To Be and Not to Seem : The Bush Debacle in Context

[SidneyCarton]

Some time ago former Mexican President Vicente Fox noted his shock and disgust upon inviting President Bush to his ranch, only to discover that the American leader, famous for his "cowboy" image, was afraid of horses. Yep, our reincarnation of John Wayne combined with Ronald Reagan, Mr. "Smoke 'em out" "dead or alive" etc, etc, ad nauseaum, is a faux cowboy. Other rumors note that the brush he clears from his Crawford Ranch is trucked in beforehand, all props and scenery. The most recent revelation, that the Bush's will be moving out of Crawford at the end of his Presidential term for an upscale development outside of Denver, give further credence to the idea the Mr. Bush was truly "all hat and no cattle" all along.

Why should this bother us? After all, the man is leaving isn't he? Indeed, but Mr. Bush and the 8 year odyssey we have shared with him are a reminder of the power of illusion, particularly in American Politics. We gained our first taste of such illusions through Ronald Reagan, a man practiced in the art of make believe through his many years of acting. In essence Reagan played at being the President for his terms in office. Bush has attempted to do much the same, and as with "the Gipper," "Dubya" has proven equally false, indeed his whole Administration, the entirety of his policies have essentially been one gigantic farce. Were the catastrophic cost to our nation not so great, it would almost be humorous.

One of the telling problems of Mr. Bush's play acting has been his emulation of Winston Churchill. He has seen 9-11, and the ensuing "Global War on Terror" as his opportunity to act like the iconic British Prime Minister. The problem is, Churchill did not "act at" being Churchill, HE WAS CHURCHILL. Just as Abraham Lincoln did not play at being Lincoln, or FDR at being FDR, or even (heaven forgive me) Nixon play at being Nixon. Each of these men, for better or worse, were unabashedly themselves, authentically the men they made themselves out to be.

The creation of an out-sized persona to cover an inadequate person is not the product of a democratic mindset, it is the creation of an authoritarian regime. Consider the airbrushing of Stalin's pockmarked face, or the fact that the actor he always chose to portray him in film was several inches taller than the man himself, so that he might seem to tower over his contemporaries. Hitler at least had his World War One record to fall back on, (The Iron Cross, First Class was rarely given out to enlisted men, thus singling him out for particular valor.) yet in the end, this was seen as insufficient for the Nazi Mythos, which transformed der Fuhrer into a kind of one-man symbol for all of the 2 million German dead in that awful conflict, a title to which he had neither right, nor qualifications to claim.

And so it is in a far more farcical sense with Bush, a man who in the end is a hollow shell, with neither character nor conscience. In the last few months we've seen the mask drop off our leader, and the image of the real George W. Bush is both disturbing and disappointing. Whether evinced through his sophomoric farewell at the recent G-8 Summit, or the impromptu back rubs to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or the offhand comments about Wall Street's drunkenness, we see a man who really couldn't care less about anything, an empty callous immature man-child who has clad himself in the robes of men far greater than he, and now stands exposed as the ridiculous spectacle he truly is.

Such observations become all the more disturbing when taken in the context of the Republican Primary debates this past year. The leading contenders for the nomination (including the presumptive nominee, Senator McCain) spent hours waxing fulsome about their emulation of Reagan, and their overwhelming desire to act "as Reagan did." Reagan play acted his way through the Presidency, what manner of Administration would we get from one who would play act the performance of a play actor. A McCain Administration might indeed be a pale and pitiful copy, of the already empty and lackluster Presidency it would seek to imitate.

[paparush]

1. Esse Quam Videri

Motto of my alma mater - NCSU!

[SidneyCarton]

2. I will now admit my ignorance

My Latin is atrocious, what does that mean?

[paparush]

3. To Be, Rather Than To Seem

:0)

[SidneyCarton]

4. Thanks, I will remember that!

[Imagevision]

5. Bush was installed to do a specific job and he did it, Bush recently stated that

it took almost 8 years to get where this country is now at, and that he'll leave it up to the next president to finish the...job? Bush, big biz, he was a saint - Bush for the common man, he is a traitor.
4100+ fa,ilies lost loved ones for a phony war, a war to control the flow of oil.

[SidneyCarton]

6. And that job was in no uncertain terms to gut our nation.

Had we seen the man as he is now in all his fetid glory, in 2000 how many would have voted for him?

[Hydra]

7. The same amount of people who voted for him originallly

Not enough.

Despite how bad this is for most people, the 20-30% who support him get major benefits from having such a monster in office.

The rest of us are simply to civilized to deal with such a monster.

[SidneyCarton]

8. The 20-30% who support him unequivocally are as empty as he is.

It's an old story, birds of a feather...

We see this with the PUMA's among others, not in their support of Senator Clinton, who his disowned them, but in their support of eachother, empty cruel people with chips on their shoulders inevitably band together against the society that they believe has wronged them.

In the case of Bush supporters, this group includes those who love war, but have no stomach to do the actual fighting, the terminally greedy, unreconstructed racists, misogynists and those nostalgic for an America that never existed, even in the 50's.