I actually went to check and looked at a budget from the Clinton years. It’s a rather dry-looking thing with charts and tables. The Bush budget is very much short on charts and tables‚Äö√Ñ√¨it’s better not to think about what would be in them. But it has these themes, uplifting themes of various kinds and each of them is illustrated with multiple glossy color photos of Bush doing presidential-type things. Obviously you see him standing in front of a giant American flag talking about homeland security, but you also see him hiking along a mountain trail, comforting the elderly, helping children learn how to read. It really does look like something from a Communist country. You know, I joked when I wrote about it that they forgot the photo of him swimming the Yangtze River. It’s very un-American, but it fits in with Operation Flight Suit‚Äö√Ñ√Æthat kind of stagecraft, that glorification of the individual leader. What I wrote at the time of the carrier landing is that in the American tradition, the president is a civilian‚Äö√Ñ√Æeven if he’s a former general. The president does not appear in uniform; he’s not a general‚àö‚â†simo; he’s not a hero. That’s why the Constitution says the president is the commander-in-chief: to make it very clear that civilian authority, not military, runs the country. And then here we are doing these things that are really something that you would expect to see in a banana republic.
December 14, 2004 6:04 AM
