OUR UNFEELING PRESIDENT: Bush cannot grieve because he doesn’t know what death is
But this president does not know what death is. He hasn’t the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can’t seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn’t understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn or a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it.
- E.L. Doctorow
If there is one thing George W. Bush does not excel at, it’s empathy. Then again, to show support for those who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, one actually has to actually understand the concept of empathy. From watching Bush’s performance over the past few years, it’s clear that he just does not get it.
I don’t think that any reasonable person excepts George W. Bush to be the Second Coming of Bill Clinton when it comes to empathy and communication. Even so, it doesn’t take a lot to act as if you care that your policies are causing many American families to have to bury loved ones.
And that smirk. Yes, it’s probably an inadvertent and inconvenient personal tic, but that damn smirk leaves the one with the distinct impression that Bush is actually enjoying the carnage. No, I would never accuse a leader of enjoying the death of so many as a result of his policies, but it’s hard not to be left with the impression that HE JUST DOESN’T CARE. Snickering and smirking his way through statements of condolence is hardly an effective way to convince people that you can empathize with the reality that young Americans are coming home in boxes because you wanted to go to war.
Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing ó to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends.
A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the president who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us who live in poverty, he does not feel for the 40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills ó it is amazing for how many people in this country this president does not feel.
But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of air in coal mines to save the coal miners’ jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.
And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.
Bush’s seeming indifference to the pain and suffering of those who have lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped to create a political atmosphere in which people like Cindy Sheehan can develop a voice and a growing following. Can there be anything more poignant than a grieving mother looking for answers as the President responsible for her son’s death drives by in his motorcade without so much as a acknowledgement?
No one expects George W. Bush to grieve over every death or to attend every funeral. There can be nothing gained by that. Nonetheless, is it too much to expect that Our Sainted President could communicate empathy and act as if he understands and is sadden by the losses- without that damn smirk on his face? What angers me, and people like Cindy Sheehan, so much is the fact that Bush actually seems to be enjoying this war.
Just think- 51% of Americans voted for this smirking fool. What in the hell were y’all thinking??
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