Friday, April 1, 2005

Snapshots: The hollow man

Snapshot: January 2001

I vividly remember watching the 2001 presidential inaugural on C-SPAN. The country was dazed and divided by the non-election, and C-SPAN covered the event simply by placing a camera on the motorcade and letting it run. I was astonished to realize that the layer of Bush supporters at the barricades were far outnumbered and out-voiced by the protesters packed behind them.

Snapshot: April 2003

Two years ago this week, I saw this item on USAToday's web site, headlined "Strain of Iraq war showing on Bush, those who know him say:"

The public face of President Bush at war is composed and controlled. On TV and in newspaper photos, he is sturdy and assured, usually surrounded by military personnel. But those choreographed glimpses of Bush's commander-in-chief persona don't tell the whole story. Behind the scenes, aides and friends say, the president's role is more complicated and his style more emotional.

People who know Bush well say the strain of war is palpable. He rarely jokes with staffers these days and occasionally startles them with sarcastic putdowns. He's being hard on himself; he gave up sweets just before the war began. He's frustrated when armchair generals or members of his own team express doubts about U.S. military strategy. At the same time, some of his usual supporters are concerned by his insistence on sticking with the original war plan. [. . . ]

Friends say the conflict is consuming Bush's days and weighing heavily on him. "He's got that steely-eyed look, but he is burdened," says a friend who has spent time with the president since the war began. "You can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. I worry about him."

This piece was clearly meant to be a puff-piece and a valentine to our lonely-at-the-top commander-in-chief, but frankly it horrified me.

This is the guy who's running the world's only superpower/empire?

How did we get to a point where 'inability to imagine' becomes 'moral clarity,' and 'petulant and dimly aware he's in over his head' becomes ' heroically burdened'?

Snapshot: Fall 2004

Over at TruthOut, William Pitt recalled the 2004 GOP convention and Bush's second inauguration the following January:

All those fences. All those guns. All those cops. At first, it seemed like an arguably necessary precaution; these were, after all, the two cities to take the hit on 9/11. But the longer I stayed, the longer I looked around, and the closer I observed the behavior of Bush and his people, I came to a sad conclusion: This security was not about keeping us all safe from terrorists, but was about keeping Bush safe from his own people. The President of the United States is flatly terrified of the citizens he would supposedly lead to some supply-side promised land. He is scared to death of us.

Snapshot: April 2005

Three Coloradoans attempted to attend Bush's Social Security pep rally in Denver last week (with tickets they'd gotten from their Republican representative), and were forced to leave by men who might have been Secret Service, or might have been GOP operatives, or might have been Men in Black. The reason? Not their behavior, which was by all accounts unobjectionable, and not disruptive. It was the "No Blood for Oil" bumper sticker on their car--evidence of thoughtcrime.

"If they want to disrupt the event, then I think that obviously they're going to be asked to leave the event," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Obvious to Scott, is it? E. J. Dionne brings up something else that's obvious:

If President Bush is so insistent on the need for his political adversaries to talk to him about fixing Social Security, then why does he keep throwing them out of his campaign rallies - excuse me, "town meetings" - on the subject?

[ . . . ] Yes, all presidents try to present themselves in the best light, a fact acknowledged by Joe Lockhart and Doug Sosnik, top aides to former president Bill Clinton who also helped John Kerry in 2004. "We clearly used our allies to try to build crowds," Sosnik said of the Clinton approach. But the Clintonians did not exclude opponents, as a review of scores of news stories reporting hecklers at Clinton speeches confirmed. "I'd guess that at one out of every six events, people heckled," Lockhart said, "and Clinton came out ahead." Facing dissent head-on is part of the job description for the leader of a free people.

And so you wonder why a president who sells himself as a tough, confident bring-'em-on type of guy seems so anxious about facing average citizens who disagree with him. Why does he insist on being surrounded, always, by people who tell him that he's right and great and wonderful?

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