Happy 2009

I’m back.

It’s been almost three months since my last post. I was rendered temporarily speechless by the combined effects of Barack Obama’s victory, the end of the Bush presidency, and the financial meltdown. So, I took some time to process things…to sort through the psychological and emotional baggage I’ve been lugging around for the last eight years…to figure out what comes next. Let me see if I can summarize some of my conclusions…

I believe that medical textbooks will, in the not-too-distant future, describe a condition called Bush Administration-induced Severe Torpor with Agitation and Rage Disease (B.A.S.T.A.R.D.). I suffer from this crippling syndrome. I’ve spent these last eight years hating George W. Bush with a passion that I’m not proud of. I’ve been unable to reconcile the America I grew up reading about with the reality of his presidency. That cognitive dissonance has, for reasons I cannot fully comprehend or justify, been a debilitating force in my life. I have not lived up to my own potential, in part because I’ve been distracted, in a clinically obsessive way, by the systematic dismantling of my country – and, if I may wax grandiose, my species – by this man. Perhaps I should say this directly to him…

Dear President Bush,

Your biggest flaw – the character trait that mutated a harmless, bumbling idiot into a walking weapon of mass destruction – is your devastatingly simplistic view of the world. This, combined with your epic incuriousness, is what has kept me awake nights for the last eight years.

What has disturbed me the most – more than the wars, the floods, the torture, the economy – is the way you attempted to pit American against American by suggesting a biblical divide between those who were with you and those who were against you. You created, not in seven days, but in seven years, Sarah Palin’s conception of a “real America.” You turned blind nationalism and ignorance into virtues and then encouraged the virtuous to hold the rest of us in contempt.

My thoughts and feelings about my homeland are more complicated than the ones you have postulated as minimum requirements of true patriots over these last eight years. Fortunately, I don’t really give two of Laura’s nasty, graying cunt hairs what you think of my thoughts and feelings about my homeland. My frustrations, my skepticism, my disagreements with your policies, my utter loathing of you and your cohorts, my shame over the actions of my country—these all derive from a deep and abiding concern for this place called the United States of America. If that doesn't jive with your definition of Patriotism, if that isn't good enough for you, then you can go fuck yourself with a jagged piece of shrapnel pulled from a dead soldier’s chest.

The litany of your crimes and blunders—the ones we already know about—needs no repetition here. You are the most unpopular president in modern American history. The world despises you. The decline of America as the world’s great superpower may well have been set in motion on your watch. Osama bid Laden’s got nothing on you, Mr. President. Congratulations.

You don’t really deserve all of this bombast. You’re not bright enough or competent enough to accomplish all of the horrible things that you have, nevertheless, accomplished. No…you are a puppet, wrapped inside a symbol. You are the essence of anti-intellectualism—the spirit of poor, dumb Americans all across this great land. Thus, you were the perfect tool for the malevolent forces whose grand schemes required a harmless-looking front man. You charmed America with your impotent promise of “Compassionate Conservatism,” your frightening and specious devotion to Jesus Christ, and your remarkable likeness to any number of guys we’ve all met in a bar somewhere.

Still, it is your presidency that has led us here, and so it is you that I will now bid adieu. As much as I’ve enjoyed having you as a punching bag, I would gladly trade every rhetorical thrill ride I’ve ever taken at your expense for a world in which you did not exist. You represent the worst of my country – indeed, the worst of humanity.

I have one kind thing to say, Mr. President: Thank you for being such a magnificent disgrace, such a cataclysmic failure, that bold, sweeping change was the only option. You were such a horrific disaster, such an unmitigated calamity, that America elected not just a Democrat, but a black man to fill your position! One day, historians may look back and decide that you were, in fact, the “uniter” you promised to be, At the very least, you’ve permanently unified us against the dangerous, failed ideas of neo-conservatism. In the short-term, you’ve handed all three branches of the government over to Democrats. For these blessings, I thank you.

I hope that one day, perhaps as we watch live coverage of your funeral, I can tell my son that the man in the coffin is the guy who almost broke the United States of America – and that the grand spectacle of your state funeral is merely testament to our fundamental honor and decency as a nation…not to yours.

Sincerely,

CP

And now it is time to move on. The end of George W. Bush’s presidency will not usher in an era of enlightened thinking in America—and so there will remain much to be pissed about. For the moment, however, I am hopeful and content. Relatively speaking. The last three months have put a few cracks in my armor of cynicism. I feel more connected to my fellow citizens. I am proud of us.

Comments

[tomitron]

glad you are back and thanks for a great post---corresponds with much i have felt about the son-of-a-bitch and the last century or so of his presidency--- and working in the fed. govt. the way i do, i've had an extra dimension to be pissed about---but even with a miserable economy, the wars, and everything else, i feel more hopeful now than i have in years----and i don't mind not being aggravated and pissed off all the time----