Louisville Courier Journal Editorial: Leaving The Aughts Behind.
Leaving the Aughts behind
Get over it.
Dismissal, or dare?
How about both?
“Get over it” was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's barked riposte when he was asked about the high court's disastrous Bush v. Gore decision in late 2000. The 5-4 vote set the tone for the decade to follow because it placed President George W. Bush at the helm throughout much of The Aughts. We'll be paying for that White House insertion long into the future.
Get over it?
If only America could.
How appropriate that The Aughts started with something that half the country regarded as bogus — and that's in addition to the overhyped, mega-dud Y2K bug — because much of the rest of the decade served as a school of hard knocks when it came to Americans and truth.
No coincidence that Stephen Colbert's “truthiness” — the ring or feel of truth, even if it isn't — became one of the words of a time that also gave us phony WMDs, ubiquitous hair weaves, faux memoirists and champion athletes pumped up on performance-enhancing drugs.
Boxcutter-wielding terrorists caused two of our tallest skyscrapers to implode before our eyes, and the pre-emptive, misguided war in Iraq hatched in the aftermath of that atrocity was peddled like a new detergent or toy. (“You don't introduce new products in August,” said Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card of the post-Labor Day sale.) Little wonder the pitifully optimistic “Mission Accomplished” backdrop to a prematurely triumphant President Bush on an aircraft carrier found such easy, willing marks — for a while.
Other Aught hucksters would find willing subjects, too.
Swift Boaters, birthers, deathers, hedge-fund sharks, mortgage bundlers, White House party crashers, reality show schemers. You name the scam, many Americans bought it.
Tax cuts during war, war budgets off the books, a “go shopping” answer to terrorism. Name the scam, everyone paid for it — and so will our grandchildren.
The bogus played out in hideous ways, as did the true. A defining episode in how our world turned:
“Heckuva job, Brownie,” the CEO President crowed once he showed up to tour the Gulf Coast while New Orleans drowned in the devastating backwash of Katrina and the neglect of a blundering federal response to the hurricane. Political appointee and stooge Brownie — aka Michael Brown, the federal official in charge of saving New Orleans — would pay for his boss' indifference to the business of governing. Brownie's own e-mails were a testament to official disregard (“Can I quit now?” and “Order a #2, tater tots, large diet cherry limeade” and “I am a fashion god”), although let it be said he abided by image-making advice to “look more hard-working … ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!”
No, Brownie wasn't a real FEMA chief, but he played one on TV.
He was in plentiful, if not good, company. “Reality” reigned on TV in The Aughts. Rehabbing, wife-swapping, braising and frying, puzzle-solving, singing, dancing, losing weight, dating, marrying, being 16 and pregnant; zombied-out, has-been celebbing — all were “entertainment” for niche markets or the masses.
By the time America got real, and got inspired, the recipient of their statement votes to be the unfortunate successor to the Bush presidency was confronted with an inherited hell to pay for all that wasted, lost, squandered time: Wars in progress. Trashed international reputation. A crashing economy. A vanished surplus. Spiking unemployment at home. Failing corporate giants. Brazenly greedy, wantonly rewarded corporate officers. Strained, struggling families. And the people who gave President Bush a pass on time and capital for his programs and ideas? The wild-spree rubber-stampers slammed on the brakes with serial “no's” for President Obama, who at least owns up to mistakes, instead of staring into space trying to think of one, and who at least puts the costs of his programs on the books instead of slipping them into the fine print.
After today, The Aught decade will be in the rearview mirror.
Get over it?
Given its residuals, not for the foreseeable future — but stick a fork in it, anyway, and let it be done.
Get over it.
Dismissal, or dare?
How about both?
“Get over it” was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's barked riposte when he was asked about the high court's disastrous Bush v. Gore decision in late 2000. The 5-4 vote set the tone for the decade to follow because it placed President George W. Bush at the helm throughout much of The Aughts. We'll be paying for that White House insertion long into the future.
Get over it?
If only America could.
How appropriate that The Aughts started with something that half the country regarded as bogus — and that's in addition to the overhyped, mega-dud Y2K bug — because much of the rest of the decade served as a school of hard knocks when it came to Americans and truth.
No coincidence that Stephen Colbert's “truthiness” — the ring or feel of truth, even if it isn't — became one of the words of a time that also gave us phony WMDs, ubiquitous hair weaves, faux memoirists and champion athletes pumped up on performance-enhancing drugs.
Boxcutter-wielding terrorists caused two of our tallest skyscrapers to implode before our eyes, and the pre-emptive, misguided war in Iraq hatched in the aftermath of that atrocity was peddled like a new detergent or toy. (“You don't introduce new products in August,” said Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card of the post-Labor Day sale.) Little wonder the pitifully optimistic “Mission Accomplished” backdrop to a prematurely triumphant President Bush on an aircraft carrier found such easy, willing marks — for a while.
Other Aught hucksters would find willing subjects, too.
Swift Boaters, birthers, deathers, hedge-fund sharks, mortgage bundlers, White House party crashers, reality show schemers. You name the scam, many Americans bought it.
Tax cuts during war, war budgets off the books, a “go shopping” answer to terrorism. Name the scam, everyone paid for it — and so will our grandchildren.
The bogus played out in hideous ways, as did the true. A defining episode in how our world turned:
“Heckuva job, Brownie,” the CEO President crowed once he showed up to tour the Gulf Coast while New Orleans drowned in the devastating backwash of Katrina and the neglect of a blundering federal response to the hurricane. Political appointee and stooge Brownie — aka Michael Brown, the federal official in charge of saving New Orleans — would pay for his boss' indifference to the business of governing. Brownie's own e-mails were a testament to official disregard (“Can I quit now?” and “Order a #2, tater tots, large diet cherry limeade” and “I am a fashion god”), although let it be said he abided by image-making advice to “look more hard-working … ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!”
No, Brownie wasn't a real FEMA chief, but he played one on TV.
He was in plentiful, if not good, company. “Reality” reigned on TV in The Aughts. Rehabbing, wife-swapping, braising and frying, puzzle-solving, singing, dancing, losing weight, dating, marrying, being 16 and pregnant; zombied-out, has-been celebbing — all were “entertainment” for niche markets or the masses.
By the time America got real, and got inspired, the recipient of their statement votes to be the unfortunate successor to the Bush presidency was confronted with an inherited hell to pay for all that wasted, lost, squandered time: Wars in progress. Trashed international reputation. A crashing economy. A vanished surplus. Spiking unemployment at home. Failing corporate giants. Brazenly greedy, wantonly rewarded corporate officers. Strained, struggling families. And the people who gave President Bush a pass on time and capital for his programs and ideas? The wild-spree rubber-stampers slammed on the brakes with serial “no's” for President Obama, who at least owns up to mistakes, instead of staring into space trying to think of one, and who at least puts the costs of his programs on the books instead of slipping them into the fine print.
After today, The Aught decade will be in the rearview mirror.
Get over it?
Given its residuals, not for the foreseeable future — but stick a fork in it, anyway, and let it be done.
Labels: News reporting
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