Whatever Barack Obama is or isn't, a mystery we will get to unfold for many years, we know who George Bush is: a tragic figure. Look at him now. He's crumpled, thin, gray, and angry. I remember him eight years ago, vital and manly. His famous stubbornness now only thinly covers his own awareness that he has failed, which came out in the volatile press conference he held last week.
Bush's presidency offered the opportunity for a man to achieve greatness. 9/11 was thrust upon him. He understood the moment, as anyone would. He failed. I supported him in the war in Afghanistan but I watched as his weak mind was eroded away by the strong influences of the toxic buddha, Cheney, and the sinister hidden-agenda crowd, the neoconservatives.
After 9/11, the world was at our side. Iran helped us to go into Afghanistan to find those bastards. The Muslim world empathized with us.
Today the world despises us as torturers and invaders and wire tappers and renditioners, and we are at verbal daggerpoints with Iran, and Muslims see us as the latest reincarnation of the crusades. Pakistan is wobbling because of the extremist forces we have unleashed in the hellish destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan is a shell teeming with extremism, and of course Gaza is a smoking bloodsteeped ruin thanks to the rogue state we have enabled again and again under the vicious hypocrisy of the claim that We are for Palestinian sovereignty.
There were other tragedies, other great failures. Katrina, the financial meltdown of the last two years. A great statesman, even a good one, would have grasped the challenges and led the people. Bush lacked the largeness of spirit to do any of that. And that tragedy is ours. That twice the American people (more or less) thought that a goodnatured and likeable fellow who had the common touch and a less than common intelligence, was somehow worthy of the presidency. It's our dishonor. Bush distinguished himself most of all in the AIDS initiative in Africa, led by women execs he trusted, which demonstrates his inherent good nature and openness, but he was always too small a man for the most demanding job, and that was obvious to everyone, including the reporters who babied him for years and murmured about him in silence. His powers of mind barely outstrip a simpleton's. Today he looks crushed, and no wonder. He's going to stumble into old age with none of the nobility of his father, but denial, chainsaw brush clearing, and friendly interviews that reveal the depths of his rage, and, hopefully, condemn the neoconservatives as the intellectual drug-peddlers they are.
The only reason Obama will be sworn in today is because of this tragedy (one that Hillary Clinton shared with Bush), and because Americans understand how much that tragedy has hurt our image in our neighborhood, the world. The wild excitement in Washington isn't about Barack Obama as such, though god knows his elevation is inspiring, and yes, it's a story about race; but the real excitement is our reclaiming our ideals after the terrible debasement of the last eight years. Because I love this country, I believe the American promise will survive this era, but history can be ruthless, and we'll just have to see. I'll be celebrating with tears today, the tears that only a true tragedy can produce. (Philip Weiss)
