I was
born in the Bronx on the seventh of March 1951, a
time when American troops were fighting the Korean
War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were on trial for
treason in New York City, and Truman was President.
Being a mere toddler at the time, I do not remember
Truman during his presidency. My first memories of a
President are of Eisenhower putting golf balls on the
White House lawn. It was with Eisenhower's presidency
that I first marked time, the way ancient Romans
marked time by the name of the Consuls then in
office. Eisenhower was just another father off
someplace doing work so that I could enjoy the
illusion of security during my childhood.
I can name every President since Eisenhower, each
representing an era in my nation's cultural history
and serving as a convenient demarcation for my own
personal history. In all, there have been eleven
Presidents thus far in my life. You don't need me to
play the part of Suetonius. In this age we start
separate libraries to hold the papers of each
individual President.
Although I was just a child, the charismatic JFK
earned my childish love. He brought a feeling of
glory and excitement to the age, launching the space
age, trying to end racism. I don't think I have ever
felt more proud of my country's accomplishments than
during his presidency. Since that time I have
listened to tapes of his press conferences. That man
was brilliant and insightful.
I was eating lunch in my junior high school cafeteria
when a kid from the adjoining elementary school
shouted into the vast room that Kennedy had been
shot. The air stilled as if everyone was holding
their breath, and then we all burst out laughing in
disbelief. But as I entered my next class, the
teacher was absent. Someone had seen him heading to
the office in tears. Then the announcement was
formalized over the tinny public-address system and
soon we were all sent home.
I reached maturity during LBJ's administration, which
is to say I lost my naïveté about politicians. I
grew up believing they were something more than
ordinary folk, more inclined to be moral and
self-sacrificing and honest. Years of indoctrination
at public schools had taught me that my country would
fight only righteous wars. I began the LBJ years
supporting our actions in Vietnam, sharing my
parents' beliefs. By the end of the era, when LBJ
declined to run for reelection, tired, defeated, I
had adopted my older sister's views, and was against
the war.
The Nixon years were perverse. As I remember the era,
President Nixon was under constant siege. I was glad
to be a witness to history, and I was glad to see
Nixon brought down. It was during his term of office
that I reached voting age.
President Ford? I actually liked the man. I felt him
to be honest and sincere, the opposite of Nixon, but
he was powerless.
I voted for President Carter. He was a very good man,
but in time I came to think he deserved a better
staff, one that had more respect for the opposition.
I voted against Ronald Reagan. He will always remain
an enigma for me. To this day there are people who
recall him fondly and with great admiration. I
regarded him as merely a puppet for an oligarchy of
the rich.
I voted against George Bush, yet I never quite
disliked him. At least he was intelligent. I felt
Bush was a decent man, yet I suspect this was the
influence of his First Lady. I would have sooner had
her for President. I've heard it said that Eleanor
Roosevelt rendered similar service to this Country by
modifying her husband's point of view.
I voted for Clinton. I did not like him, but regarded
him as the lesser of two evils. In time I came to
sincerely admire Clinton as a great President. When
he spoke, he was able to explain the situation
clearly and the intent of his proposal to remedy a
given problem. He was articulate, if regrettably
long-winded. I was unable to grasp the vitriolic
disdain of the opposition to him and his wife. I knew
fellow liberals who disliked him because he didn't do
enough, when in fact I thought he demonstrated a
sensible ability to compromise while pushing policy
ever further to liberal causes. I thought it right of
him to adopt Republican ideas when he thought they
were good. As to his sexual peccadilloes, I remain
baffled as to why it was anyone's business. I never
felt my President lied except when it came to the
question that should have never in all decency been
asked, and to which a gentleman is taught to lie
rather than expose a woman to insult.
I am writing this essay in the era of President
George W. Bush. I dread the man.
When he comes on the television to make a speech, Ms
Keogh and I find his inarticulateness so utterly
embarrassing, we are obliged to turn the program off.
He cloaks himself in jingoisms and meaningless
catchphrases. Perhaps language ability is not a
measure of a person's intelligence, but it is near
impossible to overcome my prejudice. While other
Presidents are best remembered by oratorical
highlights, what will be remembered of this
President? A vast collection of malapropisms and
clumsy utterances. It is possible to buy tee-shirts
with your choice of Bushism printed across the chest.
So popular is the President's apparent ignorance that
it might be that some Bushisms are being invented for
him. He is alleged to have said, "The problem
with the French is that they don't have a word for
entrepreneur." The source for this remark was
Shirley Vivien Teresa Brittain Williams, also known
as the Baroness Williams of Crosby, who claimed her
source was Tony Blair. The Prime Minister denies
having heard the President make such a remark or of
passing it on to Shirley Williams. We need to
establish a clearinghouse that can review Bushisms
and determine if they are genuine, but is it possible
to discern counterfeit? They are easy to believe.
I am afraid of my President. I no longer feel safe.
He attempts to bully the world and assert American
influence where it is unwelcomed. He doesn't attempt
this by guile or subtle maneuvering, but with the
brute force of the sole remaining superpower.
I suspect my President and his administration of
certain beliefs incompatible with the keystone of
this society's government, the separation of church
and state.
It worries me to think that for my President,
"good" is not something that can be derived
at by reason, but emanates exclusively from the
postulates of a fringe and fanatical Christian sect.
If President Bush meets with no obstacles, I think we
would have laws restricting sex, family
relationships, marriage, and schooling according to
the prescripts of one interpretation of a single
book. It worries me to believe the President, who has
little grasp of science and a poor respect for
education, might not believe in Evolution, yet is
prepared to believe in magic, that at conception the
zygote is divinely enhanced, this being a matter of
faith and not measurement. I do not want President
Bush to impose his morality on me. I do not believe
in his God.
It is my genuine fear that President Bush is prepared
to accept the mythology of the Apocalypse as taught
by certain Christian sects, that the devastation done
to the world and humanity is unavoidable prophecy. It
might be for this reason he doesn't concern himself
with the devastation of the natural environment and
is quite prepared to drill in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. He makes policy as if nature is
there solely for us to exploit, and maybe he expects
it to conveniently run out just before the end of the
world. It alarms me most that there is less and less
time, that we cannot sit out this President and hope
the next one will be better. It might be too late for
the world.
I am living under a President whose intelligence I
cannot respect, a President who is placing obstacles
to the advance of science, most importantly medical
science. His ethics are based on unsupportable
superstitions. He pollutes with impunity. He provokes
other countries with his self-righteousness. I
believe that he believes that God will intervene for
him when the time comes. That such a man could affect
my fate causes me intolerable stress. However, it
would seem that he has popular support. I am made to
feel alienated in my homeland, which is how I suppose
many Republicans felt when Clinton was President. I
am scared that the most technologically advanced
nation in the world, which was once a forward
thinking nation, has come to be ruled by medieval
minds. |