Sunday, October 10, 2004

Two Sides of George Bush
James S. McKay


The presidential debates in Coral Gables and St. Louis have shown us two different sides of George Bush. The combination of the two has resulted in the debacle of Iraq and made the world a more dangerous place.

In the first debate, the President showed his inability to deal with complexity. He was like a deer in the headlights, stumbling and simmering as he fell back on the buzz phrases "hard work," and "mixed messages" to try to make a point. His facial expressions harkened back to his 7 minutes of paralysis during the "My Pet Goat" affair on 9/11. It was hardly the kind of cool and decisive intellegence that the nation needs when the chips are down.

The second debate revealed another side of George Bush that is even more troubling. Having shown his incompetence, he overcompensated by becoming a bully. Storming about the stage with raised voice he unblinkingly asserted the moral virtue of his choices, completely ignoring and even denying his failures in executing those choices. This time he was going to throw his weight around and dare anyone to challenge him. It didn't matter that his misadventures in Iraq have created a quagmire approaching biblical proportions. Saddam was a bad man. Case closed.

The most telling exchange was when Charlie Gibson tried to ask the President a follow-up question about the back-door draft. This is an important issue because it is draining the servicemen the President claims to support and is of particular importance in light of statements last week by the President's own Iraq Czar, Arthur Bremmer, that we've had too few soldiers in Iraq from the start. Did the President answer the question? No. He steamrolled Mr. Gibson and went into a harange defending Tony Blair and a few other leaders who John Kerry had never criticized. The President as bully. Case closed.

The bullying George Bush has accellerated our alarming decline in the eyes of the world community. It's one thing to be wrong, but to be wrong and arrogant about it is to alienate yourself from even your closest friends. Nations like Canada, which I've always considered to be practically another state, have been driven away from us by the President's shoot from the hip decision-making and bullying ways. It's no accident that 90% of the money and 90% of the casualties in this war are our own. It's the direct product of the President pushing us away from our friends with a vengeance.

Diplomacy is a subtle art. In times past, our leaders have understood this and weilded their tools accordingly. This President believes diplomacy is a contact sport. There's no bunt in his playbook. Everything is a headlong dive into the middle of the line, and let the chips fall where they may.

The chips have indeed fallen in Iraq, and there are so many of them that we're likely to picking them up for generations. The two sides of George Bush, the overwhelmed simpleton and the bully, have undone generations of good will. We're in the position we are now because he is the wrong man for the job. Let's hope that his days in office will end with this election, before he can turn the rest of the world against us.

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