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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Saturday, June 19, 2004 What the F--k??? Sorry, Mom. My reaction to the news has hit an all-time low. From Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post, a whole new take on the presidency:And now from a second angle: The staff of the 9/11 Commission this week released a report that summarizes Bush's closed-door testimony about his thoughts as he sat there. "The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis . . . The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." This moment will surely be used by the president's political opponents, and with equal fervor defended by his supporters. However it is interpreted, it points out a basic truth about any president: He's both an executive and a symbolic figure. He's the spiritual leader of the nation as well as the head of state. He's monarch and prime minister. [emphasis mine]Spiritual leader? Monarch? Prime minister? Did we just shift into some parallel universe without anyone noticing? Our first GW, George Washington (yes, the one who turned down a chance at monarchy), must be spinning in his grave. Of course, if Bush were just a "prime minister," we might be able to get rid of him a little more quickly than having to wait until November. Bill Kristol would already have demanded that he call for a new election. Perhaps Achenbach meant to use "spiritual leader" in a metaphoric sense, as in "national spirit." God help us all if he truly thinks George Bush has any credentials as a religious leader. Let's see: he lied about Iraq's involvement with Al-Quaeda, lied about weapons of mass destruction, lied about uniting the country, lied about the effects on the nation of tax relief for the mega-rich, lied about providing help for the nation's most needy schools, and most recently, lied about his involvement with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now his campaign is lying left and right about John Kerry. If George Walker Bush is truly our nation's "spiritual leader," then we're in a lot more trouble than we thought. posted by Liz @ 9:07 PM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. 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Sorry, Mom. My reaction to the news has hit an all-time low. From Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post, a whole new take on the presidency:And now from a second angle: The staff of the 9/11 Commission this week released a report that summarizes Bush's closed-door testimony about his thoughts as he sat there. "The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis . . . The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." This moment will surely be used by the president's political opponents, and with equal fervor defended by his supporters. However it is interpreted, it points out a basic truth about any president: He's both an executive and a symbolic figure. He's the spiritual leader of the nation as well as the head of state. He's monarch and prime minister. [emphasis mine]Spiritual leader? Monarch? Prime minister? Did we just shift into some parallel universe without anyone noticing? Our first GW, George Washington (yes, the one who turned down a chance at monarchy), must be spinning in his grave. Of course, if Bush were just a "prime minister," we might be able to get rid of him a little more quickly than having to wait until November. Bill Kristol would already have demanded that he call for a new election. Perhaps Achenbach meant to use "spiritual leader" in a metaphoric sense, as in "national spirit." God help us all if he truly thinks George Bush has any credentials as a religious leader. Let's see: he lied about Iraq's involvement with Al-Quaeda, lied about weapons of mass destruction, lied about uniting the country, lied about the effects on the nation of tax relief for the mega-rich, lied about providing help for the nation's most needy schools, and most recently, lied about his involvement with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now his campaign is lying left and right about John Kerry. If George Walker Bush is truly our nation's "spiritual leader," then we're in a lot more trouble than we thought.
And now from a second angle: The staff of the 9/11 Commission this week released a report that summarizes Bush's closed-door testimony about his thoughts as he sat there. "The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis . . . The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." This moment will surely be used by the president's political opponents, and with equal fervor defended by his supporters. However it is interpreted, it points out a basic truth about any president: He's both an executive and a symbolic figure. He's the spiritual leader of the nation as well as the head of state. He's monarch and prime minister. [emphasis mine]
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
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PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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