Hypocrisy: Feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
Cliché and Amateur: Starting any piece of writing outside of an eighth-grade term paper with a definition.
Now that we have that understood lets move onto the topic of the day. Even as a liberal-minded New Yorker, deep-down inside I believe George W. Bush is an idealist. Yes, I believe that deep down inside, behind his rambling, at times incomprehensible rhetoric, that he thinks that it is our duty as the founders of modern democracy to spread our great culture of freedom and fight against autocracy and kleptocracy. However, thankfully, or unfortunately, the people on his staff realize that ideology doesn’t always mesh with practicality.
Last month Dubya said that corruption by high-level foreign officials was, “A grave and corrosive abuse of power” that “threatens our national interest and violates our values.” The plan, he said, would be “a critical component of our freedom agenda.” And for or years upon years, in fact, since we first began our Iraq escapade, Bush has made it his stated priority to combat tyranny and safeguard democracies. Yet in the past few weeks we have seen the grim, Machiavellian ideals that really influence American policy and is it clear that despite any ideals our presidents may spouse it is and perhaps will always be about safeguarding American political and most importantly, economic interests.
This week for instance the White House is scurrying about to make preparations for the arrival of despot, Nursultan Nazarbayev, “President of Kazakhstan”. Not only is Nazarbayev an autocrat, he runs a government that has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of pocketing the bulk of 78 million dollars in bribes from an American businessman. Nazarbayev has banned opposition parties, intimidated the press and profited from his post, according to the U.S. government. So Bush is going to give him a firm, threatening talk to Mr. Nazarbayev right? Actually Kazakhstan sits on a huge oil reserve, just like the falsely elected President of Azerbaijan, and the terrible dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, their oil makes the stability of their economically vital nations more important them the citizens that live within them.
I’m not saying that this isn’t a grim necessity, but I am saying that “Moral Diplomacy” truly did die with Taft. Bush, Rice and the rest of the administration will use the “freedom”, “oppression”, and “democracy” card only when it suits them. If your going to be an ideologue, please stick to your ideals.
