Political Winds

The Savior of Iraq has brought the stature of the American presidency to an unprecented level among the citizens of one of our closest allies. Today’s poll in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald asks, “Who is the biggest fool in the USA?” The president of the United States is leading a very crowded and competitive field by a landslide.

Here are the results with 3,718 votes counted so far:

Britney Spears - 4%

Martha Stewart - 2%

Janet Jackson - 1%

Michael Jackson - 11%

George Bush - 64%

Mike Tyson - 8%

Courtney Love - 7%

So, despite his close relationship with the conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard, the Evil-Doers’ Enemy has earned the emnity of the people of Australia. Admittedly, this is not a scientific poll. However, its results are consistent with findings in virtually all of the world outside of the US, including polls taken in countries whose leaders have been invited to the ranch in Crawford, Texas.

If I didn’t know David Broder had written the column in today’s Washington Post, I would have thought it was political satire, dripping with a bit too much irony. But, no, this unfortunately was the work of the man many regard as the dean of the political press corps. The sober-minded Mr. Broder, no doubt laboring very hard to be “balanced” and “objective” in his evaluation of Bush’s 9-11 TV ads, has decreed that they are not so bad. After all, Mr. Broder concludes, “Bush is a piker compared with FDR when it comes to wrapping himself in the mantle of commander in chief.” The esteemed Mr. Broder goes on to say, “If you accept President Bush’s premise that this nation is at war with terrorism, then you have to applaud the restraint his campaign has shown so far in exploiting the attack that began that war.”

Assuming he wasn’t kidding, Mr. Broder has wiped certain realities out of his objective memory. FDR, of course, wrapped himself in a flag that was a symbol of a nation fighting a war that was forced on it, a war that was a last resort. Moreover, as far as I know, FDR truly honored American war dead - he probably even went to a funeral or two. Our current president, who doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as a leader like FDR, won’t attend even one soldier’s funeral because, the administration insists, he can’t attend all of them. That has to be one of the lamest excuses ever advanced by a politician. In the meantime, this plutocratic president finds time to get down with the boys at NASCAR races and rodeos. What a regular guy!

To be fair, Mr. Broder, does acknowledge at the end of his column that Bush hasn’t asked for sacrifice or revenue to pay the costs of war. But, with his perspective perhaps warped by proximity to the powers that be, Mr. Broder concludes that what President Bush is doing is consistent with a time-honored political tradition of flag-wrapping, of simply doing what other presidents have done. Well, Mr. Broder, this is different. 9-11 is different, and Bush’s preemptive war based on false and hyped intelligence is different.