The Tyrant's Isolation

We have remarked before on the essential incompetence of tyranny. A recent observation from Cindy Sheehan also reminded me of the tyrant's inevitable loneliness. Sheehan writes:

I almost feel sorry for George up there a couple of miles away from us in his protected Green Zone. He is protected from physical harm (which he need not fear from us) and he is protected from political harm. He doesn't have to face people who disagree vehemently with his policies and who oppose his continued killing with every fiber of our beings. He is protected from the real world of pain and need. He has never had to face his failures or own up to anything. Really, are any of us surprised that he has been such a miserable failure in every way?

There is nothing so isolating as the inability to admit error and accept the responsibility—and the opportunity—for change that our mistakes freely offer us. But even in the one public instance where he has appeared to admit an error, Duhbya layered over his statement with a stereotypically lawyerish waffling and buck-passing. The American public saw right through this and Bush's approval ratings continued to plummet after this moment of palpably superficial contrition. In other words, it was just as much (if not more) of a lie as any of the other innumerable falsehoods to emerge from the Rovespeak lips of these hideous tyrants.

Thus, they are isolated: Dick in his bunker; Duhbya in his ranch (once again beseiged by those dangerous Moms, for whom new entries must be made to the code of law re. public assemblage amid the roadside ditches of Crawford). Karl is forced into his wormhole to scheme his way past the fate that Scooter must now face in isolation. More of them will be forced into a more literal imprisonment once the Abramoff investigations bear fruit; just as we learned today of what lies ahead of Congressman Cunningham of California.

For anyone who has ever felt the pain of loneliness, it is hard to resist the impulse toward pitying such people—hard, even, for the mother of a boy who had been sent to his death for the sake of their profit-drunk neurosis. But Ms. Sheehan knows better than to indulge such pity (read her remarks on the "Throw the Bitch in the Ditch" email that was written about her); and we should refrain as well. For to pity someone has the same effect as opposing him: it offers him a false energy that only feeds his ego further; thus pity, like opposition, only compounds the original problem, the essentially neurotic consciousness of ego.

The best thing, the most compassionate thing, that we can do for Lonely George and Desolate Dick is to take from them the power that they stole from us five years ago, and hold them firmly accountable for their murders, their deceit, their arrogance, their greed, and their deadly, isolating complacency.