The Value of Insensitivity

[vixengrl]

Or, It's hard to keep drinking the Kool Aid with this turd in the Punchbowl.



It's a little odd to hear George Will http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/29/AR2006112901267.html discuss James Webb's "lack of manners" in regards to his exchange with George Bush, largely due to the somewhat petulant way Bush jumped on him for stating a perfectly valid opinion:

"How's your boy?" Webb, in an interview Wednesday, recalled Bush asking during the reception two weeks ago.

"I told him I'd like to get them out of Iraq," Webb said.

"That's not what I asked. How's your boy?" the president replied, according to Webb.

At that point, Webb said, Bush got a response similar to what reporters and others who had asked Webb about Lance Cpl. Jimmy Webb, 24, have received since the young man left for Iraq around Labor Day: "I told him that was between my boy and me."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/29/ap/politics/mainD8LN17BG0.shtml

Well, why wouldn't he want his son out of Iraq? Especially since Iraq is an increasingly dangerous place, you know, what with the incipient civil war and all. But this behavior, this insensitivity, is par for the course with the president, and his administration. Insensitivity is another of these Bush values.

This is the man who said he's "the person in this country that hugs the mothers and the widows if their son or husband dies" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030210-10.html , but the actual story is a bit more nuanced. There is, after all, the issue of when and where he's willing to put in his time as a mother-hugger http://www.alternet.org/story/17079/ and the less than always satisfactory behavior--his exchange with Jim Webb hasn't been the first nor the worst example:

"I'm George W. Bush, I am president of the United States, and I hear you have something to say to me."

Donna looked him squarely in the eye and said, "You bet I do."

She then went on to outline her grievances against him, asking the question that I would try to ask George a year later: "Why did my son have to die?"

Donna told him that Ed had a good life and if he had lived, he would have been a productive and wonderful citizen of our society. Then Bush said the coldest thing to her that I have ever heard. After Donna got through talking about her dear boy, George, unbelievably and incredibly, said, "If your son came home from Iraq alive, how do you know he would have had a good life?"

http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/close-encounters-of-the-bush-kind-62295.html

Some might suppose that his insensitivity is a kind of verbal awkwardness--an offshoot of his "Bushisms". He does not speak especially articulately at times, and it is possible that things may come out badly and be misinterpreted. However, I think it's unlikely that mere tongue-foolery is to blame. There is a pattern, not just of what is said, but what is done, and not just by Bush, but by those he has surrounded himself with, which shows an actual thoughtlessness and disrespect towards people and institutions, in ways both silly and serious. It's this insensitivity that allows bad things to "slide off" of his conscience, as much as his denial of actual disasters.

Perhaps the gentlest way to describe the insensitivity, the most charitable, is to say he's "no respecter of persons." That's right. It's because perhaps they're all equally "objects". One of the more egregious ways this has been shown is through body-language. He has used a woman's clothing as a eyeglass-wipe http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/bushvideos/v/bushkleenex.htm , and he has no trouble reaching out and practicing a little amateur phrenology with passing follicularly-challenged people http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000387.htm . Even leaders of other countries might get a little--"touched" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13960181/ around him. He has hugged props...I mean, children, who survived the Katrina disaster http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13960181/. There is something of "using" going on in his interactions with people.

He's insensitive in his speech as well. Although these have been pointed out dozens of times before, his sense of "humor" leaves something to be desired:

And we've got a job to do at home, as well. You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. (Laughter.) Little did I realize we'd get the trifecta. (Laughter.) But we're fine.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020227-6.html

(Yay--war, national emergency, and recession! And we get to push through tax cuts! )

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," Bush joked. "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" (Bush pokes fun at himself at dinner)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/26/bush.wmd.jokes/index.html

"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb 2, 2005

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050204-3.html

(Oh wait, that's not a joke, that's just the reality of many Americans trying to make ends meet--but hey--it *is* just as unfunny, isn't it?)


Bush: Please don't tell me that the government leaks secrets about conversations to the --
Reporter: Well, I have my sources in the government.
Bush: You do? Okay, well I'm not going to ask you who they are, of course. (Laughter.)
Reporter: No, please.
Bush: Inside joke here, for my team.


http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/11/04/224759.php

Bush's jokes, just like his smirk, seem to be based on the idea that the audience will laugh even if the joke has been on them. This is insensitivity. As to the recent flap about a so-called "insensitive" comment made by Senator Kerry regarding the importance of learning http://mediamatters.org/items/200611010004 , perhaps Bush was not being facetious when he decried the nature of it--perhaps he heard what he himself was thinking--after all, his regular visitor Henry Kissinger once said this:

Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Military

The anecdotal evidence of insensitivity of the part of other Bush associates abound, from Donald Rumsfeld signing his "deeply regrets" letter with an autopen http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/12/20/wrum20.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/20/ixworld.html, to even gaffes of rank insensitivity from Bush's own family: his wife, who is generally inoffensive, said this not so long ago, “It’s always easy to manipulate people’s feelings, especially when you are talking about diseases that are so difficult," in regards to Michael J. Fox's backing of candidates who are for stem cell research, and his dear old mum, Barbara Bush, had this to say, "But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that," http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5041.htm

"Not relevant." Nice.

Insensitivity is a kind of armor, it would appear, shielding the wearer from actually seeing other people, as, well, other *people*. Without this insight, how they are treated, whether it be providing assistance in a disaster like what happened with Hurricane Katrina, or recognizing the catastrophic impact of a war on the stability of Iraq, doesn't really signify. Barbara Bush's number one son's beautiful mind may simply not have taken it all in.

The drawback to insensitivity is that it registers very poorly with actually thinking, feeling people. This may be why Bush is less thought of today as someone a person would "like to have a beer with", and perhaps more as someone a person might very much like to see be something other than president.


(This is number four in my series on Bush "values"--you can read my journal for more.)

[Redstone]

1. Great job of driving home the point of how defective an excuse for a human being

bushyboy actually is. He CANNOT have a soul. He just can't.

Redstone

[vixengrl]

5. Thanks. The thing with Bush is

I've written a few things about him now where I've thought, "There, now I've put my finger on just what it is about him I don't like," but then I see him on the news again, and think, "Well, there's this other thing...."

[Erika]

2. Peggy Noonan also did a good job on the insensitivity of W

W simply has no connect with the average American and his speech shows it.

[vixengrl]

6. That Peggy Noonan recognized it

kind of points out how clear it is.

[Vexatious Ape]

3. Just think about it:

Some of our fellow country men actually thought that they would feel more comfortable having a beer with this guy.

[Erika]

4. A big oil man, mountain biker, educated in New England

Rove did one heck of a sales job on the weak minded.

[vixengrl]

7. What gets me about the whole "Beer with Bush" thing

is that it's kind of a weird criteria for choosing a leader. I've personally had beers with a number of people who were perfectly fine, but not presidential material. And yet the "people would like to have a beer with him" line was repeated fairly seriously. But it really is more about his "image" as a regular guy, and not about who he really is.

I think the Onion nailed this one: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42590