Will Americans Be Fooled Again?

Hi Chris, thank you for the comments. And for not wanting to get into an argument. I do hope to keep my blog interesting to read instead of painful to witness!

But, now you’ve got me very curious about something. And if you don’t mind my asking, here’s what I’d like to hear about from you. What do you love about Bush as president of the US?

It’s ok, you can talk about it here, I won’t hold it against you, and I’ll respect you for your honesty. I’m one of those voters who isn’t conservative or liberal, I’m something that you don’t hear about too much any more, and that’s moderate and independent. And I have arrived at a definite opinion about the current American President.

I would love to know, from a persuasion standpoint, what persuades you that he is moral and decent? (I won’t argue that he can be charming. A friend of mine met him, was not inclined to like him, and came away smitten!) My definition of integrity is when words match deeds and habits match values. Help me to see this president through your eyes!

best wishes,
Rick

P.S. Meanwhile, I’m heading over to http://LovingJacqui.net right away, to leave a message for your gal!

Christoph,

Thank you for your willingness to share your thoughts about the current US President. I certainly respect your right to your views on this, and I do get the sense from what you’ve written that you’re an honorable guy. It’s clear to me that you have a deep seated sense of right and wrong. I admire that, and hopefully have some of that myself. I don’t actually know you, but I’ve read your blog, and I’m thinking you may very likely be the kind of guy I’d want watching my back in a crisis.

That said, I am fascinated by the fact that you and I have witnessed the same things at the same time and have such remarkably different impressions of what has taken place. For example, I have a very different understanding of the last 8 years and W’s place in history. I’m pretty aggravated about what I consider to be the worst Presidency I have lived through. (And I just turned 59, so I’ve been around the block a few times.) I have no need or even desire to change your mind.

I don’t want to start a spitting contest. You and I both know that there’s no end to that sort of thing once it gets started. What I am about to write is not intended to persuade you. My guess is, you’ve arrived at what may be the end of the road of thought on this, and have a very well formed opinion that is buttressed with useful facts and practiced arguments. And, because of the selective way all of us pay attention in life, I’ll give you that you could be right about all that you say and believe about him, and I could be wrong. As they say, history will decide.

If you decide that you want to have the last word, I respectfully ask that you use your own blog for that. I’ve mentioned in a previous comment on this post the URL for anyone who wants to hear more if your thoughts on W, if it turns out you have more to say. And you are welcome to provide a link here to any further comments extolling the virtues of W if you so desire.

But because this is my blog, I’m going to express my view on this subject of George W. Bush.
I feel an obligation now to say what I think, and I’m inspired specifically by you sharing what you think. I’m going to post this as a comment rather than a blog entry, per se, because really, it’s so off topic for my blog and consists of comments rather than helpful tips or insights on persuasion. So, with all that as context, I ask you and all my other blog visitors to pardon me while I vent a little bit. Then I promise to get back to the subject of persuasion.

Ok here goes. Historically speaking, W fits the mold of the American Presidency pretty well. I think he’s got a lot of natural charisma, a goofy charm, and for a rich kid, an almost populist feel to him. And there’s no denying that he’s been the source of a lot of excellent humor for me and my family (We prefer to laugh instead of cry.) I think it’s great that he takes care of his body, though I think he may neglect his mind and his heart…that’s just my opinion. The fact is, I don’t respect him as a leader, and I certainly don’t hate him as a person.

So what’s my problem with W? Why am I so eager for his term in office to end? Here’s my disconnect with what you say about the virtues and values of George W. Bush.

First and foremost, I’m deeply concerned about the impact decisions made by W’s administration over the last 8 years will have on my daughter’s future. My parents worked hard to leave my generation a world better off than the one they were born into. Their parents did the same. But I look at the world my daughter will build her life in, and I feel that my generation has failed her. And much of that failure happened on the watch of, and because of the decisions and leadership of, this president.

Second, I have devoted most of my adult life to trying to make a positive difference in the world, because I believe that is the right thing for me to do, because I enjoy a good challenge, and because it fulfills my sense of purpose. Much of the progress I thought humanity was making now appears to be undone. A lot of people say that’s because of what happened on September 11, 2001.

Please understand. I don’t blame W for the events of 9-11, which I recognize as being a significant turning point in human history. 9-11 was a shock to the world system, and for me it was a real game changer. It led to a fundamental shift in my own life and work (the Insider’s Guide books and audio came out of this, for example). But I do not believe that the events of 9-11 serve as an adequate excuse or explanation for much of what has followed.

I am no fan of mixed messages. I think that integrity is where words match deeds and habits match values. It seems to me that the policies of this administration are in direct conflict with this President’s (sometimes mangled) words. Like you, I care about right and wrong, substance vs. style.

So, just as you believe you left out much for which W deserves credit, I don’t have the space or time to lay out all the details of the damage for which I believe he deserves credit. I’ll start at at the very beginning, the campaign W ran against John McCain in 2000. It was, in my opinion, shockingly immoral. It was a take-no-prisoners, win-at-any-cost campaign. With Karl Rove (a fan of Machievelli) pulling the strings, they mastered the art of saying one thing while doing the other. I’m not going into the whole problem with ballots in Ohio and Florida, and the Supreme Court decision, or any of that. I’m saying that the way they ran the campaign itself gave us all a taste of things to come.

Ok, W gets into office. He ran initially on the theme of being a uniter, not a divider. Yet from where I sit, his administration seemed to do more to intentionally promote and accelerate rancor and division, and increase the partisan divide, than any administration that preceded it.

Meanwhile, there were some amazing missed opportunities. Instead of sending us all shopping following 9-11, he could have used that event to marshall our country’s will to break our addiction to middle east oil, (the money from which finances terrorism), and instead focused on the weakening of environmental protections and the extraction of natural resources at an unprecedented rate. He could have used the good will of the whole world that poured into us following that awful day, and focused it towards a sustainable future. Instead, he empowered the looting of our national treasure for the benefit of his friends and contributors, and to the loss of those of everyone else.

He says he is pro-life, yet he took us to war on false pretense and is responsible for the death of many more Americans than the hijackers of 9-11. And that is dwarfed by the damage to thousands of families more in this country by the costs of nation building and occupation in Iraq. Because of this unnecessary war, many unborn children will never know their fathers. Many homes will suffer and struggle with the loss of limbs and PTSD. To me, where his words say pro-life, his deeds says pro-death.

As a result of his leadership, we left Afghanistan (and the sacrifice of our soldiers there…something that somehow has been demoted to a lesser good than the sacrifice of our soldiers in Iraq) before completing the job we went in there to accomplish, which was tracking down and capturing the man behind the attacks. He then deceived the American people by repeating the lie that somehow Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots, and did it with such tenacity that to this day, many Americans still believe the lie. He shifted the rationale for the War in Iraq several times, until finding one that stuck in the psyche of his fans (more on this shortly.) And by shifting our troops and focus of attention to Iraq, a country that had NOTHING to do with 9-11 (other than, I’m sure, what had to be Saddam’s sheer glee at our loss,) by toppling a government with no plan to secure the country afterwards, by hiding our losses from our citizens and encouraging war profiteering and cronyism of the worst sort, he has squandered our military strength, our treasure, and our reputation in the world. And all the while, bigger issues were afoot that were virtually ignored. Iraq held Iran at bay. No longer. Iran has funded and emboldened Hizbollah and Hamas. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda came back while we were occupied with the occupation in Iraq, and started rebuilding their base and their strength for their next attempt to assault humanity.

I think it’s great that W showed up to feed the troops. I can admire that with you. But your assessment that he bucked the military high command, I think, is way too generous. The disaster that was his war policy finally broke through his stubborn resistance, until at last even he had to admit to how bad things were. In my view, he had no alternative other than changing policy and putting others in charge if he had any hope of snatching some semblance of victory from the jaws of defeat. To this day, his administration continues to use the tactic of the surge to make the false claim that they are ‘winning’ in Iraq, when our Generals on the ground refuse to characterize the current result as a victory of any sort, and attribute the quieting of violence, along with other factors having little to do with our military presence, to the same thing that happens when you have more cops on the street in a lousy neighborhood.

I do not doubt that the war in Iraq has been good for some. And I’m glad for any good that comes of it. But who benefitted from it most? Our country isn’t stronger for it. There’s no movement afoot in the muddle east towards more freedom and democracy because of it. It seems to me that most the good that has come of it has come to a very few, not to the man. In fact, had I been an investor in Haliburton, or an employee of a number of companies who won those no-bid contracts in Iraq, I would have done quite well for myself. I don’t doubt that there are those whose lives have been made dramatically better by the spending of hard earned American taxpayer money on this incredibly brutal adventure. Maybe I’d feel different if I’d been one of the Iraquis we put in charge over there, like the head of the Red Crescent, appointed by us and now caught in the same kind of corruption scandal that has become the norm here at home.

You say W sent his forces to kill lots of bad guys. They are OUR forces, and they were the wrong bad guys. He paid for it with OUR money, and against the will of at least half of our voting population. And he had to keep changing the rationale for it until he finally found one that seemed credible enough to stick. Spreading freedom in the middle east… which is both a massive deception if you know anything about the region, and a useful fiction to justify bad decision making.

As to his visits to wounded soldiers, good for him. He should visit them. Often. Considering what he asks of our men and women in uniform, considering the costs of his leadership, he ought to spend as much time as possible in the presence of these good people. In my opinion, the honor is theirs, not his. His treatment of returning veterans, from a policy standpoint, is abysmal, and this is according to the veterans themselves. Oh, and don’t forget the VA hospital scandal. I could go on and on. I just am unable to look at a clearly symbolic act and see it as having more weight in my thinking than everything else combined.

But the charge you made about the Illinois senator with ‘close unrepentant domestic terrorist connections’…Help me understand this charge. Because as far as I can tell, Obama has spoken out against the terror acts of Ayers, and disclaimed the association. And, as he says it, he was 8 years old when these things occurred, the guy lived in his neighborhood and that’s the association. It doesn’t match up to the level of ‘close’ or ‘unrepentant.” What do you know that I don’t? (How well do you know your neighbors? How thoroughly have you looked into the background of the people who have befriended you or had you at a party?)

You say W stands by his people. Well, I admire loyalty, but I prefer honesty. And honesty vs loyalty is a classic ethical dilemma. But when the people to whom you are loyal are incompetent and there are lives at stake, or corrupt and the well being of the country is at stake, or engaged in immoral, unconstitutional and dishonest behavior, I think the solution to the dilemma is to favor honesty over loyalty. Instead of ‘The buck stops here,’ with this administration, the buck never stops.

You say he lowered taxes to put money back into the economy. But basic economic theory says that you can’t spend money you do not have without going deep into debt. And his administration has been on a tear when it comes to expanding the invasion of government into the lives of citizens, increasing the size and scope of the bureaucracy in violation of everything the Grand Ole’ Party has stood for …well, forever;

Lastly, as to his constitutional responsibility, he has circumvented the constitution multiple times, and in many ways done more damage to America’s reputation in the world with his ‘with us or against us’ attitude. Gonzales and the attorneys come to mind. The hastily adopted Patriot Act. The secrecy. Suspending of habeas corpus. Voting irregularities that have become legion. Domestic spying. And the dismantling of the Posse comitatus Act.

You talk about wading in to get someone out of a Chilean jail as being evidence of his can-do spirit. Where was that spirit when the planes were flying into buildings? You’re dismissive of the polls and the idea of popularity (popular will), yet the foundational idea of our system of government is ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’ When the will of the people is considered of less importance than the will of an individual, in this system, I consider that to be a character defect in the individual who circumvents the will of the people.
Like you, I could go on. Suffice it to say that this national nightmare can’t end soon enough for me. We live in a crazy world. I know its possible to defend, explain, excuse and justify anything, including the worst behavior. But I swear, if we don’t have our principles to stand on in this country, what are we left with? A system in shambles. And on W’s watch. No matter how they try to point the finger at anyone and everyone else, that’s the fact of it.

Good luck to whomever gets into office next. They’ll have the toughest act to follow, and not in a good way. And to be brutally honest, I yearn for the days when the world was mostly at peace, the economy was strong, science was considered the key to human progress, and the worst thing we had to worry about in our President was his personal moral failings.

End of rant. That felt good to get that off my chest. Thank you Christoph for giving me the opportunity to bring all that into focus. We now return to our regularly scheduled program (3 blog posts a week!)

best wishes and good luck to you and to all of us.
Rick

OMG! LOL!

Thanks Christoph, for both respecting my wishes and for sharing this profound and provocative insight! I just spent 17 seconds thinking about it, and WOW, the resulting ACTION (posting this comment) is astonishing in its power! Isn’t it?

best wishes,
Rick