George W. Bush has held his final press conference, a warm and fuzzy alternative-reality fiction-fest, in which, not surprisingly, he cited a public-relations gaffe as the major mistake of his presidency. The "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier wasn't prudent — as "Poppy" Bush might have said — and Bush 43 was man enough to admit it.
Dressed up in his flight costume, helmet tucked under his arm, "Dubya" strutted like a bantam rooster aboard that carrier after landing via fighter jet. The dramatic entrance was made in a Hollywood style befitting Tom Cruise, or any other professional pretender. It was well staged. It was impressive. It was memorable.
Subsequently, a toy company produced an action-figure (more fittingly, perhaps, an "inaction" figure) of President Bush similarly garbed as a jet fighter pilot. My son-in-law had one enshrined in a niche in an otherwise barren bookcase. It was surrounded on its sacrosanct shelf by sundry tomes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and — doesn't it go without saying — Rush Limbaugh. It was, indeed, a hallowed place.
But I come to praise Bush, not to bury him. "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Let it not be so with "Dubya."
The president's accomplishments have been legion, but the recognition has been lacking. He has repeatedly reminded us that he has prevented another terrorist attack on our country, but do we give him credit for everything else that he has accomplished as our president? I think not.
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Since Mr. Bush has been at the helm of our ship of state, not one American citizen has spontaneously combusted. No alien spacecraft have invaded our air space, and no giant octopus has scuttled a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.
Expansionist-minded Canada has been held in check, and our Northern States face no imminent threat of cross-border raids. Moreover, there have been no Indian uprisings. But do you see any of this in the Times or the Post or the News Republic, for that matter? Again, I think not.
Not one instance of bubonic plague, small pox, or typhoid fever has been reported anywhere across this broad land of ours during the Bush years. But don't hold your breath for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or that loud and obnoxious liberal-weenie Chris Mathews to point this out.
There have been no human sacrifices, state-sponsored beheadings, or witches burned at the stake in the past eight years. Not one squirrel has been shot from a dirigible, nor has any tree fallen in a forest without making a sound.
Gravity still works as well as ever; Don Imus is back on the air; Barry Alvarez has been immortalized in bronze, and Ed Mortimer sits on the Baraboo School Board.
Mere coincidence, you say? I think not.
Robert Reid,
Wisconsin Dells
http://www.wiscnews.com/bnr/opinion/433432
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