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Monday, October 20, 2008
Mad Cowboy Disease
"W". As the pressidential campaign reaches its final two weeks, I can't help thinking of The Forgotten Man. No, not the Depression era icon of those who doubted FDR's New Deal, but the lonely figure who still occupies the White House. Whether you know it or not, he's still important, still "misunderestimated." Republicans and conservatives in particular need to focus on him right now if they want to use the remaining time before Election Day wisely. I'm very serious about this. He is neither a fool nor a tragic figure. He is an archetype. And anyone who misreads what kind of archetype he is runs the risk of making bad decisions over the next fourteen days.
He's not a fool because whatever his faults, he succeeded in preventing the next terrible, seemingly inevitable thing from happening to the United States. Who wouldn't have settled for that seven years ago after the twin towers fell? He's not a tragic figure because he hasn't been destroyed, either by his own fatal flaw or the vengeance of the almighty, which would have meant blood and death for large numbers of us as well. He has been ridiculed and mocked and ostracized and shunned by those who should have known better, but he is still Commander-in-Chief of a nation which has not been defeated in the field on his watch. That was his mission. It became his mission the day America was attacked inside her own borders. He has made mistakes but he has not failed in this one supremely important responsibility. Mission accomplished.
To the extent that the War on Terror has been shoved to a back burner in the current campaign, it is a measure of George W. Bush's success as a president. Any objective reading of the evidence about the economic crisis facing the world today suggests that he did not cause it, in fact tried to prevent it, and lacked the clout to fix the burgeoning problem because his pursuit of the primary mission made him too unpopular to accomplish what was needed. But we have grown used to blaming him for everything, and so we blame him for this, too. Does he complain, whine, or point quivering fingers at his innumerable enemies? No. As he has from the first day of his presidency, he accepts the popular abuse and soldiers on.
Are either of the men we're deciding between to replace him as durable and stoic as he is? Does it matter? Yes. It matters. All presidents of the United States receive torrents of abuse, experience treacherous disloyalty from allies and subordinates, and are pitilessly second-guessed at every moment of every crisis. How many of Bush's detractors even remember a time when the president exploded in anger on camera at the umpteenth unfairness he'd been subjected to by rapacious media? Is sturdy equanimity something we've come to take unjustifiably for granted? Should we be so dismissive and ungrateful to a man who led us through harrowing times without ever once pleading for public mercy? What kind of leader is it exactly we think we deserve? And if we get what we truly deserve, how good a leader will we get?
We all have to ask and answer these questions for ourselves. For my part, I know that I cannot approach the coming election decision is good conscience without acknowledging the debt I owe as an American citizen to the eight years of service I've received from George W. Bush. In their own unique ways, both candidates to succeed him are greater and lesser men than he is. How much greater and how much lesser are the big question marks. George Bush has never committed the cardinal sin of turning on us and accusing us of being the problem. If this is the standard, I'm not sure either of our current choices will measure up. And that concerns me. Because -- and this will probably be news to a lot of brainy Americans -- I've become fairly certain that we've been spoiled in this regard by a highly unusual man. He may leave office unnoticed, without fanfare or expressions of regret, but I can easily imagine the day when people wish they had him back instead of what they so arrogantly desired to replace him.
Archetype? Since our subject is unpopular cowboys, one of the three or four best westerns ever made was John Ford's The Searchers. The basic plot may sound familiar. A decent but otherwise unexceptional cowboy is minding his own business when something horrific occurs to his family. He spends years of his life hunting down the people who did the horrific thing and in the process alienates other members of his family because of what he's willing to do in pursuit of what he conceives as justice. Along the way he has to walk a tightrope balanced between his gut hatreds and his familial love. At the end he succeeds in his mission. And watches the healing reunion of his loved ones unnoticed, from outside the family circle. The part of Ethan Edwards may have been John Wayne's greatest role ever. Hardly anyone gets to play it in real life. And certainly not with as much fierce resolve and personal grace. That's one definition of an archetype.
When George Bush leaves office, he may try to steal quietly away. But I'll have an eye on him as he disappears into the sunset.
