It is a given that the president of the United States requires physical and psychological protection. It is a job that entails great personal danger from enemies of the United States and from the mentally deranged within. Sadly, that need for protection can often translate into something that hurts as much as it protects the incumbent.
Franklin Roosevelt recognized this deficiency in the office and sent personal emissaries to determine what was really going on the country and the world. Eleanor was impelled by her own impulses to see the country and to feel the pulse of the unfortunate. She dug deeply and brought back to her husband as close to the truth as could be uncovered. And she made sure that he understood it.
Harry Hopkins, the most clear thinking loyalist in FDR’s inner circle, was dispatched to London, Moscow and wherever else trouble was brewing to bring back an independent analysis, however uncomfortable, on the condition of the United States in the larger world to Roosevelt.
Gerry Ford, that accidental resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, would not be dissuaded by courtiers and party loyalists from pardoning his predecessor. Any chance he had of winning the presidency by election was lost by that act. Yet a generation later, most would agree that his brave prescient act was the beginning of the healing process demanded by the excesses of Watergate.
The elder Bush, a decent man, stumbled badly when he was shocked by the technological advance of a simple barcode reader in a supermarket that all of the rest of his countrymen knew to be both ubiquitous and prosaic. This tiny faux pas demonstrated to the common man that the president was out of touch with their lives. A president more in touch with the voters was installed in the Executive Mansion.
Today on TV, I learned that Lance Armstrong, the great bicycle racing champion, would be visiting with Bush the younger at his ranch in Crawford, Texas and would go bike riding with him. The show’s anchor, half in jest, wondered aloud if Armstrong knew the protocol of the presidency and that he would be expected to stay a decent interval behind Mr. Bush. This is a president aware of his perquisites but not of how they are viewed by the people.
So it is that the president refused to meet with Cindy Sheehan. He said that it was his responsibility to maintain his lifestyle of normalcy in the Western White House. His inability to rise to the occasion of a visit with a grieving mother has caused him grievous damage. This man who does not like bad news indeed who seeks to have it screened from him is completely out of touch with the people and the nation.
This man says that we must stay the course in Iraq because failure to do so would break faith with those who have died. Break what faith? Those who perished were sent to that God forsaken land to overthrow a government that had weapons of mass destruction and that was consorting with al Qaeda, the sworn enemy of the United States. Those who died were sent on a mission that in retrospect makes no sense. Both reasons were in error – at best. Now our government has redefined the mission as one to bring democracy to the Iraqi people, a people who it is alleged would welcome our troops as liberators.
Democracy is the farthest thing from the minds of those negotiating a constitution in Iraq. It is power, territory and oil revenue that keeps them at the table.
Our troops are not defending the memory of those who died. They are in harms way to avoid bringing the truth to a man who does not want to see it. If we must stay, it is for naked reasons of defending our interests in Iraq - assuring that the oil continues to flow. The madness of the neocons in furthering an imperial dream that gets dimmer by the moment means that future casualties will happen to maintain a strategic presence in a country and region that abhors our presence.
This is George Bush’s war. He sent the troops into battle for reasons that do not hold up in the rear view mirror. We must get out. Sadly, we just can’t do it immediately. All of the deaths past and future began with a false premise. “Freedom” – baloney! We’re stuck and it’s this administration’s fault.
The boy in the bubble can’t even see what he has wrought.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
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