He Doesn't Make Us Better

I got to thinking last night after posting our question of the Week why does the president inspire such feelings? Actually my mother called and complained about the occasional use of the "F" word ("Why do you and those other two fine boys have to use that word when you are so clever?" my mother inquired). Sometimes there is no better way to express oneself, right? Right?

But still, I got thinking why does this guy inspire such antipathy? I know, the right felt this way about Clinton but they had right wing radio among other things (Scaife, Rutherford Institute, Ken Starr, etc, etc., etc.), all we've really got is the lousy news (yes reality), Air America Radio, and the blogosphere (which is not monolithic unlike major broadcast media which is at best neutral if not outright poitive for the administration). He inspires such antipathy becasue he is in the words of my grandfather, a classic ne'er-do-well. He is an opportunist in the worst sense of the word. He is pious. He is intellectually lazy. He is dishonest. He brings out the worst in people.

It is this last one that really rings with me. Reader Lyagushka pointed me to this article by Sister Helen Prejean. In the article she wrote about feelings inspired by the President about the execution of Karla Faye Tucker. Here is part of what she wrote:

Here was Karla Faye, a woman who had transformed her life and would have been a source of healing love to guards and prisoners for as long as she lived, yet the iron protocol of retributive justice demanded that she be put to death. It was as if Bush and Albert Gonzales and the pardons board had freeze-framed Karla Faye Tucker in the worst act of her life, then freeze-framed themselves into killing her. That's the way a machine works, relentless and preordained, with no room for the personal transcendence that conscience gives. It was all so mechanical, so unthinking, so political. That's why on the night of Karla Faye's killing, my anger at George W. Bush turned to outrage when Larry King aired Bush's press statement and I heard the way Bush invoked God to bless his denial of clemency. I already knew the substance of Bush's position toward Karla Faye, but I had never heard the last sentence of his press statement: "May God bless Karla Faye Tucker and may God bless her victims and their families."

Immediately after the statement, King turned to me for a response. When I heard Bush say, "God bless Karla Faye Tucker," I had to struggle to keep a vow I made to reverence every person, even those with whom I disagree most vehemently. Inside my soul I raged at Bush's hypocrisy, but the broadcast was live and global. With not much time to rein myself in, I took a quick breath, said a fierce prayer, looked into the camera, and said, "It's interesting to see that Governor Bush is now invoking God, asking God to bless Karla Faye Tucker, when he certainly didn't use the power in his own hands to bless her. He just had her killed."

As governor, Bush certainly did not stand apart in his routine refusal to deny clemency to death row petitioners, but what does set him apart is the sheer number of executions over which he has presided. Callous indifference to human suffering may also set Bush apart. He may be the only government official to mock a condemned person's plea for mercy, then lie about it afterward, claiming humane feelings he never felt. On the contrary, it seems that Bush is comfortable with using violent solutions to solve troublesome social and political realities.

She says it so well (and I think using the "F" word on Larry King might have made a real statement). That is how I feel but let me put it another way. Great leaders inspire those around them to be better. Sometimes by their actions leaders not only inspire, they just do make us better. Bush not only doesn't make us better as a nation, he has dragged us down into that little hole where he lives, where we are so much worse than we could be.

Sorry mom, sometimes that is why I am moved to vulgarity...it's all Bush's fault, one way or the other.