The Cynical Politics Of Psychological Manipulation

This weekend's radio address by President Bush turned out to be little more than a very cynical game of psychological manipulation aimed largely at stemming the slippage among his most conservative supporters. His seeming "strong support" for an antiGay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution was neither genuinely sincere to his most conservative supporters and mean spirited low life weasel bigoted politics meant as a slap at America's Gay community, with the dirty fingerprints of Karl Rove all over it.

Not only is the amendment humiliating and hurtful to the Gay community, and smacks of big government intrusion into the private lives of individuals, but it is also an amendment that is sure not to pass in the Senate. Yet both Bush and Rove know this, so by throwing in their two cents supporting such a bigoted bill, it gives "lipservice" to the most conservative of Bush supporters who are abandoning him after his position on illegal immigration.

Of course Bush used to address to take a swipe at "activist" judges at the state level who believe that regulations on marriage are to be decided by states or at the local level level. But this is little more than conservative hypocrisy. When local or state governments decide something that conservatives don't like, such as assisted suicide or Gay marriage, then there is a call for Federal intervention. When abortion is not liked, then overturning Wade v. Roe is supported to turn the issue back to the states or local governments. There is no consistent standard among conservatives, who simply support whatever means to their end goals.

But with the antiGay amendment doomed to near certain failure in the Senate, the entire bigoted radio address by Bush becomes little more than more of the Rovian politics of psychological manipulation of the most conservative of supporters, hoping they lack the intelligence to tell they are being made complete fools of. Such is yet another typical day at the office in the Bush Administration where the most stupid of justifications or positions is taken at face value by his duped supporters, unable to filter out the fact from the fiction.