<<Go Back
Something to get mad about... *** THE UNFEELING PRESIDENT > >I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer >the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could >be. > > > >On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the >lives >of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. >Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war >of >survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear. > >But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for >it. > >You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs >he >can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in >shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and >waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand >why >he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written >for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young >Americans >who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But you study him, >you >look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not >feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He >does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men >and women who wanted be what they could be. They come to his desk not as >youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will >suffer >to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial >relationships >and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life.... they come to his >desk >as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to >photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq. > >How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets >nothing. > >He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, >unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan >for >the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He >does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war in Iraq >has >licensed it. > >So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought >this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not >the >mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those >costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of >the options but when it is the only option; you go not because you want >to >but because you have to. > >Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer >the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president >and >his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing -- to take >power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of >themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. > >You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent >becomes >inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, >he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and >children. > >He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families >of the dead, he does not feel for the thirty five million of us who live >in poverty, he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford >health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are >turning >black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work >overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for >how >many people in this country this President does not feel. But he will >dissemble feeling. > >He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent >of >the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and >that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and >that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the >coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- >half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them >by >raising them into the professional class. > >And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the >flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our >democracy is choking the life out of it. But there is one more terribly >sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and >around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that >spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended >national borders. > >Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever >seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time. >But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of >people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of >mankind. >It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was >morphing into a rogue nation. > >The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the >future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the >ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of >tribal >combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who >could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than preemptive >war. > >The president we get is the country we get. With each president the >nation >is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national >soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that >govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are >cast >in his image. > >The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic >trouble. > >Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. >He >becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we >sustain ourselves as the United States of America, given the stupid and >ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and >the >monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure >of >such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves. > > > >--E.L. Doctorow
