Posted on 12/26/2008 6:46:21 AM PST by vietvet67
The Bush hatred we are seeing in the media today belongs in the long catalogue of human psychopathology -- not rational behavior. The latest version is the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq. Iraq happens to be a hot war zone, in which tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed by hidden bombs. Bush' protective detail had no way of knowing whether an assassinaton attempt was under way, in just the way Saddam tried to assassinate George H.W. Bush, Sr. At the end of his two terms of office, the President flew to Iraq, into harm's way, knowing the dangers, to hold an open press conference.
But our media harbor such bitter hatred for him that they turned a potential bomb-throwing incident --- by one of their own --- into a joke, just another reason to sneer at the President. If anybody threw a cream pie at Obama, screaming headlines would be launched for days afterward. Nothing but sneers followed the potential attack on George W. Bush, which he fended off with his usual grace and humor. I have never known a US president to be treated as disgracefully as this one. The political case against him is based almost entirely on media falsehoods, slanders, and greed for power. Not much rationality there.
Our public melodrama is therefore being driven, not by facts and reason, but by the most primitive emotions that prey on human minds. Human brains haven't changed much in the last thirty thousand years. Homo sapiens is a lot more prosperous species than ever, but prosperity just allows those ancient demons to come out more freely. If we were huddled by a small fire in a cave, hungry and miserable, we could not indulge our fantasies as much as the pop media now allow themselves to do. Prosperity permits our primitive urges to flourish on the public stage.
President George W. Bush is being crucified in the public square in spite of his plain decency and goodness, and in spite of his remarkable success in winning two difficult wars to protect this nation from harm. All wars are hard; all wars involve mistakes and self-correction. All wars, if they are to be won, come at a cost.
While it is natural enough for conservatives to be upset by the blatant unfairness of the propaganda media --- indeed, by their visible madness --- if we just take a little mental distance, we can easily see an ancient anthropological drama: The crucifixion of the reigning king, along with the messianic glorification of a new one, who will surely rescue us from our media-driven despair. (Of course the new king will also grow weaker in time, in spite of his charismatic magic ...) This is the stuff of Shakespeare and Sophocles. George W. Bush's "head is bloody but unbowed," to quote the poem Invictus, ("undefeated') the Victorian answer to political witchhunts.
The novelist Mary Renault described the whole ordeal in her classic story, The King Must Die. Renault based her tale on legends of royal sacrifice from the ancient Mediterranean world --- in Greece, Asia Minor, Crete, Italy, and elsewhere. Read it if you want to understand Bush hatred and Obama worship. Her source was Sir James Fraser's remarkable book, The Golden Bough. While anthropologists have backed off Fraser's claim that king sacrifice is universal, the respected scholar James D. Brown argues that the evidence favors "Oedipal rebellion" as a universal among native peoples studied over more than a century. We no longer hang our kings physically, but the Left and the media act just like the lynch mobs of old. Listen to their voices and you'll hear the ancient roar of the mob.
We can watch the tragicomedy of our psychopolitics unfold and still keep some perspective. Think of it as a stage play like King Lear, and pray that reason prevails in the end. The Leftist media are actors playing the ancient role of the politically envious, who exist in every tribal culture where the head of the clan sleeps uneasily, fearful of plots and assassination attempts. All politics is not just local, as the Washington saying goes, but deep down it is tribal.
What is hopeful today is what was hopeful at the American founding: the use of constitutional means to channel our loves and hates into a fairly reasonable course of common action. The majority of Americans are pretty sane and rational; they don't trust the political class, and they are deserting the Big Media in the tens of millions even now. The American Founders knew all about vulgar mobs, and lived to see them in the French Revolution of 1789, with Napoleon rising on top of the revolutionary chaos to explode into a mass war of conquest in Europe. The Founders despised all that. They designed the Constitution to steer a steady course in spite of mobs and demagogues. It has worked magnificently for two centuries, and with luck and courage, it will hold.
Alexander Hamilton famously said, "The people? The people is a great beast!" But that was not accurate: We are all "the people," as the Declaration of Independence tells us. "The people" are the source of all good and bad things. The people -- properly balanced by a constitutional apparatus -- have brought prosperity that was unimaginable two hundred years ago. The people harbor wisdom and common sense in a way that snobbish elites soon forget. Conservatism is skeptical about human nature, but not cynical or despairing. Nor do we look to messianic leaders like Barack Obama to solve our problems. We look to muddle through, to give individuals the space to grow and succeed, to stand against the mobs, to fail at times, and then to fight again.
Whenever conservatives see yet another mob movement from the Left, we feel it is our obligation to stand in opposition. It is not unpatriotic to criticize the messiah of the moment -- though the Left will say so. It is our duty. We can do so with reason, with humor, and with clear thinking about the bad ideas the Left seems to carry around like a scratchy case of the fleas.
President Bush is not a theoretical politician. He is a practical man. He has constantly made the best decisions by his lights, sometimes against his own ideals, because reality sometimes makes things like war necessary; sometimes it makes massive bailouts necessary. The conservative question is always, "What is the realistic alternative?"
The end product of conservative politics is a mix of realism and idealism. Bush has liberated some fifty million Muslims, including one Arab journalist who just hurled his trendy hush puppies at him in an ancient gesture of contempt. That man is alive today because of George W. Bush -- Saddam would have fed him screaming into a plastic shredder. Compared to Obama and the corruptocrats, Bush will soon look like an American hero. Just watch it happen.
RE : “President Bush is not a theoretical politician. He is a practical man. He has constantly made the best decisions by his lights, ...”
Are you kidding?? What did all the deals he cut with Pelosi against republicans buy him? How about the all the trillions he borrowed against our future for give-aways like UAW and medicare? 20 % approval? That’s all he got for his working against the party he was the leader of ? He was a republican disaster that borrowed political chips (as well as $$) to win 2002+2004 for massive losses 2006+2008. Obama/Pelosi is HIS legacy. He was leader of R party, their doom is his doom. That’s why they called GB election 1988 Reagan’s third election. He opened the socialism door for Obama leaving republicans few arguments next year.
Defend this Bushies:
“Bush springs drug dealers, leaves border agents to rot”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2153577/posts
Can you imagine GWB calling McCain in late September and telling him, “I got really bad news John??? Remember a few months ago when I told you “the fundamentals of the economy are strong’ as you repeated in that clip that Obama is using against you now? Well I am SO SORRY, I have to tell the people on national TV/cable address that we are on the brink of a great depression. I know this looks really bad for you John, but we can turn this around. You can take the credit for MY and Pelosi’s rescue package, if you do you will be a hero and win in a landslide. But if the bailout goes down, we all go down with the economy. Just Trust me one more time again John (until the UAW bailout) and we will be very careful how we use the money so it looks good for our party, Have I ever let you down?? OK i know but this time it will be different”
I’ll give this a shot but don’t expect mind changing.
I give him the benefit of the doubt on the issue of our God vs. Islam’s God.
Because he of all people is not craftily articulate. This is like a gut instinct with him and I think it’s based on his belief there is only one God, therefore if any worship God this is the God they are worshipping...there is no other.
Some support for this in Scripture, as well. The Apostle Paul preached a famous sermon on Mars Hill in Athens. The Athenians had statues and inscriptions to all sorts of mythological gods, by name, not to leave any of them out. Then they had an inscription “to an unknown god” just to cover THAT base. Paul stood up and said he was declaring the truth to them about that God, and proceeded to speak of the One God who created the Universe and who sent his Son Jesus Christ to save mankind from Sin.
Paul didn’t accord recognition to any of their gods, but what he did do was start with their belief in something beyond Mankind, in superior beings, and went from there to teach them.
Bush isn’t there as a secular President to teach Christianity, so he limits himself unlike the Apostle Paul who was an evangelist to the world for the Gospel of Christ.
But when asked a question about do we worship the same God as Islam, I believe he meant his statement for good, not for evil, and that he intended to show he doesn’t even consider that there are different Gods to worship. But he doesn’t know how to articulate that they worship God ignorantly and to their destruction, without insulting a large part of the world’s masses and stirring up even more terrorism, which he doesn’t want to do.
That’s my take.
I know that his statement is one of the reasons his base has rejected him.
I just think it’s one more thing he hasn’t well articulated and perhaps he didn’t even want to “go there” for the reasons I said, so his oversimplified answer has given more cause to his detractors.
So be it.
I don’t see it like the detractors see it.
two wars........
.
.
.
yep, exactly, i noticed that also. also they keep referring
to the “Iraq War”
Most of the conservatives I know, don’t hate GWB. They just don’t think he was a very good president and certainly was no conservative.
Sure, sometimes desperate measures must be taken, including but not limited to looting the taxpayers, introducing full-blown Socialism, and destroying the dollar.
Bush is a RINO failure.
I totally regret voting for him...and as long as the Republicans keep dishing up Democrat Lite Socialism, I will vote third party.
COMPASSIONATE 'CONSERVATISM' = SOCIALISM
Good riddance to rubbish.
Like most Americans, most conservatives don’t hate him. We agree.
I point out that some who post here do.
I don’t think you can be as vitriolic and disrespectful with your rhetoric as I have seen here, and then turn around as some do and deny the hatred with any credibility.
Again, we agree they are a minority of the American and conservative population.
He has done some great, conservative things.
War leadership, spreading of freedom, tax cuts spurring economic growth, appointments of Roberts and Alito, pro life policies to name some.
Others are problematic.
He didn’t run as a conservative.
He ran on “compassionate conservatism”.
All I can say is, with those watch words as platform, I feel we were fortunate to get as much conservatism as we got.
I will remind that Ronald Reagan was not universally supported by conservatives the longer he was President. The grumbling and dissatisfaction was loud and intense.
Today Reagan is held up as the conservative ICON.
And no, I’m not equating the two men or Presidents.
Just putting some historical perspective on things...
If that is this guys point I have stopped reading right there. Despising Bush for asking for, getting, distributing and refusing to account for $700B in bailout money is not rational? Despising Bush for assembling one of the most lackluster underachieving administrations in history is not rational? Despising Bush for searching far and wide, high and low for the most qualified supreme court candidate and choosing Hariett Miers is not rational? Despising Bush for almost losing the war in Iraq by playing politics over senior level assignments is not rational?
One of the first jobs of leadership is to pick the best folks to execute your policies. Bush fell flat on his face on that one.
From Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
No sale.
Every President has had trouble with people he picked.
In that sense all “fell flat on their faces”.
I give Bush credit for listening to Petraeus and letting go of Rumsfeld whom he greatly admired, when the chips were down and the war was hanging in the balance and the world at home and abroad was against him.
His war leadership against all the odds and opposition has been nothing short of astounding.
Perfect?
Ain’t no such animal.
I also stated that it was a conservative thing for him to do, in answer to someone who said he was no conservative (he ran on “compassionate conservatism”, not conservatism, and we’ve seen the difference in those two things). I said he’s done SOME great, conservative things and listed them.
Done them perfectly?
Again, NOBODY ever has.
Hello, self admitted Bush HATER.
And goodby.
The corruption of liberal insularity goes far beyond mere bigotry. It is the cauldron in which nearly every instance of brutality and racial apartheid has occured.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others each came out of self proclaimed liberal enlightenment. It is just because liberalism prides itself on its high moral ambition that it falls prey to the most vile evils imaginable.
Precisely because of the primacy of political liberalism there is no doubt whatever but that Obama will develop justifications for profoundly inhumane tyranny against the citizens he proposes to rule.
I hate W for the the illegal invader situation. He pushed me over to the hate side with the "See you at the signing!" crack. That tore it for me. All the W lovers who think he did such a great job on terrorism will be rudely awaken when the next attack comes and all the terrorist got here through the borders illegally. Talk about a blind spot. Now he wants to protect his legacy as the savior of millions while he sank the ship carrying the means of delivering that freedom. Males me ill just thinking about it.
Now I have a few thoughts myself having retired many moons ago and then wondered about the whole process. The President is still a comparatively young man, surely all right thinking people here will wish him well. Will he spend the time like President Nixon, who tried with some success to get back what was wrongfully stolen from him?
Will he be like a sort of wandering hound, still searching for the glory he once had, still out there coining it? (chuckle) No doubt he (Bubba) is like Henry the Eighth,dodging the sharp tongue of his last and dominant wife (he could not execute her).
Anyway, that said, my guess is that President Bush will fit in to retirement splendidly. One happy man to an extent,with what he knows re America's security from various swine.
Time will tell
” I am sure history long term will be much kinder to Bush “
As history already is regarding Ronald Reagan.
I’m with you one that. . .would have been MUCH better if we had Kerry or Gore (especially Gore) in charge and with a compliant democrat congress.
Much better.
Just me talking.
Funny thing, the left answers the charge of irrational Bush hatred with countercharges of our Clinton hatred.
I can’t speak for everyone, but most of the conservative folks with whom I’m acquainted never hated him. Despised his policies and behavior, sure, as did I. But that’s a far cry from the personal hatred oozing from the majority of leftists.
The trouble isn't "trouble with the people he picked." It is that the people he picked, across the board, are do-nothings. This cabinet has been a disaster, except Gates who isn't a Bush II / Cheney man anyway. The other do-something person has been Paulson, and let me know how you think that is working out. I live in DC and watch these guys up close and personal. They are a waste of oxygen.
“I just think it’s one more thing he hasn't’t well articulated and perhaps he didn't’t even want to “go there” for the reasons I said, so his oversimplified answer has given more cause to his detractors.
So be it.
I don’t see it like the detractors see it.”
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This thread is an interesting series of responses to an interesting article.
Too huge an overall proposition to address succinctly. Many Books will be written about this subject.
Media ... has the power; and they use it to their own benefit ... always.
‘Big’ money owns most of the medias, or are majority stockholders, thus being of huge influence as to the direction of the news. Certainly the medias has their own political agenda.
History is written by the winners of the battles ... thus the Democrats/liberals/Socialists/Communists that comprise the Democratic Party will all agree to uphold and glorify their version of the truth.
The real battle is often disguised well. It is the battle of GOOD AND EVIL.
It is ever present and behind the scenes; no matter who or what is happening on the stage.
The powers that want ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, the destruction of America and the rise of a new regime, must first bring America down. Our Constitution is in real trouble. Activist Judges are manipulating it, the Congress is ignoring it, while creating all sorts of laws and regulations that are unconstitutional, etc. The UN is against America. We give billions in foreign aid to the world and it is considered , ... NOT ENOUGH ...We are rich ... they need our money. ... We are borrowing it. We do not actually have the money we are giving away.
Many in the world desire to come here, yet when they come they want to bring the ways of the country they are fleeing
from to America;and change our government. Communism said, “we will conquer you from within” ... it appears so.
America is on a down hill slide. If allowed to continue we will experience great hardship.
Frankly we are in big trouble. Obama considers our Constitution to be in need of revising ...
My take on the Christian response to be one of not returning tit for tat, not playing by the same rules that the Democrats use. IT IS NOT THE CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR TO DO SO.
Rightly so, however, it puts us at a distinct disadvantage in this play of politics. They have no rules. all is fair. We have rules and mostly do not play ‘dirty pool’.
The on going drama of mankind. Always has been and will continue to be so.
America has the best foundation and has prospered under it ... yet we are rapidly destroying it; and the majority of conservatives/Christians/Republicans sit on the side lines and watch.. And of course grouse .. and act like armchair quarterbacks ... knowing all the mistakes, and how to win and doing nothing more than that. Sideline sitters.
We come here and learn much. It is a wonderful web site and many, many knowledgeable posters come here. Very educational.
Still it acts to defuse our energy; and it is after all mostly talk.
God help us.
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