Offensive Charm

Stockholm Syndrome and the American media

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, March 03, 2005.

The American media was given their talking points about Bush's excellent European adventure by Karl Rove and gosh darn if they didn't stick with the script. Herr Rove instructed them to characterize Bush's trip as a "charm offensive" organized to "mend fences" with our erstwhile unshakable allies. And, like good doormats, the journalists let the "leader of the free world" walk all over them.

As one astute poster on a SmirkingChimp.com forum put it, "Good Morning America ran a bit about Bush's trip to Europe ... and host Charles Gibson essentially said this: 'President Bush today continues his European tour as he attempts to mend fences with allied leaders and outlines his plan to spread democracy to the Middle East. Interestingly, a new poll shows two-thirds of Europeans disagree with Bush's plan.' Translation: Two-thirds of Europeans don't want people in the Middle East to be free."

Never mind if Rove's talking points bear no resemblance to the truth on the ground in Europe; the media does what it's told. Bush is no more mending fences than I am winning the hearts and minds of fundamentalist end-timers. Let's face it. He's blown it with the only power bloc we've been able to count on since World War II, our largest trading partner and investor. Europe is now not only chafing at Bush's unilateral approach to diplomacy -- my way or the highway -- the EU is having serious doubts about whether the U.S. is even a sound investment. According to Felix Rohatyn in the Wall Street Journal, we need "$2 billion per day of foreign capital to service our debt, when the dollar is losing value regularly in the marketplace, and when the overall net flow of foreign money into American stocks and bonds has fallen sharply." Most of what's keeping us afloat is European money. They could call in their chips any time they want.

That's the next nail in the coffin of American empire. For now, European leaders are smiling to Bush's face, but they're distancing themselves from the toxic stench of his failed neoconservative agenda. They're expanding outreach to the rest of the sane world, via the Kyoto Protocol (which even Russia ratified) and an expanded NATO, and they are opening the door to China, which is, like the Muslim majority now ruling Iraq, exactly what the U.S. never wanted to happen. Even Tony Soprano was self-aware enough to realize his colleagues only laugh at his jokes because he's got the biggest stick. Not Bush. He's snuggled deep inside his bubble where he believes he's "mended fences" and "charmed" Europeans the way he used to charm the barflies of Exeter and New Haven.

Never mind that when Bubble Boy was in Brussels, he allowed only 11 European leaders to ask him a question, each allotted five minutes of his precious time. Who does he think he is? Galactus, King of the Universe? Never mind that, wherever Bush went, the surrounding streets were emptied of people lest he see protesters, and the airspace for 30 miles in every direction was patrolled lest he be under attack. Never mind that Bubble Boy backed out of a commitment to participate in a "town hall" forum in Mainz, where hand-picked young conservatives were to ask questions. When it was clear that Rove would have no way of controlling the flow of dialogue, Mr. Fence Mender chickened out.

But, of course, the American media didn't report this. They're as much in the bubble as Bush.

I have a theory about why this is. And, since we're on the subject of Europe, I'll offer it: Ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome? It's a psychological condition peculiar to kidnap or abuse victims in which they begin to sympathize with their captors or abusers. In some cases, Stockholm Syndrome victims will actually help the captors with their crimes (think Patty Hearst), and after the hostage situation has been resolved and they've been freed, the victims will defend their abusers in the press and even refuse to testify against them in legal proceedings (think of all the chronically abused wives who call off the legal dogs). The syndrome gets its name from a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, in which customers were held hostage for days inside the bank.

The American press has shown symptoms of this syndrome since the 2000 election, when the skeleton army in Bush's closet was overlooked while Al Gore was viciously attacked for the color of his sweaters and his sighs. But, the syndrome kicked in full-blown after 9/11. Since then, the White House has been a conduit of mendacity and maliciousness the likes of which we've never known in American history, and the reporters just take it all in, then rewrite Rove's press releases by deadline time.

They did it again on this European trip.

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reprinted from The Hartford Advocate