Innauguration Day

I've been trying to figure out what to say today. I've been thinking about it for a long time, maybe a month. I've come up completely empty.

I considered making a list of the reasons President Bush has been terrible for this country. I could have done self-referential research because I wrote something a long time ago about impeaching the President based not on his conduct of the war but on his abuse of the Constitution. But I never got around to tracking it down. It seemed, in a way, small to whack W on the way out the door.

I also considered trying to write something about what he did right, because there are a few significant things in that column, too. (I absolutely don't give him credit for The Surge, a change in military strategy that was a couple of years overdue when he finally got around to it and that, if all goes well, may salvage something of the war while not exactly making the war worthwhile.) He did the AIDS in Africa thing and...and...well, there must be something else.

I considered taking the day off and hanging an American flag here, bright and shiny again after years of being used to bludgeon internal enemies for political gain. But that seemed too easy, or glib, or something.

I listened yesterday to a conservative friend bitch about the media's coverage of the coming of Obama. He said they never covered Republicans like this. So I considered writing a rebuttal to that, except I couldn't because it's true -- with the understanding that we've never had a President this unpopular leave office on schedule before. The sigh of relief you're hearing is universal, not partisan. I don't think even President Bush's defenders wish he'd stick around for another term, or even for another few days. The time has come.

What remains to be said about President Bush, it seems, is this: he was a man who should never have been President, a creation of an era of American politics where substance mattered not at all. He was a symptom of bitterness and resentment on both ends of the political spectrum that made what had previously been the sustaining virtues of our country -- moderation, accommodation and tolerance -- into political liabilities. He saw the world in black and white during a period when almost everyone saw the world in black and white. He was dishonest during a time when we were dishonest with ourselves. He was the culmination of a politics of resentment that started with Nixon, or maybe even before that with the race hustlers of the Civil Rights denouement. He was the point where the anger of the 1960s came amorally together with the advent of the 24-hour television news cycle and a society so self-indulgent it would rather send its children to die in a war than give up it's heated car seats.

Nature needs its disasters. There are trees that shed seed pods that only crack open in a forest fire, swamps that only regenerate in drought. President Bush, I think, may be just the disaster this country needs. His failures -- which are our failures, really -- are teaching us the very lessons we need to learn. They're lessons, mostly, about limits. A generation raised on American supremacy has learned the consequences of hubris. Political parties prone to the belief that government can enforce an alternate reality have learned -- or are learning -- that government is a weak sister when confronting the glacial power of cultural shifts. And we, the people, are hopefully learning that ignorance and indifference will not protect us or our Constitution.

President Bush has been, without question, a terrible President. Perhaps paradoxically, he may also have been just what we needed.

Comments

[pursuit]

Interesting. While I disagree with your views on Bush - right policies, poor leadership in my view - I find this post to be a revealing indictment of your views.

You title it inauguration day, and yet all you can seem to do is criticize Bush. This, predictably, speaks to the utter emptiness of the man you supported for President. No qualifications, no experience, and dubious home state associations. Hopefully, he'll surprise us with a terrific rookie year, but make no mistake, this is a leap of faith.

So on such an occasion, can you not speak of the future? I'm sure you don't intend the shallowness of your post to expose your lack of faith in O'Bama. I'm currently listening to Lester Holt list O'Bama's qualifications as, he connects with youth, listens to an IPod and uses a Blackberry. Not exactly the top qualifications that I'd look for, but at least he avoids bashing Bush.

I look forward to future posts of at least a Lester Holt quality. I know you can do it. Know hope baby!