As a young guy in Paris on the GI Bill, I bumped into some Poujadists - followers of a far right-wing politician named Poujade. Seated in a café, we argued politics and when we were finished I had learned something. There’s no point in debating someone with whom you do not share basic assumptions.
These guys believed, for example, in beating up their opponents. They were anti-Semites, too. In sum, the Poujadists were would-be fascists and, as such, oblivious to my triumphant arguments.
I was reminded of the Poujadists when chatting recently with a Prime Time reader about prescription drugs. He works in health care in Albuquerque. He was intelligent, well-informed and confident drug manufacturers would see the virtue of balance, raising their prices overseas and bringing them down here.
No, they won’t. What this gentleman didn’t understand is that Big Pharma shares neither his fundamental reasonableness nor his decency.
They charge more for pills here because they can. They can because they've bought the American political system. Not so, overseas.
I fear that most Americans - conservatives, middle-of-the-roaders and liberals – assume the Bush White House is like them. Interested in the common good, that is. Dedicated to playing by the rules. Mistaken, perhaps, on specific issues, but basically good guys.
I would like to agree, but there’s too much evidence to the contrary.
o Supreme Court Justice Scalia intends to hear a case involving his duck-hunting buddy, VP Dick Chaney. No recusal needed. Chief Justice Rehnquist is backing him.
o An AP story about the country’s "ailing manufacturing sector" reports that the Bush Administration is calling for the creation of a new presidential council "to give US companies a greater voice in government decisions."
o The House voted on a bill to exempt active duty, reservist and veterans’ families from tougher bankruptcy standards. Tom Udall voted to give the military guys and gals a break. Heather Wilson, retired military, voted "No." She also voted to ignore conflicts of interest on the part of investment bankers that could harm creditors.
o We needed to attack Iraq, you remember, because its WMD represented a clear and present danger to us. Well, in his State of the Union speech, Bush’s lethal WMD became "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."
• The White House continues to stonewall probes of 9/11/01, even GOP-led investigations.
o Last week, the Pentagon said it is planning a new offensive to foil the expected movement of Taliban figures and AlQaeda terrorists in still-troubled regions of Afghanistan.
o To get his Medicare "reform" passed, Bush twisted the arms of conservative Republicans who objected to the cost, $400 billion over 10 years. That was a few weeks ago. In that time, the White House cost estimate has risen to $540 billion.
o Many months ago, diplomat Joseph Wilson, on an Administration assignment, determined that a story about Iraq getting nuclear material from Africa was false. He made that information public. Somebody in the White House – Wilson guesses it was Karl Rove or a Roveite – promptly leaked to Robert Novak, the right-wing columnist, that the diplomat’s wife is a CIA agent. The idea was to tell future Wilsons and future intelligence pros to keep their traps shut.
Incidentally, it's illegal to blow the cover of a CIA operative.
The Attorney General has yet to come up with the name of the leaker.And the White House has "let the earthmovers roll in over this one," a senior official there told Financial Times.
You get the idea. Like the Poujadists back in 1955-56, the Bush White House does not share my understandings about the USA, the common good or playing fair.
Would-be fascists? I don't know yet.