Maddenation
Bush’s Certainty
I recently sent you an email link to an article (originally) from the New York Times by Ron Suskind called Without a Doubt. Here is a different quote from the article:
And for those who don’t get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ”You think he’s an idiot, don’t you?” I said, no, I didn’t. ”No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don’t care. You see, you’re outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don’t read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it’s good for us. Because you know what those folks don’t like? They don’t like you!” In this instance, the final ”you,” of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
Jesus admonished us to be “as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” Unfortunately, George W. Bush is as dumb as a doornail and as harmful as repeated air strikes and then ground troops killing up to 100,000 Iraqis to make up for 3,000 Americans killed, mostly, by Saudi Arabians. I don’t mean to say that Saddam Hussein was a good guy. He was not. But neither is George W. Bush. I hope we turn on our brains today and get rid of the idiot.
Here’s another quote, from Jim Wallis, a former Republican National Committee regent:
”Faith can cut in so many ways,” he said. ”If you’re penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it’s designed to certify our righteousness—that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There’s no reflection.
”Where people often get lost is on this very point,” he said after a moment of thought. ”Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not—not ever—to the thing we as humans so very much want.”
And what is that?
Patrick • Observations • 11/02/04 • 0 comments”Easy certainty.”
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