For some time now, videogames have been helping millions around the world avoid going outside or practicing the art of conversation. Hyper-violence that extracts attention span and slacks jaws is nothing new in these art forms, but a more recent trend seems to be attempted connections of such activities to real-world happenings.

Kuma has been churning out this type of game for a while—the selling point being that the missions and settings for their games are based on actual military conflicts. The latest features a mission yet to unfold in real life—the invasion of Iran. (Mission features real working Bush Administration talking points!)

With the development of combat drones and well-published accounts and depictions of military men blurring the line between actual fighting and fighting experienced through a computer game, it would seem that Kuma is not alone in eroding the longstanding, carefully cultivated intellectual movement towards empathy.

Orson Scott Card’s science fiction novel Ender’s Game explores the use of technology towards perfecting the art of war—from genetic and psychological manipulation to war game simulations more real than they appear, the characters in this speculative military academy are shaped into human war tools that would make circa Republic Plato proud.

In this series of novels, Ender—the titular character—following a series of military successes declines to a state of passive self-destruction as the impact of his victories becomes more apparent. The book allows his personal struggles to function as a critique of the book’s speculative society, while simultaneously illustrating several characters that as a result of their conditioning do not have the capacity to weigh the consequences of their actions.

To paraphrase an old quote attributed to Tyrone Guthrie, among others, the best way to play royalty is not to let anyone get within five feet of you. This distance (obviously not purely physical) is accomplished through a variety of techniques second nature to those in power. The intractability of a traffic cop is a fitting example of the people skills your average leader is likely to possess.

Reviewing the much-discussed Colbert vs. Bush card is fascinating insomuch as Colbert manages to, despite his flop sweat, for a few moments actually become the most powerful person in the world. He is certainly trumping Bush at any rate. He leans hard into the mannerisms, attitudes and logical distortions that the President relies on to paste over the gaping hole where his point should be in every stump speech.

It went beyond parody or impersonation into a real-life Peter Sellers film moment. Replacing the character of the 43^rd President with a confusingly deadpan comedic proxy removes the human element from the actions of the functionary public servant—something to be avoided if the play is to go on, and ultimately if the ego the President needs for governance is to be maintained.

The result may or may not be humorous. He didn’t knock ‘em dead, but keep in mind he was insulting 90% of his audience as well as humiliating a world leader. On the other hand, Laurence Fishburne seemed to have a good time at the party, and the middlingly honorable Antonia Scalia belly-laughed through a series of crude hand gestures directed squarely at him. Even the unenviable Plames had some chuckles.

From the perspective of media savvy, Bush has come a long way from the childish high jinks and fidgeting caught on camera upon his first visit to the White House as a man awaiting certain inauguration. This fact aside, the gap between style and substance became completely transparent as Colbert fixedly drew attention to the smoke and mirrors business.

Below is a photograph (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian) of a German computer game magazine publisher attending this year’s E3 conference in Los Angeles in the company of a pair of Green Berets. What Roland Barthes would designate the “punctum” in this photograph must surely be the faces of this motley trio taken as a unit. They are a symptom of the same disease that spawned the predominant media portrayal of the life and death of Pat Tillman.

Alone, these three men are unremarkable, but together they are a physical manifestation of the kind of fuzzy thinking that allows mediocre ideas to carry the day in the halls of power.

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