Reason why Bush's military service record matters

tomfodw

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Thu Sep-09-04 10:09 AM
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Reason why Bush's military service record matters

Yes, it was 32 years ago that he deserted; and yes, he's not using his personal military background as any justification for his candidacy. And he has at least nominally praised John Kerry for his service. (Not that he made the slightest effort to shut down Shit Boat Vermin for Lies.)

But still, Bush's own military service record matters because it tells us so much about why the man has been such a failed president. It tells us what happens when you go through life shielded from its difficulties and especially from its consequences. You think of yourself as apart from and above everyone else and not subject to the same rules and expectations that govern the rest of us. And, if you never have to face the consequences of your actions, you eventually come to think that not only will you never have to face any consequences, but that there ARE no consequences to be faced.

And this is precisely how Bush has acted as president. Nothing that goes wrong is his fault, and he is unable even to conceive that anything has gone wrong. When he is in trouble, he has surrogates and handlers and friends of Daddy's to explain things away. He has supporters who put their hands to their ears and refuse to hear any ill spoken about him. He can do anything he wants, and more to the point say anything he wants sublime in the certainty that it doesn't matter. He can oppose a policy, let it pass, and then take credit for it. He can propose a policy, garner the good will it engenders, then let it starve for funds, secure in the expectation that he will be credited for propounding it and never followed up to see if he actually put it into effect. He lives in a world of the privileged, who never have to clean up after themselves, who have servants for that sort of thing.

George W. Bush should not have gotten into the Texas Air National Guard, but as the child of privilege, he had other people to make sure he did (it's irrelevant if he or his father asked Ben Barnes to do it). He did not deserve to get into Yale, but as the son of an alumnus, he benefitted from the unquestioned affirmative action for rich white people that has been in existence as long as there have been rich white people. He did not deserve to survive his mismanagement in the oil business, but had Saudi friends of Daddy to bail him out. He did not deserve to be president, but had the Supreme Court justices his Daddy appointed turn him into a legal class of one, espousing the ridiculous and one-time legal doctrine that his rights somehow outweighed those of the people of the state of Florida.

He has never had to take responsibility for one blessed thing in his life, and it shows. And it goes back to his misspent youth, which he wasted in a riotous dissipation of drug and alcohol abuse. He learned his lesson well - he was uniquely privileged to do whatever he wanted and let others clean up after him. And he has governed as he lived, and we have to clean up his messes. A man like that should not be President - never should have been President - and certainly should not be re-elected.

Yes, 1972 was a long time ago. And yes, Bush is not running as a war hero (although saying for the record that he's proud of his service - and, for all I know, he may actually be proud of it, since he cannot conceive of him ever needing to apologize for anything he did). But some things never change; as he lived then, he governs now. It's time, for once in his worthless life, to have to pay the price for being a gutless, selfish, greedy, shallow fool. He didn't pay it then. If not know, when?