penpusher: (DemReps)
It was a big political ball o' wax these past 7 days, what with President Obama giving his final State of the Union address, The Republicans having their... 84th? Debate and the Democrats gathering to hash and hashtag it out with their own debate.

I want to make a brief note of pride that the first "social media" vlogger that asked a question of the Democrats was [livejournal.com profile] chescaleigh, who was a guest on my [livejournal.com profile] talk_show blog way, way, way back in the day. Since then, she has exploded on YouTube, does a web series for MTV called "Decoded" and has been making appearances on everything from Anderson Cooper to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. In some ways I feel like I discovered her, but she would have (and really did happen) without me!

But, let's start with the Dems... )
penpusher: (Obama Smile by <lj user=adoraheatherly>)


"Mission Accomplished."


This is dedicated to my pal [livejournal.com profile] paladin3, who had posted two quotables. The first one was that if he could have voted for GWB a third term, he would have, and just yesterday, he suggested in his twitter summary "Let's all change our icons to GWB on Tuesday."

Well, I never had a GWB icon, and getting one on Tuesday probably isn't going to happen. But in lieu of that I present this, a fond farewell to the person who did so much to get us so far.

It will be years before we can really fully assess what this administration has done for/to the world. The early returns have come in, and the numbers aren't pretty. But, let's not be too hasty. Maybe the angst of 2008 is tinging the view of what REALLY happened.

People are already talking about the visionary GWB was for setting up a democracy in the Middle East, and how that may change everything about the region, somewhere down the road. It's possible, but is it likely?

Really, here's the issue about the presidency in general, and GWB's version of it specifically, and I'll try to go through with a bare minimum of bashing, since I have basically been doing that these past 8 years.

Being the President of the United States offers an opportunity to do many things. GWB just didn't do them. He appointed his pals to be cabinet members, and various other crucial posts, then watched as they all managed to not do their jobs, especially when the work needed to get done. This, more than anything changed what could have been. Had Bush assigned people who were able to do the jobs they were brought on to handle, maybe it all could have gone better.

Frankly, I still marvel at how invisible a Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was. This, during a war! And the FEMA and the Homeland Security and the Iraqi tipsters about the WMDs, and on and on. Any competent people brought in might have altered things. But perhaps this relates back to the man himself. If you bring in competent people, it'll make you look incompetent by comparison. Maybe, he was just protecting his fragile ego by giving a pat on the head to his old drinking buddies.

He gave his farewell address the other day. I watched it. And nope, he couldn't get through that without flubbing his lines, either. I almost felt sorry for him, but then I thought about the country as a whole.

In pop culture, Will Ferrell is doing a Broadway show titled You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush which will open tomorrow. I almost wish he debuted the piece right after the election and was ending the run tomorrow, that way we're not stuck with this until March.

Also, CNN did a small photo album of 15 defining moments in the GWB presidency. One of the pictures was the one above, but others included the 2001 inaugural, sitting in a classroom being told the United States was under attack, Standing on "The Pile" of what was the World Trade Center, holding a bullhorn, Rumsfeld's resignation, staring out of a window of Air Force One, looking down on what was left of New Orleans after Katrina, and the final image, ducking a shoe.

To be kind, the best, brightest moment that George W. Bush had wasn't any of these. And it didn't occur in Washington DC, or New Orleans, or Miami, or Iraq. It happened right in New York City at a place they used to play baseball called Yankee Stadium. Mr. Bush threw out the first pitch at Game 3 of the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

He marched onto the field, got right on the mound and threw a perfect strike to Jorge Posada. It was a glorious moment and the crowd went wild. That was the zenith, the apex, the pinnacle of the George W. Bush presidency. That one moment. America had been attacked. We were still assessing the damage. GWB walks out there and delivered a fantastic moment. And really, that's what a president can do best. Inspire, focus, calm, demonstrate. Besides that moment, and his speech on "The Pile," I can't think of any other times when he was able to connect with people in that way at all during these eight years.

It is a little pathetic that, at least for me, tossing the first pitch at a baseball game is going to be my fondest memory of him (and perhaps worse, it's not going to be my most vivid or enduring memory of him). For our country, I sincerely wish he had more moments like that night at Yankee Stadium. But he just didn't have it in him. That wasn't who this guy was.

Part of it was in not really knowing what you can do with the presidency. And that's always a crucial thing. Because it's always a lot easier to do something if you know what to do. You would have thought that GWB would have had a slightly better handle on all of this, since he had a father who did the job! A father who also warned America about getting involved in Iraq. I think this likely reflects on the Bush family dynamic.

But another part of the presidency is in making full use of those opportunities and making things happen, and that's where most of the country has languished all this while. GWB wasn't a "make things happen" kinda guy. He was more of a "let things happen" kinda guy, with a couple of notable exceptions, like in the Middle East. When someone had an agenda for him, he would run with that. But that hardly ever happened.

I think you'll start noticing the difference right away.

So there it is. We laughed. We cried. We watched in disbelief. We shook our heads and watched in further disbelief. We slapped our foreheads with our palms in more disbelief and then held our heads. But that's ending now.

Oh, and goodbye GWB. You pull the door to open it, on your way out.
penpusher: (Flag)
Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] nemesisbecoming and [livejournal.com profile] serendipity for the inspiration for this post.

I have to say I'm still a little angry with Michael Moore. His film Fahrenheit 9/11 had some very valid points to make about what The President did and did not do, the decisions he did and did not make, his personality and how that changes what he is willing to hear and how he will react, and the underlying points of what we were doing before and are continuing to do now, in Iraq.

The problem was Moore ladeled on a lot of extra sauce that had little to do with the actual issues in order to make a film that was more glib, or incendiary, or comedic or tragic. Ultimately, he is a filmmaker who is out to get people to come to the theaters. But when you package something as a "documentary," you don't let the opponents attack something unrelated to defend their position.

By presenting the story of Fahrenheit 9/11 in the way Moore did, he effectively allowed the people who support Bush's decisions the opportunity to criticize Moore himself, the film, the concepts, the format, everything but the facts, which Moore admittedly played fast and loose with at the time.

And yet... and yet now people are starting to get the idea. The idea that a lot of us had at the very beginning... or really BEFORE the beginning. Before we even set foot in Baghdad, some of us knew this wasn't accomplishing anything.

There are people who constantly say, "we eliminated an evil dictator, and the Middle East is much better for it." Well, ok. That *might* be true. And I say might because the jury is still out on whether the Middle East truly is "better" for it. Really, the more accurate statement is that ridding Iraq of Hussein is better for the West's version of what they want the Middle East to be.

A revolution is a very personal thing. Imagine, if you will, the Mid to late 18th Century. The tyrannical George III was mishandling the colonies, taxing them for everything and treating them worthlessly. What would have happened if say France or Spain came in and said, Hey, we've got an idea for you! You need to overthrow this dictator and become a democracy. We're going to move in, help you fight and install a new form of government.

Oh, and by the way, we'll be staying here for an indefinite period of time, and we will be using our industries to rebuild your place, because there's going to be a lot of bombing and street fighting. And we may have to kill some of your citizens and civilians, your women, your children. Hey! It's collateral damage! And, we kinda, sorta, expect to get a very VERY nice reward at the end of all this. Do you happen to have any natural resources lying around? If so, just pump them into our tanks and everything will be fine. Now, shut up, stay in your homes and do everything we say, because we're going to set you free.

Of course that didn't happen, then. Not only that, but I dare say we would have fought those that might have attempted to try it!

Sound familiar?

It should, because it is happening now. We have a president that does not listen. We have a president that ignores the problem, who focuses, instead, on the easy things he can do, to make himself feel "presidential." If there is no easy way to do it, like that far-out concept of trying to track down Osama bin Laden, forget about it! Sure that was the plan that he, himself said we would do in the days following 9/11/01. But we were just, you know, theorizing back then.

Even the Republicans are starting to murmur about exit strategies and what the next step in the "plan" will be.

But even though Michael Moore did distort things a bit with his movie, the apparent reality of the situation is the film is still at least that much closer to the truth than the Bush rhetoric. And if you didn't like or support the film, and you're understanding the points that Moore was making, it can't be a good feeling.

But yes! The President is on a 5 week vacation. A FIVE WEEK VACATION? I wonder if Lincoln or FDR or even fellow Texan LBJ ever took more than a month off during a war to just recharge the batteries, have a laugh with their cronies and enjoy the fact that anytime is fun time.

How do people think this is ok, with our sons and daughters dying there? Even the GOP has to think this is a bad PR move, right? With the president not even acknowledging the loss of life, honoring the families of the soliders he sent by having an audience with them. Not sending his own children to this "noble cause" but perfectly willing to make yours go. It's a farce.

I wish Michael Moore hadn't been so "entertaining" with his subject matter. But as more and more of our young die, more and more families are starting to side with the people who thought this never should have happened in the first place. Already it's too late for some who have lost their loved ones to this travesty. How much more will we lose before it's all over?

Maybe we should let the troops have a five week vacation. After all, they're the ones who really need it.

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