Thoughts on GB
Here is hoping it is a bold new year. As someone has said, "Here is hoping we have many sweet victories in 2006." I sure want some. And not just easy ones. I have already rung in the new year. It was early for me. The Household made it 8:00PM so everyone would be in proper attendance. Then we tended to it. We ate a wonderful meal, put promises in a box for next year. We slowly put away the past year and sang Auld Lang Syne.
I'm not thinking about the President. I am not worried right now about the government. What don't sort out will wash out. Back August 23, 2004 however, I felt creepy. Here is what I had to say then.
George Bush is not an evil man. He is not a psychopathic and twisted individual with a heart full of dark impulses and hate. That is what the left makes him out to be only so there is a suitable effigy to burn down at the barricades. In truth, he represents the best of us.
He was raised in an affluent and influential household. That is not a fault or a critical flaw. It is, rightly, an aspiration others should hope to provide for their children. He was schooled at Yale, learned to fly jet aircraft in preparedness to defend the country if need be (although it never quite came to that), then schooled some more at Harvard. This is the finest in what can be offered to a young man in this country. He has tasted the best fruits of our countries intellectual tradition, and he tried to live up to the loftiest of expectation. Others may have been more able or more apt to make good, but these opportunities were his and others should be so lucky. It is what this country is all about in some ways.
He has a family and has raised two daughters who seem...happy. I am a dad and when my daughter is happy and I feel I have contributed in some way to that happiness, I feel good. Being a parent is a tough job; doing it well is an accomplishment. George Bush speaks about family values with a certitude that is compelling. He surely believes that happy, healthy families are important to the goodness of a nation. I do too.
Loyalty, being a straight shooter, meaning what you say—these are values Mr. Bush esteems. Who can doubt the importance of such things? It is perhaps wrong to say, “I oppose everything this guy stands for” when he stands for such indispensable ideals. So what is it about his presidency that gives me the creeps?
One thing, I think, is an absence of critical judgment. A chief executive must exercise critical judgment to do what is right when close advisors, armed with competing ideas and ambitious, persuasive opposing viewpoints, cloud the air with what may or may not be in the overall best interest. Eisenhower wanted to leave a legacy of nuclear disarmament with the Soviets. There was good evidence the Soviets had little to lose in agreeing to disarm, being hopelessly behind in the arms race. Eisenhower’s persuaded to obtain more covert surveillance; a U2 was shot down; Khrushchev furiously walked away from the bargaining table, and nuclear disarmament became a dream. He could have said no to the risks posed by more surveillance, and later confessed he wish he had. The Executive wrestles such dilemmas daily. No one is perfect.
Carter deploys every diplomatic means available to secure release of hostages held in hostile foreign land. With the crisis lengthening, he authorizes a high-risk mission to insert Special Forces in an assault/rescue attempt. Since there are no adequate supply lines or staging areas in range of the destination, and with fierce, unfortunate sandstorms fouling the effort, aircraft either collide or run out of fuel and the whole things ends in failure, crushing his presidency. What would you have done? Is there some action that would have precluded the possibility of seeing American corpses carried through the streets on the evening news? In the end, they all came home except eight volunteers to the Joint Special Ops forces sent to perform rescue.
Nevertheless, George Bush acts with his political motives showing and with critical judgment often subordinate to deeply ingrained ideological principles.
When he was serving as Governor of Texas, there were a small number of clemency requests forwarded to his office that reportedly bore merit. He unfailingly gave them little consideration as he supported the efforts of the courts to rigorously ascertain proper convictions and heartily believed in the death penalty. Even if a man could be classified as mentally handicapped, the Governor was steadfast and difficult to sway.
Just as a Marxist needs only to determine how something either conforms to dialectical materialism or doesn’t to know the nature of it, a politician like George Bush considers how something either buttresses or weakens his far right leanings to see what must be done. “You are either with us, or against us.” If it is a good thing, great—he is 110% behind it. If it is a bad thing, to hell with it—or better yet, blame it on someone else. I think that is…well, creepy.
I also think it is creepy for a president to look on the carnage taking place in Fallujah and think we are winning.
Read more!
I'm not thinking about the President. I am not worried right now about the government. What don't sort out will wash out. Back August 23, 2004 however, I felt creepy. Here is what I had to say then.
George Bush is not an evil man. He is not a psychopathic and twisted individual with a heart full of dark impulses and hate. That is what the left makes him out to be only so there is a suitable effigy to burn down at the barricades. In truth, he represents the best of us.
He was raised in an affluent and influential household. That is not a fault or a critical flaw. It is, rightly, an aspiration others should hope to provide for their children. He was schooled at Yale, learned to fly jet aircraft in preparedness to defend the country if need be (although it never quite came to that), then schooled some more at Harvard. This is the finest in what can be offered to a young man in this country. He has tasted the best fruits of our countries intellectual tradition, and he tried to live up to the loftiest of expectation. Others may have been more able or more apt to make good, but these opportunities were his and others should be so lucky. It is what this country is all about in some ways.
He has a family and has raised two daughters who seem...happy. I am a dad and when my daughter is happy and I feel I have contributed in some way to that happiness, I feel good. Being a parent is a tough job; doing it well is an accomplishment. George Bush speaks about family values with a certitude that is compelling. He surely believes that happy, healthy families are important to the goodness of a nation. I do too.
Loyalty, being a straight shooter, meaning what you say—these are values Mr. Bush esteems. Who can doubt the importance of such things? It is perhaps wrong to say, “I oppose everything this guy stands for” when he stands for such indispensable ideals. So what is it about his presidency that gives me the creeps?
One thing, I think, is an absence of critical judgment. A chief executive must exercise critical judgment to do what is right when close advisors, armed with competing ideas and ambitious, persuasive opposing viewpoints, cloud the air with what may or may not be in the overall best interest. Eisenhower wanted to leave a legacy of nuclear disarmament with the Soviets. There was good evidence the Soviets had little to lose in agreeing to disarm, being hopelessly behind in the arms race. Eisenhower’s persuaded to obtain more covert surveillance; a U2 was shot down; Khrushchev furiously walked away from the bargaining table, and nuclear disarmament became a dream. He could have said no to the risks posed by more surveillance, and later confessed he wish he had. The Executive wrestles such dilemmas daily. No one is perfect.
Carter deploys every diplomatic means available to secure release of hostages held in hostile foreign land. With the crisis lengthening, he authorizes a high-risk mission to insert Special Forces in an assault/rescue attempt. Since there are no adequate supply lines or staging areas in range of the destination, and with fierce, unfortunate sandstorms fouling the effort, aircraft either collide or run out of fuel and the whole things ends in failure, crushing his presidency. What would you have done? Is there some action that would have precluded the possibility of seeing American corpses carried through the streets on the evening news? In the end, they all came home except eight volunteers to the Joint Special Ops forces sent to perform rescue.
Nevertheless, George Bush acts with his political motives showing and with critical judgment often subordinate to deeply ingrained ideological principles.
When he was serving as Governor of Texas, there were a small number of clemency requests forwarded to his office that reportedly bore merit. He unfailingly gave them little consideration as he supported the efforts of the courts to rigorously ascertain proper convictions and heartily believed in the death penalty. Even if a man could be classified as mentally handicapped, the Governor was steadfast and difficult to sway.
Just as a Marxist needs only to determine how something either conforms to dialectical materialism or doesn’t to know the nature of it, a politician like George Bush considers how something either buttresses or weakens his far right leanings to see what must be done. “You are either with us, or against us.” If it is a good thing, great—he is 110% behind it. If it is a bad thing, to hell with it—or better yet, blame it on someone else. I think that is…well, creepy.
I also think it is creepy for a president to look on the carnage taking place in Fallujah and think we are winning.
Read more!
posted by obelus at 12/31/2005 11:31:00 PM
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