GORE ON BUSH
The Real President on the Illegitimate One
Rather than subject you to my own opinion on the state of things, I will instead use the space this week to quote Al Gore, the Man Who Would Be President. New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote a great piece about Gore in last week's magazine. For those of you who either don't get the New Yorker, or who get it but didn't have a chance to read last week's issue, here is what Gore said about Bush, as quoted by Remnick:
I wasn't surprised by Bush's economic policies, but I was surprised by the foreign policy, and I think he was, too.
The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office.
He's been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.
I'm not of the school that questions his intelligence. There are different kinds of intelligence, ad it's arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. Hecertainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. But, in today's world, that's often a problem.
I don't think that he's weak intellectually. I think he's incurious. It's astonishing to me that he'd spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question.
But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and like all bullies, he's a coward when confronted with a force that he's fearful of. His reaction to the extravagent and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the WHite House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiosness that is involved in him saying "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole -- that can only come from genuine moral cowardice.
I don't see any other explanation for it, because it's not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of these groups has a lot of money that they're willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.
—Greg Olear
Editor, LARGEREGO
September 14, 2004
Editor, LARGEREGO
September 14, 2004
"We are a nation in danger." |