| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"caquixote" |
| Date: |
23 Jun 2004 11:47:07 PM |
| Object: |
King George W Bush 9/11 in-ACTION |
Bush's Monica Moment
Clinton's affair with Monica called his character into question; Bush's true
colors emerged on 9/11
......
This weekend Bill Clinton gave the world a look into his character. In his
autobiography, My Life, previewed on 60 Minutes, Clinton calls his affair
with Monica Lewinsky a "terrible moral error" that sprang from the "darkest
part" of his "inner life." Lying about it under oath got him impeached by a
Republican House led by Newt Gingrich, who was having an affair with a
younger aide at the time, just as the voluble Clinton scourge, William
Bennett, rested from his indignations with the Las Vegas chapter of the
Moral Majority. The reckless impeachment peterrated by these pecksniffs
crippled the Clinton presidency at a fateful time-when Osama Bin Laden was
about to target the "homeland." Historians will doubtless explore the
question of how far Bill Clinton's "moral error" and the Republican
near-putsch contributed to September 11.
Next weekend, when Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 opens, we
will see George W. Bush's Monica Lewinsky moment. Philip Shenon, who covered
the hearings of the 9/11 commission, described that scene in an article on
the film in Sunday's Times.
For the White House, the most devastating segment of Farenheit 9/11 may be
the video of a befuddled-looking President Bush staying put for nearly seven
minutes at a Florida elementary school on the morning of September 11,
continuing to read a copy of My Pet Goat to schoolchildren even after an
aide has told him that a second plane has struck the twin towers.
Moore stipples his film with damning (and in some cases doubtful)
statistics-for example, that Mr. Bush spent 42 percent of the first eight
months of his presidency on vacation-and vituperation. But, Shenon
concludes, while "Mr. Bush's slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news
has never been a secret,.seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking
by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in
the world."
That moment exposes Bush's character. It reveals what his press conferences
proclaim: his incapacity. If he were George W. Smith, what job would he be
qualified for? Bush's presidency can be seen as one long cover-up of the
most obvious thing about him. A life of upward failure, of being his
father's son, left him without "sand," my nineteenth century-born father's
word for the residue of strength acquired by "standing on your own two feet"
and "taking your medicine." Bush never stood on his own feet, never took his
medicine-and he has never been his own man. He's the only president to be
related to the Queen of England, and his biography is that of a "royal."
Prince Charles would make a sorry prime minister. Like Bush, though, he'd
give good strut.
Leaders show what they are made of in a crisis. Bush hid in plain sight with
those kids. Later, hiding twice over, he used them as an excuse, saying he
did not want to frighten them by ending the reading before finishing the
book. Later still, and repeatedly, he said he saw the first plane strike the
tower that morning (in fact, no one saw that live; the film was not
available until the evening) and that he remarked, "That's some bad
pilot"-pure strut. As the Wall Street Journal reported, he also magnified
his role in managing the crisis, claiming he gave orders others gave.
Conflicting accounts of Bush's communications documented by the 9/11
Commission now raise doubts whether, as he and Cheney told the
commissioners, he ordered Cheney to shoot down any hijacked planes still in
the air, or whether Cheney, in the White House bunker, acted on his own.
Maybe Cheney persuaded Bush to stay away from Washington that day less for
Bush's safety than for the country's.
Bill Clinton betrayed our expectations of how a president should act, then
lied to cover up. His critics claim Monica was no discrete "moral error" but
part of a pattern of character that showed his unfitness for the presidency.
Yet, whatever his personal weaknesses, Clinton performed competently, even
prudently. His controversial decisions-raising taxes to balance the budget,
NAFTA, the China trade deal, less so welfare reform-were largely
policy-driven, outraging various elements of the democratic base.
Competence, prudence, policy over politics: these are not the words to
describe George W. Bush's conduct of government. If we doubted Clinton's
character, we were reassured by his intelligence and command of the scene.
Bush lacks these compensations. His vaunted "moral clarity" is as much strut
as conviction. He achieves certainty by arresting thought. The
"befuddled-looking president" caught in that video is an emblem of his
presidency.
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| User: "OrionCA" |
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| Title: Re: King George W Bush 9/11 in-ACTION |
24 Jun 2004 07:47:56 PM |
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On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 21:47:07 -0700, "caquixote" <janda13@cox.net>
wrote:
Clinton's affair with Monica called his character into question; Bush's true
colors emerged on 9/11
Yes: Strong, resolute, and assured. He became a great leader and few
people wished that Gore had won anymore.
--
"To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic
almost be to promote those terms to the level
of respectability. To describe this film as a piece
of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that
would never again rise above the excremental. To
describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing
would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister
exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an
exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of
abject political cowardice masking itself as a
demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
- Christopher Hitchens on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
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