Monday, December 19, 2005
IN DEFENSE OF BUSH AND BLONDES
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Breakfast with Bwana
DECEMBER 20, 2005
IN DEFENSE OF BUSH AND BLONDES:
No, I have not lost my mind. But, never fear, I am working on it.
Recently, I have received two not-so-dumb-blonde jokes. I guess it must be something in the American sense of caring for the underdog that we seem to find compassion for the dog that we’ve been kicking. Of course, it’s more fun to watch the Top Dog take a tumble. I mean, didn’t you enjoy Bubble-Boy Manning being sent off the field with a loss while the coach looked like he was back in Peyton Place … or wanted to crawl under a dung heap? And won’t you eventually enjoy watching the Miami team of 1972 that knifed through a passel of weakened and injured teams finally lose bragging rights? But really, who cares?
Getting back to the blonde “jokes,” they cast the blonde protagonist as the super-intelligent one-upsmanship-capable winner. If anyone wants to experience these thrills of agony and defeats of victory, send me an email and I’ll shoot you a copy.
So, I come to the defense of Bush. First, a disclaimer is in order. I really do think he is, so far, the worst President in our history. And, no, I’m not coming to his defense because I think he is monitoring my emails or my telephone conversations. My principal reasons for labeling him the worst President in our history have to do with his handling of taxes and the deficit, and for fostering a culture of religious exclusivity and hate while pretending to be tolerant. Of course, the war in Iraq and particularly the way in which it was “sold” leave me cold. But you know my feelings about that. Incidentally, I will mention that Tom Friedman of The New York Times wrote a couple of weeks ago, as I had several months ago, the same thought, that this guy has the chance to go down as our worst President ever. I mean, if it’s printed in The Times, it must be true, no?
On the other hand, if it turns out that he is not only right on the magnitude of the al quaeda threat, but also right on the outcome in Iraq, he may well go down as one of the greats. Before you scoff, think of Ronald Reagan and what his squashing of the Soviet Union meant for this country.
What prompts all this is my feeling that on 9-11, we realized that something new was afoot. If a plan as complex as we saw could be engineered to commandeer civilian jets and wreak the kind of havoc we had not previously known, what was next? It was not just the physical damage but the profound blow to our national psyche lulled into the sense that we were protected by the oceans, our defense infrastructure, yea, by our essential goodness.
On that day, it was important to realize that something new and different lay as a possibility, even a likelihood, before us. If the same kind of people who commandeered the jets could harness biological or nuclear weapons modalities, we had better wake up.
I think that President Bush gets this. In the last election, I was never clear that everyone else got that he got it.
So, I am not troubled by the latest “revelations” by The New York Times that we have had clandestine eavesdropping of international communications between what are described as people with known contacts to al qaeda and the people with whom they talk outside this country.
Yes, I am troubled by the potential for abuse and await an explanation as to why they did not go to court to get approval. On the other hand, the Constitution simply says that there shall not be an “unreasonable” search or seizure. It does NOT say that the President or whoever is conducting a reasonable search, has to go to Congress or the courts.
It seems to me not a great leap to say that if we know that al qaeda is out to get us and they have contacts in the US with whom they communicate, it would be pretty stupid not to listen in.
The danger is always there that such means and powers can be abused. However, I don’t think that there is any chance that Mr. Bush will refuse to surrender the Presidency in January 2009 when his term is over. Neither do I perceive that in the year during which The New York Times sat on this particular story before finally going public with it, there has been any erosion of our liberties.
If the Iraqi elections lead to a stable government that evolves into a sensible tolerant democracy, we might find an ally and the President’s dream scenario will have materialized. He will then be a hero.
But, that does not excuse that as he has all but admitted, the reasons for going into Iraq proved to be wrong.
For the time being, in this context, he is like the proverbial dumb blonde … not as dumb as he looks and quite a bit foxy.
I also want to mention that on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked in a sneak attack. It was 60 years plus until the next sneak attack. It would have been intolerable for this nation to conduct its affairs as a “closed” society for those 60 years. No matter how dumb or how foxy, we need to strike a proper balance between threat and risk.
Cheerz…Bwana
_______________________________________________________________________________
Breakfast with Bwana
DECEMBER 20, 2005
IN DEFENSE OF BUSH AND BLONDES:
No, I have not lost my mind. But, never fear, I am working on it.
Recently, I have received two not-so-dumb-blonde jokes. I guess it must be something in the American sense of caring for the underdog that we seem to find compassion for the dog that we’ve been kicking. Of course, it’s more fun to watch the Top Dog take a tumble. I mean, didn’t you enjoy Bubble-Boy Manning being sent off the field with a loss while the coach looked like he was back in Peyton Place … or wanted to crawl under a dung heap? And won’t you eventually enjoy watching the Miami team of 1972 that knifed through a passel of weakened and injured teams finally lose bragging rights? But really, who cares?
Getting back to the blonde “jokes,” they cast the blonde protagonist as the super-intelligent one-upsmanship-capable winner. If anyone wants to experience these thrills of agony and defeats of victory, send me an email and I’ll shoot you a copy.
So, I come to the defense of Bush. First, a disclaimer is in order. I really do think he is, so far, the worst President in our history. And, no, I’m not coming to his defense because I think he is monitoring my emails or my telephone conversations. My principal reasons for labeling him the worst President in our history have to do with his handling of taxes and the deficit, and for fostering a culture of religious exclusivity and hate while pretending to be tolerant. Of course, the war in Iraq and particularly the way in which it was “sold” leave me cold. But you know my feelings about that. Incidentally, I will mention that Tom Friedman of The New York Times wrote a couple of weeks ago, as I had several months ago, the same thought, that this guy has the chance to go down as our worst President ever. I mean, if it’s printed in The Times, it must be true, no?
On the other hand, if it turns out that he is not only right on the magnitude of the al quaeda threat, but also right on the outcome in Iraq, he may well go down as one of the greats. Before you scoff, think of Ronald Reagan and what his squashing of the Soviet Union meant for this country.
What prompts all this is my feeling that on 9-11, we realized that something new was afoot. If a plan as complex as we saw could be engineered to commandeer civilian jets and wreak the kind of havoc we had not previously known, what was next? It was not just the physical damage but the profound blow to our national psyche lulled into the sense that we were protected by the oceans, our defense infrastructure, yea, by our essential goodness.
On that day, it was important to realize that something new and different lay as a possibility, even a likelihood, before us. If the same kind of people who commandeered the jets could harness biological or nuclear weapons modalities, we had better wake up.
I think that President Bush gets this. In the last election, I was never clear that everyone else got that he got it.
So, I am not troubled by the latest “revelations” by The New York Times that we have had clandestine eavesdropping of international communications between what are described as people with known contacts to al qaeda and the people with whom they talk outside this country.
Yes, I am troubled by the potential for abuse and await an explanation as to why they did not go to court to get approval. On the other hand, the Constitution simply says that there shall not be an “unreasonable” search or seizure. It does NOT say that the President or whoever is conducting a reasonable search, has to go to Congress or the courts.
It seems to me not a great leap to say that if we know that al qaeda is out to get us and they have contacts in the US with whom they communicate, it would be pretty stupid not to listen in.
The danger is always there that such means and powers can be abused. However, I don’t think that there is any chance that Mr. Bush will refuse to surrender the Presidency in January 2009 when his term is over. Neither do I perceive that in the year during which The New York Times sat on this particular story before finally going public with it, there has been any erosion of our liberties.
If the Iraqi elections lead to a stable government that evolves into a sensible tolerant democracy, we might find an ally and the President’s dream scenario will have materialized. He will then be a hero.
But, that does not excuse that as he has all but admitted, the reasons for going into Iraq proved to be wrong.
For the time being, in this context, he is like the proverbial dumb blonde … not as dumb as he looks and quite a bit foxy.
I also want to mention that on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked in a sneak attack. It was 60 years plus until the next sneak attack. It would have been intolerable for this nation to conduct its affairs as a “closed” society for those 60 years. No matter how dumb or how foxy, we need to strike a proper balance between threat and risk.
Cheerz…Bwana
_______________________________________________________________________________
