Bush’s speech marks the end of their legacy tour. It seems like there ought to be something profound to say, but the words elude me. I guess, from their perspective, they thought they were doing the right things. Their perception is that we were behind them for a while, and then we weren’t so much. For a time, they urged us to stay the course. Then, I suppose they thought that we just didn’t have the courage to see things through to the end, and that they were left to make the tough decisions by themselves. In the end, we let them down.
I doubt that either one of them will ever connect with the real questions. What kept us following them for so long? Why did we re-elect them in 2004? Why wasn’t Abu Ghraib or the Valerie Plame story enough to set off the alarms? Or the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction? For people on our side of the fence, it was so obvious, even though we’d been good sports and followed them for a while after 9/11. We were scared too.
Some of us dropped back with all of the Axis of Evil talk. For others, it was invading Iraq, a country that hadn’t provoked us and wasn’t part of 9/11. I think we bought that Abu Ghraib was some out of control bad apples for a while. But for most that stayed on board, it was the Conservative, anti-Liberal, or Religious Right forces that kept the support together. It took Katrina to wake us up, and then the N.S.A. domestic spying program. Even after that, things only slowly began to unravel as the wars drug on, and the torture came to light, the U.S. Attorneys got fired, and the Scooter Libby Trial filled the papers.
It never occurred to either of them that we abandoned them because they were simply the worst leaders we’ve ever followed. They don’t know that we didn’t want to change our form of government in the fundamental directions they were moving. They didn’t understand that it was lost on no one that they had ridden into office on the moral high ground, yet our government was a sea of corruption and scandal. They have no clue that they chased their support away all by themselves with their secrecy and their fabricated Talking Points.
So we’re left to pick up the pieces and to try to get over all the disillusionment and bitterness, and it seems like there ought to be something profound to say, but the words elude me.
My twin sister is visiting us . While we were watching tv last night she saw that there was a message on our tv screen that said tivo was going to change the channel to Keith Olbermann’s show Countdown. She was livid. She stormed out of the room saying how upset she was that we would watch someone who was so negative and disrespectful to President Bush. I wasn’t going to watch it but she said she was mad that we would even tape it to watch later. I tried to calm her down and she said that even though she didn’t vote for and I quote Barack Hussein Obama, he would still be her president etc., etc.. You get the picture by now I’m sure. My twin has no idea how I feel since Bush was selected by the Supreme Court 8 years ago. I have kept my mouth shut because I knew there was nothing I could say or or do that would change her mind. She and the rest of my family think just like her except my husband and sons and daughter in law. I’m grateful to blogs like yours that make me realize I’m not alone in how I feel and it gives me a chance to vent or I would probably look like a genie coming out of a bottle ready to explode.
I don’t understand that kind of hostility myself “…how upset she was that we would watch someone who was so negative and disrespectful to President Bush.” If Obama has been disrespectful to President Bush, I missed it. He’s been a real gentleman from where I sit. But there’s nothing to do but turn the other cheek [to borrow a phrase]. Arguing is a ticket to failure. Even pointing out that she’s being “disrespectful” to you usually goes nowhere. Venting helps. Turning out to be right helps. But the sting lingers…