paying the least bit of attention to the war propaganda coming out of Washington - they are tuning it out just as they have steadfastly ignored the neocons' recent
call to arms urging us to re-invade Iraq. Bill Kristol's assessment that Americans are just waiting to be "
rallied" to the cause underscores the delusional blindness not only of the neocons but of the entire foreign policy establishment, which routinely pushes grandiose projects normal Americans scoff at. The
Politico poll puts a mere 19 percent in favor of Commander Kristol's Iraqi expeditionary force.
The tone-deafness of our political class when it comes to foreign policy was underscored by a recent trip to Kentucky by newly-elevated Republican majority leader
Kevin McCarthy (R-
Goldman Sachs). Asked what he thought about Sen. Rand Paul's nascent presidential campaign, McCarthy said he could support Paul if nominated but made a point of distancing himself from the Kentucky Senator's increasingly visible opposition to Washington's foreign policy of global meddling:
Comment: Here is an example of the protests against the military draft. None of those interviewed question the motive of the war, but that might be because it is on camera and they have learnt to keep quiet in public about such issues. One thing is certain: things are not well in Ukraine!