Why Impeaching Bush Is Good for Our Species

By Robert Weitzel, Smirking Chimp. Posted December 21, 2006.

In congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's recently filed Articles Of Impeachment Against President George W. Bush, a significant portion of Article 1 accurately describes his lying to justify a war that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Okay, so nobody's perfect. But could Bush be the "best" our species has to offer at this moment? What I mean to say here is that he may well represent the vanguard of our species' future evolutionary development. This is a disturbing proposition. However, please rest assured that I will address the moral question it raises below (i.e., whether the evolutionary path that we apparently have chosen is the optimal path).

We're the only animal that is aware of its own intelligence, so we vainly call ourselves homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man" or, as we Americans would say, "wise guy"). Admittedly, we've done pretty well since the wheel. But should we ever stop congratulating ourselves and remove our blinders, the equally characteristic, though less laudable, devious side of our nature would be revealed.

Relax! We humans come by this Dark Side naturally. Being the only primate species with concealed ovulation, we are literally conceived in deception. And our apprenticeship in artifice begins with our first breath.

Consider how much time we spend deceiving or being deceived.

I don't just mean out-and-out lying. I mean deceptions by exaggeration and omission, by facial expression and body language; deceptions that are meant to either spare feelings or exploit them. Think, "Great dress, honey. I love the chartreuse and the sparkly stuff."

Ask yourself this: If our species is not predisposed by evolution to be both deceptive and gullible in equal proportions, how is it that we are so completely susceptible to propaganda, photo-op rhetoric, televangelists and backseat affirmations of love?

Very "wise guys" make up these lies and we believe them because it's easier than trying to figure out why we shouldn't (i.e., because we lack critical-reasoning skills). So, given our species' proclivity for deception, a more fitting Latin nickname might be homo sapiens fallaxcis ("wise guy who lies").

Although we often practice deception, most of us approach deception skills in much the same fashion as we do muscle tone -- developing just enough to allow us to get by.

However, George W. Bush belongs to that peculiar breed of homo sapiens fallaxcis that has, with notable exceptions, developed its evolutionary predisposition for deception to Charles Atlas proportions. To stand out amongst this breed -- charitably referred to as "politicians" -- one needs the advantages of both nature and nurture, of genetics and environment.

Anyone who knows the history of George W. Bush's meteoric rise to the Oval Office will appreciate the role that nature and nurture has played. He was blessed with the genome of a successful political family. Hence, the Y-chromosome certainly wasn't the only piece of genetic information that Papa "Read My Lips" Bush passed on to him. You can also be certain that Papa Bush and his privileged buddies nurtured the current president through many of life's trials and setbacks.

In the law-of-the-jungle, survival-of-the-fittest world of national politics, George "We Will Be Honest With the American People" Bush has proven himself to be the Alpha Male in a pack of presidential prevaricators. He is, indeed, a World-Class Deceiver.

Recall the recent competition. Richard "I Am Not a Crook" Nixon was forced to resign because of a few falsehoods and a few real hoods. Then, in a sworn deposition during the Iran-Contra Affair, Ronald "My Heart and My Best Intentions Tell Me It's True, but the Facts and Evidence Tell Me It's Not" Reagan deceived no one but himself.

Finally, recall that William "I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman" Clinton endured an impeachment trial because of one little slip-of-the-tongue.

But we shouldn't judge George W. Bush's lies by contemporary presidential standards. After all, their evolutionary predisposition for deception was not augmented by the genes of a dad who was an ex-president, and a granddad who was an ex-senator. Like most of us, their dads and granddads were regular "wise guys" who were only middling fibbers.

But George W. Bush took full advantage of his evolutionary and familial endowments. He began lying to the American people with impunity from the day he announced his candidacy for president. And he hasn't stopped since.

Considering both the ease with which President Bush bamboozled most Americans into supporting an unjust-and-illegal war against Iraq, and their subsequent lack of outrage at this affront to their sapient selves, one has to wonder if our species has not arrived at one of those telling evolutionary moments?

Ten thousand generations hence, might not they use the Bush Y-chromosome as their genetic marker to signal a crucial turning point in the evolution of homo sapiens fallaxcis, the fateful point where our generation foolishly chose to protect that which makes us fallaxcis at the expense of that which makes us sapiens, and we branched off into the genus homo fallaxcis? Ecce homo fallaxcis! Behold deceitful man!

However, if we follow congresswoman McKinney's lead, and impeach this World Class Deceiver for his lies and their dire consequences, we might send a signal to future generations that we consciously sought a different, far wiser evolutionary path.

See more stories tagged with: impeachment, george w. bush

Robert Weitzel lives in Middleton, WI. His essays regularly appear in the Capital Times of Madison, WI. He has also been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Skeptic magazine, Freethought Today and on the websites SmirkingChimp.com and CommonDreams.org. He can be contacted at: rweitz@tds.net.

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