Reason.com is doing a feature on Man of the Year. Here’s my 2 cents:
George W. Bush is Man of the Year for vindicating cynics everywhere. Bush’s trumpeting of his illegal wiretaps and his championing of torture should quash mindless idealism about democracy. Bush capped off the year by impaling the Bill of Rights on the Military Commissions Act.
Unfortunately, few people are giving credit to Bush for teaching Americans that most of what they learned in school about democracy is balderdash.
Jim,
In the spirit of the Season, you are too kind! Surely this man must be the biggest fool in American history. Any man who would walk away from his father’s bailout at the hands of Baker and Co. and the next week suggest an increase in troop numbers must pay homage to some bust of Nero in a broom closet of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Reason.com must be looking for ‘hits’ or making a perverse, cynical statement before closing shop at the end of the year.
Very best regards for a happy Christmas and a New Year!
The most telling effect of the ownership of the Congress by Likudist and Christian Zionist interests has been a steady descent into war abroad and dictatorship at home. In present hands, neither the United States nor Israel has any sincere interest in peace in the Middle East and there is no political vehicle extant to mediate real change. The only hope it seems to me is the emergence of a truly energetic third party, one built around something more engaging than the civility and centrist vapidity it is so frequently decribed as consisting. Our problem is not that our political parties don’t get along, its that they get along all too well. Sad to say, it is more than probable that the United States of America known as I have known it for the last sixty-six years is a thing of the past.
All of that notwithstanding, Merry Christmas, Jim!
John Lowell
I really think that Bush does deserve the Man of the Year award, however perverse that seems. Bush is the first president post-Reagan to actually revive talk of abandoning the two party system, limiting government, and even enticing people to vote Libertarian. I believe that his epitaph was written by Mr. Bovard and Mr. Buchanan, as well, with their books “The Bush Betrayal” and “Where the Right Went Wrong” It really only takes incompetent, or non-idealistic leadership for a few years to get people really hankering for someone who believes in their principles. George Bush really deserves this award for playing Sunday Morning to the Saturday Night of the last 15 years of politics. He proves the old dictum that everybody serves a purpose, even if it is only to be a bad example.
( I should also add that Bush has shown that you don’t win elections by running on conservative or libertarian principles. In democracies politicians win by running on center left, i.e. Socialist or Fascist, policies. It’s just paternal enough to encourage dependence, but not constricting enough to give the appearance of overt slavery.)
Wes – sometimes a great fool can be a great benefit.
However, I am not sanguine about enough Americans drawing the right lessons from Bush’s farces.
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BAM!
I’d pay real (fiat) money to have that writ large on billboards from coast to coast.
Consider it stolen (with attribution, of course) for broadcast at appropriate times.
The clipped quote intended:
“In democracies politicians win by running on center left, i.e. Socialist or Fascist, policies. It’s just paternal enough to encourage dependence, but not constricting enough to give the appearance of overt slavery.”
Brian – Thanks for putting this blog to good use!