Cf: the neverending national pastime among some people of blaming George W. Bush for everything from the War in Iraq to fallen arches, I found this post on Peeve Farm, which is usually worth visiting....and the comments contained this quote from Parliament of Whores, by P. J. O'Rourke, which is even more basic and to the point:
"We treat the president of the United States with awe. We impute to him remarkable powers. We divine things by his smallest gestures. We believe he has the capacity to destroy the very earth, and - by vigorous perusal of sound economic policy - to make the land fruitful and all our endeavors prosperous. We beseech him for aid and comfort in our every distress and believe him capable of granting any boon or favor.
The type is recognizable to even a casual student of mythology. The president is not an ordinary politician trying to conduct the affairs of state as best he can. He is a divine priest-king. And we Americans worship our state avatar devoutly. That is, we do until he shows any sign of weakness, and disability, as it were. Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, said: "Primitive peoples... believe that their safety and even that of the world is bound up with the life of one of these god-men... Naturally, therefore, they take the utmost care of his life... But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the man-god from growing old and feeble... There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed." Thus in our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character."
This is the real point, which means all the Bush-bashing is, and always has been, hot air and irrelevant. Even absent belief in this, he's made his last State of the Union. He's a lame duck. None of it matters any more, even if some believe he's Beelzebub, and Cheney is Mephistopheles, or whatever. Just drop it.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
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