The Blame Game

James Widgerson informs us today that the McCain campaign is pulling out of Michigan, conceding the state to conserve funds and battle elsewhere where it considers its chances are still good. James titles his post “Run to the Helicopters,” an obvious nod to the United States' final ignominious retreat from burning Saigon as it was finally overrun by the victorious armies of the North.

It has been a mantra of the Right that the United States abandoned its South Vietnamese ally too soon, that ours was a cowardly retreat, a Weimar Republic effort. Now, with defeat staring them in the eyes in this campaign, Widgerson and his allies are ready to do a “helicopter.” You know, though, they won't wait until the last second to start the blame game in earnest. Glenn Greenwald covers it well today. He says that conservatives ...

... have run the country for the entire decade. For the last 14 years, they've controlled the House for all but 20 months. They spent substantial parts of the last eight years in control of all branches of government simultaneously. They've won 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. The country's largest and richest corporations -- including the ones owning the most powerful media outlets -- pour money into their party and perceive, correctly, that their interests are served by the Right's agenda. But still -- they can't get a fair shake; everything is deeply oppressive to them; it's all so unfair.

As they've ruled the country, it's been driven into the ground on every level. The President they revered and endlessly glorified is the most unpopular in modern American history. They've ushered in disastrous wars, virtual economic panic, state-sanctioned torture and astonishing debt. Their leaders have been exposed as bloated, corrupted criminals and hypocrites. Their current candidate chose as his Vice President someone who can barely string together a complete sentence or opine on the simplest of matters, and himself acknowledges that he's been joined at the hip with the failed Bush Presidency on virtually all key issues.

But still -- they're about to lose not because of anything they did, but because the corporate-owned Media hates them and is distorting their message; because they're being persecuted for their religion (which more than 75% of Americans share); because they are just weak, kind, good little Davids being hopelessly crushed by the Goliath forces arrayed in a confederacy against them. That they belong to virtually every majority group and wield most power makes no impact on any of that. This kind of self-centered, self-victimizing, self-pitying worldview provides great psychological comfort and a release from any responsibility for one's actions, and so they are highly motivated never to give it up. To the contrary, they'll cling to it -- are clinging to it -- even more desperately as their failures and rejection by the public become more vividly apparent.

Conservatives who were so quick to blame everyone else, especially liberals, for the outcome in Vietnam, will soon be returning to haunts familiar to them as they ratchet up the rewrite of history and sit back and take comfort, while sipping their scotches and waters and smoking their cigars, that it really wasn't their fault.