Bush Fatigue

I have been remiss lately, certainly in the paucity of my blog entries in general, and specifically in my lackadaisacal response to the continued inanity of the current Administration. Eight years ago, when Clinton was in his sixth year as President, a pallor fell over the otherwise content populace that the pundits called "Clinton Fatigue." This was a vague malaise caused, essentially, by boredom and lack of any national crisis (yeah, it was a good era). Clinton fatigue ended with the Lewinsky scandal and the absurd Impeachment proceedings, which jump-started the Republicans successful series of character assassinations that continue to this day.

Becuse Bush has been such an easy target, at least since he sent our troops to their purposeless war, we have experienced something like "Bush Bashing Fatigue." It's too easy, too familiar, too rife. Few people want to hear what they know to be true about our awful Chief Executive, much like they turn off to the daily statistic of another 100 civilians/soldiers killed in Baghdad. But I think it's time, at least on these rarely-read pages, to reassert a major historical truth. George W. Bush is not a bad President. He is a Catastrophic president. Now let me count the reasons.

1. The Iraqi War. Gee, it's been over three and a half years and absolutely nothing has been resolved. It's been longer than the span between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. There is a clear civil war going on, the debates are now about whether the country should be subdivided, which means returned to its fragmented past of a century ago. We are inextricably involved-- both "cut and run" and "stay the course" are unsatisfactory approaches. Bush did not even know, at the onset of the war, that Sunnis fought Shiities (didn't he pay attention when Iran first went blooey in 1979?). The war was ignited over two erroneous premises--even admitted by Dubya--that Saddam had WMDs, and that he conspired with Al Qaeda on 9/11. Now , in this quagmire, we cannot provide sufficient troops to tame Baghdad, and have drained our military resources so badly that all soldiers are forced to reup, and we have nothing left to challenge the more obviously threatening Iran regime. Face it, George, you fought Iraq because Saddam tried to off your father. Not a nice thing to do, but not worth changing the course of history and maligning our country in the eyes of the rest of the world.

2. Your advocacy of torture. Here is the great Moral Christian president doing what he can to subvert international law as embodied by the Geneva Conventions to give a legal standing to torture. Not only does this--as Colin Powell observed--undermine any moral authority we may still have salvaged from our Bill of Rights and Constitution, but it's been demonstrated that torture simply doesn't work very well. Ask John McCain, who's been there, done that. Jack Bauer and the CTU minons of "24" aside, torture is not just cruel, it is incompetent.

3. And speaking of incompetence, let's not forget Katrina, and the Administration's appallingly inept efforts to deal with the incipient tragedy and its aftermath. From denying the money for better levees to the subverting of a once capable FEMA by folding it into the Department of Homeland Security and its cast of hapess cronies, the Adminsitration's ineptitude has not just tragically altered the lives of thousands of citizens, but intensifies the insecurity we all feel for when another major disaster or terrorist strike recurs. Ironically, the only time Bush was able to efficiently gather his forces was in the all-out government effort to prolong the horrendous unconscious life of a comatose Florida woman.

4. The Elevation of superstition, religious intolerance, and ignorance to National norms of acceptability. Only in America do we actively debate Darwin, Global Warming, and the usefulness of stem cell research. Bush has thumbed his nose at the Kyoto Accords, and, while somewhat acknowledging that climate change is real, insists it is up to private industry to regulate itself. So, global diaster on a scale unknown since the Ice Age is left to some coroporate CEOs, while the world's most powerful government twiddles its thumbs? This is not catastrophic?

5. The Politics of Division. Through his inflexible stupidity and stubbornness, he has done exactly the opposite of what leaders are supposed to do--unite his constituents, Democrat and Republican, in the interests of the Nation. What has emerged instead is the politics of Polarity, the Great Red/Blue division, that has sustained bad feelings from both sides of the podium to a degree I've never seen in my half-century of political awareness.

Six years into his Administration, Bush has divided the nation, involved us in a hopelessly tangled war, sapped our resources, drained our budget, ignored the victims of domestic tragedy, alienated us from most of our allies, so angered our Moslem enemies that the CIA has determined terrorism is a greater threat than ever, and delayed the necessary scientific and industrial efforts we need to rescue our environment from potential--even likely cataclysm. And we still have 28 months left of this horrendous dolt. Will we even make it that far?

Mae's September Romance

There is an old chestnut melody called "The September Song," written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, and sung by Walter Huston, of all people, in the 1938 musical "Knickerbocker Holiday". It was a standard that moved 'em to tears in those days between the depths of the Depression and the onset of another World War, and was rife with melancholy reminders of decline and old age. Another slightly more recent standard, "Try to Remember", from "The Fantasticks," also evokes September as a period of decline. Ther are few happy songs about this month.

September inevitably brings upon us a similarly sad patina, as the bright summer ends, the days grow shorter, the year heads towards its Holiday Depression, and my birthday demarcates another ring in my tree trunk. Now there's the added annual Cultural Calamity observance that 9/11 has become (to the most nefarious it is called "Patriot's Day," even though that has been a longstanding April holiday in America-hating Massachusetts). I did not add to the woeful lamentations and imprecations that sore point on our psyches has generated. I don't care much that ABC aired a scurrilous anti-Clinton fictional docudrama. As far as I'm concerned, it was a silly counterbalance to the left-wing "Fahrenheit 911", which had its own biased assumptions (though it also had that telling, and real, footage of Bush sitting there for 7 minutes while the nation was under attack).

For me personally, this month is bringing another regretful engagement, the gradual decline of my elderly mother who is growing weaker and weaker in a rehab facility, unable to eat and fortify her increasingly frail constitution. She is conscious of her condition, aware of the need to eat, but physically so weak that she can barely pick up a fork. As hopeful as my family is of her potential strengthening, I am prepared for the "inevitable,"as my brother likes to call it. Nonogenarians do not have the greatest recuperative powers. But I speak to her every day, and try to cheer her up, though their is an underlying darkness to all our frivolous chat.

In our last conversation, which occurred on my birthday, she had totally forgotten the event, not out of thoughtlessness but simply her depleted condition. I was more than understanding. I only wished for her to be comfortable and revive her appetite. (If she were in California I'd try to get her stoned, or at least take Marinol, the pot pill, used to enhance the appetites of cancer patients). Nothing seems to be working, and she is too listless to read or watch TV. That is, for one exception.

"The only thing I want to watch," she told me, "is the baseball."

For those who belittle the sport as an archaic, slow waste of time, take that. I was happy to regale her with the details of games that she did not have televised access to, especially the Yankee contests. The Yankees are about to clinch their division, gliding easily into the title after the Boston Massacre of August, and this, of all things, is what cheers up Mae. I relate the ongoing play-by-play that I glean from my computer or from my MLB TV package, if available, and it's like I'm telling her a bedtime story. I enthusiastically described the amazing Dodger-Padre game of earlier this week, when the Dodgers rallied with four consecutive home runs in the 9th inning to overcome the San Diego advantage, then used another homer by Nomar Garciaparra to win in the tenth, after falling behind again. Even Hall of Fame announcer Vin Sculley was awed. It made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, even though there are two weeks to go in the season and the one-game resolution was so transitory that last night the Dodgers fell into second place again.

Ultimately the pennant races don't matter to Mae, but the excitement and the connection that baseball provides for her certainly does. She was mightily impressed by the Dodger outburst, and though she'll probably have forgotten about it the next time I call her (which is as soon as I finish this blog), the brightness it provides in her limited scope of experience at least justifies itself. I'm sure she is trying hard to fortify herself so that she can witness at least one more World Series--perhaps a classic betwen the two New York juggernauts. It may not be the best reason to try to remain alive, but if it works, who's to quibble?

Crocodile Tears

There is nothig remotely amusing or even satiric that I can say about the passing of Steve Irwin, world-renowned Austrailian naturalist/showman, who succumbed to a poorly (or perfectly, from the ray's point of view) aimed sting. That he actually pulled out the poisonsus barb from his wounded chest before abruptly collapsing will certainly add to the legend. It will provide an iconic end to a movie that I'm sure is already in the works, with Russell Crowe as its putative lead (which is really good casting).

Irwin's death is a blow to nature lovers, Australia and the Animal Channel, but certainly could have been predicted. This man made a living boldly wrestling dangerous beasts, of which Australia is extremely well-endowed. Well, as somebody might have added to the epitaph of Timothy Treadwell, "Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you." In this case Irwin did not exactly invite the killer into his cabin and treat it like a puppy dog. But he was swimming in hazardous waters, filming a special about dangerous marine creatures, and did not think of donning a rubber wet suit during the process. This is also the guy who pulled a Michael Jackson last year by dangling his baby in one hand while wrestling a gator with the other. I doubt that this behavior was recommended in the Scout's Manual.

The freakishness of Irwin's accicental death reminded me of some of the bizarre historic demises that could not have been planned except by the most brutishly random circumstance. For instance, Isadora Duncan, who jumped into a flivver for a hot tryst with her Italian mechanic, flung her long dangling scarf into the air singing "Je vais a la gloire," and having it stick in the spokes of the back wheel so that when the car accelerated it snapped her neck in two. Another freakish auto accident sadly ended the life of director Alan Pakula while motoring idly on the Long Island Expressway, when a piece of metal from some road flotsam bounced into his windshield and smashed his face in. And Jayne Mansfield, who was decpaitated when a truck stopped short in front of her in the middle of a fog bank. And don't get me started with Catherine the Great. A horse is a horse, of course, of course.

A friend of mine summarized it all with the boring bromide, "When your time is up, your time is up," but that would hardly be solace to any relative of a 9/11 victim who decided not to stay home from work that morning because of a head cold. Another famous aphorism, this from John Donne, states, "Every man's death diminishes me." A nice thought, but I hardly think my life is less valuable because Saddam's kids were gunned down. Still, lest I bring some sort of curse on myself, it does give one pause to muse about anyone's passing--so long as it doesn't depress one deeply enough to turn to religious fanaticism to make some meaning of mortality.

Recently in my condo building, three gentlemen met their ends. One, an elderly man named Ed, shot himself after learning that he had metastatic prostate cancer. He was meticulous about the event, leaving a note and trying his best not to make a mess. He was a nice man and I hope he died painlessly. Everyone who knew him understood his motivations and believed that the neighborhood would, indeed, miss his genial presence. The second death was of a Russian actor who apparently was killed in an auto accident in his homeland. This individual, the scion of a great Russian acting family, was somewhat charming but also very self-involved (what, in Los Angeles?), engging in unusual business deals, and in truth, some neighbors suspect he is not really dead but on the lam from the Russian mafia.

The third death, though, is rather sad and fascinating. Edgar, a 65-year-old electrician, was found dead in his bathroom, either from a heart attack or an accident. The water in the bathtup was still running, giving the scenario a film noir eeriness. But when this man's demise was discussed, there was not a tear to be shed anywhere. This man was purportedly a wife-beater, and was as obnoxious a presence as could be imagined in a law-abiding citizen. For my part, when I saw him outdoors, I would hustle across the street to avoid the dark brooding arrogance with which he strutted around. When several neighbors gathered to discuss his passing, not a single nice thing could be said about him. I only recalled contentious arguments he had with me when I was on the condo board. Anothe neighbor recalled how she went to ask him to turn down the noise from his stereo and all he could say was how fat she had suddenly become. The kindest words of all came from our building's assistant manager, the one who had actually discovered his body. "He did not have a very good personality," she mused, aware of the understatement.

It was like the eulogy from Hell, or Bizzarroland. And given the other lame axiom that "Only the good die young," well there's the exception that proves the rule.