"The little man" -- article

[Matt Holcomb]

History will remember Bush as an incompetent and incurious man overwhelmed by a world too big for him.

By Garrison Keillor

Feb. 08, 2006 | The headline of the AP story was "Bush Urges Confidence in His Leadership" -- which is like "Author Says Memoir Is True" or "FEMA Offers Contingency Plan" -- and I didn't bother to read further. The Old Brush Cutter never got the knack of urging, and whenever he tries, he looks small and petulant, like a cartoon of himself. He photographs well in formal situations, and he is good at keeping a low profile when necessary, which is a key to survival in politics, as in boxing, but when it comes to the hortatory, he gets all hissy and squinty.

As a preacher, he is not in the top 50 percentile, and if his name were J. Ralph Cooter he would be hard put to find work in any of the persuasive professions. But there he is, giving the State of the Union, more or less in charge of the shop, or on a first-name basis with those who are, and so long as he refrains from perjury and tax increases and doesn't wear a dress to the Easter Egg Roll, he will probably slide along OK.

Of greater interest than the president's remarks to Congress was the report of the Office of Personnel Management showing that the federal government continues to grow under Republican rule. The executive branch now employs 1.85 million at an average salary of $63,125. In our nation's capital, the average is a handsome $80,425. Of course, the hiring of screeners at airports raised the total, but screeners' average salary is around $27,000 a year, which pulls down the average, which means there must be many happy folks in the higher ranges, assistant pooh-bahs and panjandrums and dukes of earl who are adept at taking a small acorn and weaving a seven-hour day around it, for which they enjoy job security, 13 paid holidays and 21 vacation days, and retirement at up to 80 percent of salary.

Not a bad gig, considering. There are mature gifted musicians scuffling for less than screeners earn, and farm families scraping along despite prayer and hard labor, and genius comedians scrapping for spare change. So a young Republican lady or gent could be tickled pink to land a job as assistant secretary for compliance assurance and get an 18-by-24 office with a window looking out on the Washington Monument and spend the day in meetings after which you will write memos of ingenious persiflage and obfuscation, like a cat smoothing the litter box.

Republicans believe in smaller government and deregulation, but it takes more and more of their friends and loved ones to not regulate us, and who can blame them? Washington is the perfect place for the slacker child who flubbed his way through college and flopped in business and whom friends and family kept having to prop up -- find him a government job. Government service is a broadening experience. It certainly has been for Mr. Bush. He has traveled to China and Europe and other places that never interested him before. He has come into contact with the poor people of New Orleans in a way that never would have occurred to him in his earlier years. He has met opera singers and jazz musicians and journalists. This is all good.

And he has met the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and visited with young people horribly wounded in the war, which would be a soul-searing experience for any commander. To see a beautiful young woman who must now live without an arm as a direct result of decisions you made -- who could see this and not scour the depths of your conscience?

And to suffer pangs of conscience even as you exhort the public to have confidence in you -- this has to be an interesting experience. Your mistakes are responsible for terrible suffering, but you stand among your victims and urge public support for your policies as a sign of support for the people those policies have injured. This is a plot worthy of Shakespeare.

So why does he still seem so small, our president? In his presidential library, he'll be portrayed as Abraham Lincoln after Chancellorsville and FDR after Corregidor, but to most of us, the crisis in Washington today stems from a man intellectually and temperamentally unequipped to rise to the challenge. Most of us sense that when, decades from now, the story of this administration comes out, it will be one of ordinary incompetence, of rigid and incurious people overwhelmed by events in a world they don't dare look around and see.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)

(c) 2006 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.

[MichiganMat]

Wow man, that was a friggin awesome read. GK never fails to put it all in perspective.

[rrpjr]

The state of American humor has certainly hit upon lean times. Trace the line of declension from Will Rogers to Garrison Keiller, from a true humorist to a pinched sophist of homespun malice spinning out the certain verdicts of a future "world." And what world is that, exactly? All we know for sure is that it is his world, which will in any case make its own history, or go down in denial trying, as it is doing now. Not even a chance, Garrison, that the painful decisions made now by those with a clearer and, yes, more generous, moral vision than yours might assure a world safe for other mediocre artists like yourself? No? Whither the "fascism," Garrison? -- look around to the real world rather than the one of your future fancy, to whose moral judgment you so arrogantly lay claim.

[Mulhollanddose]

Another leftist fool sucking off the government funded teet, speaking only to and for the elitist left wing snob...They are beginning to believe their own propaganda, the disconnect from reality is something for his psychiatrist to sort out (how much you wanna bet he sees one and has for years?).

[HardDrive]

Dunno mulhollanddose....that response just didn't have the zing of some your better work.

[Mulhollanddose]

I shoot from the hip mostly...it sorta works in my favor, like GW, in that I get misunderestimated.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
I shoot from the hip mostly...it sorta works in my favor, like GW, in that I get misunderestimated.

Well that is true, the parallels between you two are laughably accurate.

[WOODPIE]

Good little op-ed, Matt. Here's another I liked.


President has lost American's confidence

by Jay Bookman
Atlanta Journel-Constitution


President Bush has forfeited the faith of the American people, and judging from his language Tuesday night, he knows it.

In his 2006 State of the Union speech, the president felt it necessary to warn us against "economic retreat," against retreating "from our duties in the hope of easier life."

"Thre is no peace in retreat," the president said, "and there is no honor in retreat." He warned against "abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders," promising that "the United States will not retreat from the world."

"Never give in to the belief that America is in decline," he begged his fellow citizens, "or that our culture is doomed to unravel."

Retreat. Decline. Retreat......The White House had advertised the speech as optimistic, but its unconscious recurring theme, its underlying tone, proved to be anything but.

The president's language did, however, reflect the nation's mood. For months, almost two-thirds of Americans have been telling pollsters that the country was headed in the wrong direction. Almost two-thirds say the economy is fair or poor, despite the fact that by many standard measures it's doing pretty well. And while President Bush says we're winning in Iraq, 60 percent disapprove of how he has handled that critically important challenge.

Some might interpret those numbers to mean that the American people are losing faith in this country--that's clearly the president's fear, for example. But I think that's wrong. We have lost faith in our leadership, which is a very different thing.

That loss of faith applies not just to the president but to government in general: Approval ratings for Congress are even lower than those for Bush. And it stretches beyond government. Too many of our corporate executives seem trapped in the gone old days, unable to adapt to new challenges, with thousands of jobs disappearing as a consequence. Too many of the rest are enriching themselves by squeezing hundreds of millions out of their worker's hides, while government cuts taxes on their proceeds.

Across all realms, there's a sense that our leaders lack the courage, the moral strength and the intellectual independence to address fundamental problems. Again, Bush's speech offers the perfect example.

In another echo of President Carter's infamous "malaise speech" of 1979, Bush pledged Tuesday night to break our oil addiction, to "move beyond a petroleum-based ecomomy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

That's a worthy goal, but the president made no mention of taking such difficult steps as raising auto fuel-efficiency standards. He promised only the painless option of boosting spending on clean-energy research by 22 percent in the 2007 budget.

That "bold" new investment amounts to just 6.8 percent of Exxon-Mobil's profit for the fourth quarter, or what we spend in four days in Iraq.

No pain, no sacrifice, no hard work. Pick your topic; it's a story repeated over and over again.

In Iraq, the Bush administration didn't do the hard work of planning and preparing for an occupation and never committed the resources or manpower to make it work. The results are all too glaring.

After the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, we were promised a government ready to respond to the next disaster, but Hurricane Katrina proved that to be all talk as well. The administration just never took the job seriously, and it showed.

The same is true of the Medicare prescription drug plan. It's gonna cost us $500 billion we don't have, and even at that price it has been an administrative nightmare.

Go through the list--what project has this administration succeeded in pulling off, other than its own re-election and the creation of a right-wing Supreme Court? The answer is nothing.

In fact, they refuse even to acknowledge some of our most pressing problems. Man-made climate change is threatening to disrupt the environment on a planetary scale, and we do nothing. Last year our national savings dropped to the lowest level since the depths of the Great Depression, and we do nothing. We finance our greed and selfishness not by our own productive sweat and toil, but by borrowing another $2 billion every day from the rest of the world, money that our children and grandchildren will have to repay.

The American people do not like to retreat, and are by nature optimistic.

But optimism is a right purchased through hard work and sacrifice. We used to know that, but the memory's been lost.

[stuartj]

He, or more correctly, his cabal, as Mr Bush is appears almost completely an irrelevance, is not worthy of your great country.

If you think it looks bad from inside, you should see how it looks from the outside. I sincerely hope you put a Conservative in next time.

[Mulhollanddose]

Why does a warped liberal rendition of MLK's "I have a dream" speech come to mind?...GW will go down as one of America's greatest Presidents (unless the Democrats can undermine everything he has done, and then blame it on him, of course).

[stuartj]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
GW will go down as one of America's greatest Presidents

I am sure that in some quarters that will be true. Certainly radical Islam agrees.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by stuartj
I am sure that in some quarters that will be true. Certainly radical Islam agrees.

Given the fundamentalist Islamofascist rhetoric sounds like it was written by the best DNC speech-writers, I do not know how you come to that conclusion...If I am not mistaken Osama actually did an endorsement spot for John Kerry...Bush's loss is Osama and the Democrat party's gain.

[slakjaw]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
Why does a warped liberal rendition of MLK's "I have a dream" speech come to mind?...GW will go down as one of America's greatest Presidents (unless the Democrats can undermine everything he has done, and then blame it on him, of course).

He will go down being compared to Woodrow Wilson.

[lendaddy]

I think if you guys get working now and build a grassroots campaign you "might" be able to defeat bush in the next election. Only three more years.! Get on about it now....

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
GW will go down as one of America's greatest Presidents

The installation of a radical Islamic government in Iraq with close ties to and support from Iran is one of his greatest achievements. And to think it only cost us $420B, a few thousand lives and counting.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by lendaddy
I think if you guys get working now and build a grassroots campaign you "might" be able to defeat bush in the next election. Only three more years.! Get on about it now....

Can't do it Len. bush would just pull out the gay marriage card, jack up the alert to orange or red to scare a bunch of "first half of the bell curve" folks and he'd be in like Flynn.

[wludavid]

First, Matt - you're not a 'Merkin so you whatever you say about our government is totally worthless. Second, Garrison Keilor is an entertainer so he's even less qualified to talk about this country.

It's a good piece. rrpjr, just because GK is a humorist, it doesn't mean that everything he writes/says has to be funny. Good writers can get their points across with any number of tones.

"like a cat smoothing the litter box" is a particularly apt turn of phrase.

[widebody911]

Damn, I thought this was going to be about 'the little man in the boat'

[Rodeo]

I can't think of a single thing this administration has done right. It's astounding, really. It makes me shake my head in disbelief.

I intentionally read the "conservative" press, and I listen to Fox, just because I truly want to believe that there are some things the administration has accomplished. It’s too depressing otherwise.

But it’s all varying versions of Nul, some foaming at the mouth more, some less. After 5 years in complete control of Washington, 90% of what I see and read from the Bush supporters are attacks on "liberals," "traitors," and Bill Clinton.

Out of control spending, massive debt left to our children, a culture of corruption, secrecy in government not seen since the Nixon administration, a botched response to Katrina, failing grades on homeland preparedness, massive intelligence errors, attacks on science, warrantless wiretaps, eroding civil rights, and of course a tragic war that has created more radical Muslims than we could ever kill, a war that will result in a gift to radical Muslims everywhere -- control of Iraq.

A small man in a big office.

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by Rodeo
I can't think of a single thing this administration has done right. It's astounding, really. It makes me shake my head in disbelief.

I intentionally read the "conservative" press, and I listen to Fox, just because I truly want to believe that there are some things the administration has accomplished. It’s too depressing otherwise.

But it’s all varying versions of Nul, some foaming at the mouth more, some less. After 5 years in complete control of Washington, 90% of what I see and read from the Bush supporters are attacks on "liberals," "traitors," and Bill Clinton.

Out of control spending, massive debt left to our children, a culture of corruption, secrecy in government not seen since the Nixon administration, a botched response to Katrina, failing grades on homeland preparedness, massive intelligence errors, attacks on science, warrantless wiretaps, eroding civil rights, and of course a tragic war that has created more radical Muslims than we could ever kill, a war that will result in a gift to radical Muslims everywhere -- control of Iraq.

A small man in a big office.

So you don't like him then?