Dubya Dismisses Anti-War Protests
It’s obvious why his handlers keep him as far as possible from reporters’ questions and live microphones; as soon as Dubya starts extemporizing, the level of fear, both at home and abroad, ratchets sharply upward. His latest comments, in which he dismissed anti-war protestors as something he needn’t concern himself with, provided a nice example. It’s interesting to me how a presidency turns from hope and promises to whatever derisive epithet a jaded public chooses to file it under. Nixon: crook. Ford: bumbling. Carter: malaise. Reagan: Actually, I don’t know. I guess we never came to a consensus on that one. Befuddled, maybe? Bush the Elder: out-of-touch ( that’s one word, right?). Clinton: philanderer. And with dubya, I don’t think there can be any doubt at this point: arrogant. Check out this nice image, for example, courtesy of Bravo. The president likes to characterize himself as “respectful” towards those he disagrees with, but that’s bullshit. He consistently displays a dismissive arrogance toward dissenting views that is the exact opposite of respect. You can gloss it over if you want, call it “honesty” or “conviction,” say that the president is just being a Texan straight-shooter and calling it like he sees it, but there’s something darker there. There’s an undercurrent of anger, a score he wants to settle, and not just with Saddam Hussein.
February 20th, 2003 at 1:12 pm
Really, you should know better. Protestors failed to sway a president on an issue. Not necessarily a bad thing. The reason why we live in this republic is for this very reason. So our leaders are not swayed by the the passions of the day and instead take a long term view. I mean if there were massive protests against abortion during the Clinton years, would you have written a post like this one?
You show one picture and then imply he is arrogant? I won’t even start pointing out the problems with this.
This is a very weak post supported by nothing.
February 20th, 2003 at 10:02 pm
Dubya says, “Size of protest — it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group”. It’s that what his hawish cabinet is? They’re the ones pulling Dubya’s strings. The long term view by our leaders posted by ‘a fan’ has gotten us all a button away from total nuclear oblivion. Thanks, leaders. As for passions of the day, isn’t that called ‘polling public opinion’? … A full time job at the white house, no?
February 21st, 2003 at 5:01 pm
Ya, I certainly don’t want opinion polls and protesters controlling the specifics of running our nation, but like jbc notes it’s the arrogance that’s galling. The proper response would be to try to address the issue put forth by a very significant number of protesters. If the president firmly disagrees, then he should explain better why, not just say ‘hey democracy is great, but I think you’re wrong and I’m the president so nyah’.
I think the big thing is that a lot of people would really like to see some good evidence that their lives are credibly threatened by Iraq — and the moral argument for invading is crap. There are a ridiculous number of very bad people that we aren’t considering spending hundreds of billions of dollars to rid the world of. I mean we could perhaps at least concentrate on, oh say, the leader of a particular terrorist group we can be pretty confident can do some damage to us.