Bush Plays Up Our Vulnerability

By: Matthew Rothschild

Twice on February 10, President Bush used an odd phrase to refer to America pre-September 11.

Speaking to a conference of religious broadcasters in Nashville, he said: "Before September the 11th, 2001, we thought oceans would protect us forever."

Then, at an informal press conference with Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, Bush said: "The world changed on September 11... In our country, it used to be that oceans could protect us - at least we thought so."

This phrase is nothing new for Bush.

At least 29 times in the last seven months, he has invoked this 19^th Century, Eden-like existence for the United States.

Here are some other examples:

On October 7, he said: "The attacks of September 11 showed our country that vast oceans no longer protect us from danger."

On November 5, "We're no longer protected by two big oceans... It used to be oceans could protect us from conflict and from threats."

On November 27, "Oceans that separated us from other continents no longer separate us from dangers."

On December 3, "We all believed two oceans would forever separate us from harm's way."

On January 29, "A lot of us thought... oceans would protect us forever."

What is bizarre about this image (other than its numbing repetition) is how antiquated it is. Ever since Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic on May 20, 1927, it was obvious that the oceans were no longer a buffer. Pearl Harbor made that abundantly clear. And the intercontinental ballistic missiles of the Soviet Union for forty years kept the United States in a bull's eye, notwithstanding our vaunted oceans.

Russia still has roughly 1,000 nuclear missiles that can hit the United States, with an average of three or four warheads in each one, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. These missiles have been on hair-trigger alert all along, so it's not as though Americans could sleep secure in the knowledge that this country was beyond the reach of mortal threats.

So why does Bush (or his speechwriter) insist on this bogus rhetoric?

"This notion of unprecedented vulnerability is absolutely crucial to the Bush team's anti-constitutional program", says Mark Crispin Miller, author of the Bush Dyslexicon. "When you're examining Bush's language you can never stop at correcting the factual errors because the true meaning of anything he says is connotative. What that statement really means is: 'We were safe, now we're in danger, and the danger is so severe that you must give me all possible power. What the oceans once did now only I can do.'"

We need to be mindful of the historical tricks that Bush is playing when he uses this kind of rhetoric. He hopes U.S. citizens have memories only as long as half a football game. A public that suffers from amnesia is easier to scare.