In the story of The Emperor with No Clothes, it was a child, in the end, who was the only one who spoke up. The Emperor in all his “glory” paraded down the street wearing nothing but the self-delusion of his grandeur, and still not one soul had the courage to call the man for what he was – less than an empty suit.
And as the citizenry watched in horrified silence as their emperor strutted his detachment from reality down the street, it was a child who, in her young innocence of political correctness and the social pecking order had the common sense to ask, “Why isn’t the Emperor wearing any clothes?”
At which time all hell broke loose.
Bush said recently his greatest legacy was that of Liberator. The freak honestly believes he personally liberated 50 million or so peasants from the throes of tyranny.
This is complete nonsense. Instead of liberation, the citizens of other sovereign nations he ‘freed’ were indiscriminately rounded-up, imprisoned, tortured, raped and murdered.
Only those who volunteered for duty as puppet-on-a-string were given a pass to the green zone.
George Bush, far from the conquering hero and altruistic dispenser of freedom is instead a global pariah. You’ll recall a few weeks ago after the emergency economic summit in Washington; he couldn’t get so much as a formal, diplomatic handshake from any of the world ‘leaders’ attending. In diplomatic circles one concedes to shake hands with the devil. Why, I believe Rumsfeld French kissed Saddam at some point. Bush goes on romantic dates with extremist Saudi princes. I recall Arafat getting a ‘way-to-go’ butt pat from one Israeli leader or another. Even pariahs are embraced diplomatically, if at arms length, which is what a handshake is. But our own President with delusions of grandeur and illusions of hero-worship dancing in his head? Not even a low-five.
Feh!
George Bush walking virtually any street in the world unattended would be stoned to death. Or at the least, hounded. There is no more hated or vile creature in the world today than our own American President. And deservedly so.
The man, if one can call a bullying coward a man, is responsible for untold, uncounted and incalculable crimes against humanity. He started illegal wars of aggression. He tore up the Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution and the rule of law. He sanctified inhuman torture of suspects; the vast majority completely innocent of any crime but the color of their skin. He brought America into the Orwellian world of new-speak, double-think, thought-crime and the Totalitarian mantra – “you’re with us or you’re against us.” He switched out the Brotherhood for Al Qaeda and Goldstein for bin Laden. He preached dissent as dishonor and criticism of the dictator’s fiat as un-American. He fueled the frenzy of fake patriotism amidst the lie of spreading fake liberty.
Bush not only drank the Kool Aid of hysteric fascism, he was the Kool Aid.
But to hear him tell it; he protected us from evil, he took the fight to evil, he liberated the enslaved of evil and he has got evil on the run in fear of its life.
And the rest? Economic crisis, political corruption crisis, environmental crisis, natural disaster crisis, Constitutional crisis and the crisis of confidence and national self-respect?
Feh!
Is it any wonder someone threw a shoe at the son-of-a-bitch? Did the President go into the room expecting a hero’s welcome? No infrastructure, no clean water, no electricity, rampant disease from malnutrition and hygienic catastrophe. Birth defects from the above, not to mention depleted uranium and whatever else used by the American military to free the Iraqi people.
Is there any truer way to describe George Bush than as an Emperor with No Clothes? He has no ideas, no solutions, except a trickle down theology which is as far removed from reality than earth from the center of the galaxy. He talks like a cowboy and acts like a bully. He’s patronizing like a patrician plantation owner. He’s always right; never wrong. Never anything to apologize for, except an utterance here and there. Has no remorse. No feelings of guilt. He views the death and destruction he has wrought as a pasture of liberation. Bush truly did make a wasteland and call it peace. Bush truly does believe he is doing the will of God and has a nice juicy throne waiting for him at God’s right hand, after he dies in his sleep at a hundred and five and is escorted through the gates by a heavenly choir.
He’s a smiter not a decider. He’s a dysfunctional quick-shooter with a daddy complex.
And finally, after eight years of hiding in bunkers, behind soldiers, under the cover of “war”, protected by literal armies of guards and laws to restrict assembly and dissent and social misbehavior, it took a proverbial child to throw a shoe and break the glass of invincibility.
Bush ducked. The shoe is the expression of desire for accountability. And Bush ducked accountability.
He laughed it off, which is his way, if he’s not in too petulant a mood. His mood swings. His brow crunches. His smirk twists into piles of pout. His words swagger, but his power, other than his office, is gone.
Bush doesn’t charge into battle slaying the dragon and liberating the poor village folk. He ducks and runs for cover and waits until it is safe to come out. Until he is told it is safe by a member of the forces sworn to protect him. He says, “Go! Kill!” as he runs for cover and hides. He’s the hider, not the decider.
He wasn’t even allowed at his own political party’s convention. No one wants to be seen with him. His political capital, gained from stolen elections, is now worth less than GM, AIG and Citi combined. There are rumors of falling off wagons, interspersed with bike and pretzel accidents. When he goes off script he goes off the reservation and his language is nearly impossible to decipher beyond his memorized jingoist platitudes and his fantastical statements of fact and his declarations of messianic greatness.
George Bush is the quintessential Emperor with No Clothes. And for years, the media ignored it, because almost everyone had drunk from the chalice of fake patriotism. The people couldn’t be bothered because they were too busy making ends meet in a world which races to the bottom of wages and workers rights. And the Congress was silent because Bush was more valuable as a political punching bag than as failed president who needed Constitutional correction, and if correction was ignored, then removed from office.
Laughing things off instead of facing the facts is the modus operandi of The New American Century. Making excuses and casting blame is the MO of the clueless who didn’t know what hit them on 911 and continue to this day to flounder and flail and swing wildly at the invisible and ignore the enemy within, the beam in their own eye which blinds them to the truth of their own sins. Neo-conservatives and neo-liberals have conspired to take reverse-Robin Hood, trickle-down economics to the Omega Point. They have betrayed and bastardized markets. They went on a binge of rageful, violent imperialism. They ignored the aspirations, needs and welfare of the people. No one hates another for his freedom, but only wants freedom himself.
In the room with Bush the other day was a hero who had the courage to throw a shoe at the biggest criminal against humanity in generations.
Americans are ready to move on and wake from the nightmare. Except it wasn’t a nightmare. It really happened. Bush took the tragedy of 911 and projected it onto the world. Everywhere he went he created another ground zero. He took righteous indignation and morphed it into blind vengeance.
He should not be forgotten or swept under the rug or laughed away.
He is an example of what happens in a Democracy lost.
Maybe the next time we won’t be so lucky.
We cannot afford to repeat the past of George W. Bush. Therefore we mustn’t ignore it.
We don’t want vengeance. We don’t want political vendetta. We don’t want frog-marches, show trials or public executions.
We want the truth shown the light of day. A little sunshine.
Is that asking too much?
