Bush and King Henry: Similar Birds of Different Feathers

[Say_What]

<clips>

By Saul Landau

President Bush has a well-deserved reputation among the high brows as uncultured. While he may not have the intellect to distinguish between Shakespeare and Ogden Nash, he has certainly immersed himself in the culture of power – in the narrowest sense.

For Bush – after 9/11 – power means simply command, not responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Indeed, by waging unprovoked war against Iraq, he discarded decades of legal culture established by conservatives. He acted radically, ignoring the wisdom of conservative icon Edmund Burke: “Our patience will achieve more than our force.”

Nor did the unrefined wielder of power pause to interpret King Henry V’s words about the nature of war before his battle of Agincourt. “I am afear’d there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing when blood is their argument?” Henry and Bush, both fun-loving princes, who hung out with low-lifes in their youth, fell into their positions as heads of state.

But unlike Bush, Shakespeare’s Henry fought alongside his men and respected his enemy. In contrast, after the successful invasion of Iraq, when the resistance to U.S. occupation began, Bush taunted those his army had vanquished. “Bring ‘em on,” was his response to the growing body count at a July 2 White House press conference, as if he were John Wayne starring as a U.S. Marshall in Baghdad, Wyoming.

http://www.rprogreso.com/