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For my 11,000th post I offer a replay of one of my earlier posts in which the ghost of Abraham Lincoln returns, Dickens-style, to startle Dubya in the middle of a stormy night in Washington:
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Rain lashes the windows and Dubya suddenly recognizes the apparition of the 16th president, who speaks to him first in a strange, sepulchral whisper, then in a voice of rising, but indistinct Appalachian tones, and finally shouting at him in breathless fury.
“I did not struggle in my bones and blood to preserve the Union so that a pissant like you could sling shit like this, you lying halfwit!” The tall man roars, matching the thunder outside. The smaller, frightened man quivers in his bed in his Hulk pjs.
Lincoln rails on through the night, cataloging Bush’s transgressions, one by one by one. Ghosts have only until dawn’s first light. Will there be time enough to cover all the damage Dubya has visited upon the American nation?
To a quaking current president, the truly great Republican president’s ghost speaks:
KARLA FAYE TUCKER. No matter her trespass, Karla Faye Tucker was a human being. On national television, you taunted her plea for her own life, inviting public doubt as to how a pro-death penalty governor and president can pontificate on a “culture of life.” Taunting a woman entreating for her life is pre-pubescent insolence.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. On the false tide of a non-victory in an immoral war, you opted for a public relations gig on the USS Abraham Lincoln -- “prancing around on an aircraft carrier” in Frank Rich’s excellent phrase. The “victory” you celebrated that day was as false as the socks stuffed in the crotch of your costume.
THE PATRIOT ACT. The most hideous assault on civil liberties in the nation’s history. Ashcroft carried the ball but you and others called the play.
RECORD DEFICIT. Not every American inherits shitpiles of cash from their father’s nefarious oil connections. Some people work for a living and they work a damn sight harder than you ever did, and for decidedly lower wages.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. Unfunded and therefore self-defeating. You used it as a prop to pretend you were the “Education President.” There’s more to teaching young people than reading “My Pet Goat” in Florida.
VALERIE PLAME. You claimed that Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake uranium ore from Niger, even after you were told he had not, then retaliated against the naysayer by outing his CIA wife. A mendacious assault on citizens’ trust across the globe.
SHOWING UP. While no existing records appear to confirm your service in the Guard, you sat and smirked as the Swiftboat Liars besmirched the medaled service record of your opponent, Senator Kerry.
DOESN’T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS. Your cold-shouldering of the Kyoto accord signaled your administration’s obstinacy in matters requiring global citizenship.
“MY DOG ATE THAT FILE.” You refused to confront charges of likely stock-dumping in Harken Energy during your affiliation with that outfit, even as Martha Stewart, a donor to the Democratic National Committee, went to jail for essentially the same thing.
SCAPEGOATING INTELLECTUAL LEFTIES. Your administration’s assault on the character of Dr. Steven Hatfill as “a person of interest” in the anthrax mailings was unconscionable and treasonous. See also under: Jose Padilla, Detention Without Cause.
OIL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. Unless the oil wells in question are in Venezuela, where the obviously U.S.-backed overthrow of a democratically-elected government failed to oust Chavez. It goes without saying that you wouldn’t even know who Chavez WAS but for his heading a nation rich in petroleum.
KIDS PLAYING COWBOYS. You’re from New England, not Texas. Your pseudo-cowboy ranch persona is idiotic and so manipulative as to be vomitous. Mature nations the world over see you as a four-year old playing cowboy in the backyard. And there’s no good reason to correct them.
YOU TRADED THE COW FOR W H A T !? There was plenty of cash in the kitty when Clinton left office. Now we are in the hole in record numbers. Your squandering of the surplus does not inspire budgetary confidence. It also casts a pall over the economic health of later generations.
JOBS. NO JOBS. Few U.S. citizens identify you as someone who understands the deprivation they endure with high unemployment, low-wage jobs, less or no medical insurance, and mountings costs in all sectors. You have never had to face conditions like that and your administration has made it plain that you don’t give a damn for the plight of those who do.
OUTLAWING PUBERTY. Universally, puberty turns into adolescence and your administration has pretended that Romeo and Juliet are not sexual beings. They are. So are Juliet and Wanda, and Romeo and Todd. Abstinence-only sex education is not only vacuously stupid, it’s incredibly dangerous. Your administration’s slobbering promotion of it is medically unsound and fundamentally irresponsible.
HEALTH CENSORSHIP. Your administration removed vital information from the HHS website which would have assisted young people in their understanding of their reproductive responsibilities. Planned Parenthood rightly excoriated you for this.
GARDEN OF EDEN? MOW IT DOWN! Your administration’s short-sighted plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge suggests 1) that you desire to maintain the current level of waste in energy usage and 2) you are insensitive to the question of unmitigated, pristine space for its own sake.
HE’S A MEAN OLD DADDY BUT HE’S OUR UNCLE DICK. Dick Cheney is a very smart but categorically sinister human being. If indeed he is human. In the debate against Edwards, Dick’s IQ shone malevolently like the gleaming scales of a poisonous reptile. His deliberate exclusion of environmental groups’ representation for the energy policy meeting; his persistent lying about the connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9-11 attacks; his suspicious affiliation with Halliburton; and his churlish, territorial temperament all suggest a man whose soul has long ago been gnawed dry by maggots.
“UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER.” Your one talent is that you shrewdly divide segments of the U.S. population, turning them against each other, all the while egging your planted propagandists in the press to fan the flames.
MANAGEMENT STYLE & CAREER GOALS. Your propensity to award loyalty over competence and to honor private profit over public service has earned you a reputation as, in Hunter Thompson’s phrase, “a treacherous little freak.”
CHEATIN’. You cheated to win in 2000 and you cheated to win in 2004. As a consequence our country lost the opportunity to be led and represented by men decidedly more qualified than you. The Supreme Court acted as fixers in 2000 and the mainstream media served as whores in 2004.
“IT’S A PAGEANT!” Your fake campaign rallies -- for GOP butt-kissers only -- were a sham. Kerry-Edwards events welcomed all citizens equally, with no Insecurities Check required. Real world leaders face the world they purport to lead.
SNIPE HUNTS. Your administration arrogantly detained human beings at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and no doubt in other locations without probable cause, without regard to their right to attorney access or fair review. Another term for this policy is international criminal tyranny.
7TH GRADE SCHOOLBUS BEHAVIOR. Caught on tape, you declared NYTimes reporter Adam Clymer “a major league asshole.” “Oh yeah -- big time,” agreed your vice president, who was standing next to you. Dittoheads may have enjoyed that witty dialogue but historians’ pens will tell with true ink just who the major league assholes of this era really were, and I don’t believe they have Mr. Clymer in mind.
TUBE STAKE. Your shameless grandstanding on the Terri Schiavo case in signing the “Palm Sunday Compromise” was politically manipulative, bordering on necrophilia. You and your brother Jeb performed a spectacular disservice to all Americans by using a dead woman as a stage prop and undermining confidence in the courts in the bargain.
CACTUS-TONGUE SLOGANEERING. Your reliance on rough-n-tough phrases diminishes your office and erodes allies’ trust in the United States. “Bring it on.” “Smoke ‘em out.” Men, women and children have died in Afghanistan and Iraq because of your lust for war, yet you mock their sacrifice by reducing it to cheap, self-promotional slogans.
HELEN THOMAS. Your administration’s treatment of this woman was disgraceful. She has more brains and bigger balls than you and your entire administration put together. You owe her an apology. After she receives said apology, no one would blame her if she stuffed your sorry ass into a woodchipper.
SNAKES IN THE GARDEN. The reappointment of Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte, and others, to positions of trust and policy in the government of the United States is cynical and unforgivable. The insult to many of our neighbors in Central America is deep and will take generations to undo.
SCIENCE BAD. ME NO LIKE SCIENCE. Your stance against stem-cell research advances the anti-science rhetoric and policies of your administration. Repression of scientific inquiry leaves a very questionable legacy.
THE REST OF THE GROCERY LIST. It was undignified and devious of you and your administration --
to manipulate the press, including planting and paying reporters to propagandize your oily agenda;
to steal Jesus as a campaign prop;
to abandon the good will you campaigned on in 2000 regarding Mexico, our southern neighbor;
to advance your careless and absurd nomination of Bernard Kerik to Homeland Security;
to gloss over your slapdash handling of the Middle East generally and the Israeli-Palestine conflict particularly;
to nominate drooling rightwing cretins to judicial posts;
to accept secret no-bid contracts for Iraq prior to the pronouncement of war;
to shift to a pre-emptive, strike-first military strategy;
to stage keep-‘em-terrified terror alerts;
to offer a clueless and stingy response to the tsunami disaster in SE Asia, even as your second inaugural celebration ran well into the millions;
to be prideful of the unbridled arrogance of “shock and awe” against an essentially defenseless nation;
to preside as Commander-in-Chief over the destruction of the Iraqi National Museum and a Defense Secretary who tells the press in response to this event, “Stuff happens” ;
to fall back on your reflexive “It’s Clinton’s fault” excuse instead of assuming responsibility for your own actions;
to debase and ridicule the United Nations and U.N. weapons inspectors in the days and weeks leading up to the war;
to loosen timber and mining environmental protections;
to issue the surreal call for a Mars expedition after major tax cuts and record job losses leave people reeling and in need of assistance;
to gut Amtrak, Reading Is Fundamental, Social Security, and countless other people-directed programs;
to impose global abortion gag rules;
to enjoin an unholy alliance with Diebold and other vapor ballot vendors;
to support efforts to amend the Constitution to prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying, while stoking the Paulist/Leviticus hatemongers who lined up in the rain to vote for you;
to foster the aura of furtive skullduggery that pervades your administration’s every move; and not least,
to lie through your teeth about your decision to launch an attack on a sovereign nation, with all the horror and loss that decision has meant for thousands of people.
-- At this moment, President Lincoln paused and glanced to the window, one he had looked out himself many times. Dawn was faintly nosing through the darkness; the night was ending. “Two last things,” Lincoln said, turning his gaze once again to the current incumbent:
BOOKS. It might be nice if you read one once in a while. All the statesmen are doing it.
THE DIXIE CHICKS. They were right.
-- With that, Lincoln’s ghost seemed to fade and then was gone altogether.
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My ideological departures with George W. Bush are sharp, long-standing, and likely irreversible, but the root of my disrespect for him is also personal: I think he does not understand the individual, human notion of public service and is additionally a shallow, fearful, and ignorant personality -- a risk-averse minimalist shrewd enough to scheme, lie and jostle for power but too thick and selfish to interpret his role as public servant to a greater good in a big-picture context.
Bush is not possessed of the personal resourcefulness and intellectual range to live as a true individual in a complex world, much less as the flag-bearer of Western democracy. He embodies Socrates’ classic unchallenged life. He is appalling on the issues and disastrous as an adult. Never a cowboy -- and not yet a grown-up.
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