It has been suggested that September 11th has turned the Bush presidency into a big deal. It is said that before the aircraft struck, Mr. Bush looked like a small-bore president – divisive, to be sure, but divisive about little things.
The important point is made that on the morning of September 11th Mr. Bush was reading “My Pet Goat” to a class of second-graders. His speech-writer, Michael Gerson, was working on a speech on “Communities of Character”.
All of that and more changed in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Today it is being said that America is now as divided as possible about Mr. Bush. On the one hand, his supporters regard him as a “transformative” figure like Ronald Reagan.
On the other, his critics view him as a catastropheﾗpossibly the worst president in American history. Take for example, Sean Wilentz ﾖa brilliant historian, teaching at Princeton University who is persuaded of what he considers a truth.
Wilentz argues that “George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.” He also suggests that “barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents.”
He continues with this qualification, “and that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.”
While we would prefer to be agnostic on this question, we do have some observations concern this United States president and the war he has been waging against “terrorism”.
We would suggest that there was a time when some might have treated George W. Bush with contempt. We ﾖtoo- remember the time when we might have yielded to the popular temptation that once prevailed in the United States to treat George W. Bush as if he were some kind of lightweight scion of a powerful family.
Indeed, we today vividly recall some of the rancor, vindictiveness and sheer ridicule that accompanied this leaderﾒs inauguration. Even now, we remember the placards that some Americans displayed, those bearing the legend to the effect that Bush was some kind of ﾑthiefﾒ. The word that was sent the world was that the presidency had been somehow ﾑstolenﾒ.
The record shows that Bush bore this burden as if it was some kind of light weight cross, specially made for a light weight leader like him.
But as the record would show all of this was to change in a moment and in what seemed a twinkling of an eye. The reference here is to the dreadful events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
When America was struck in its vitals by a band of terrorists who had the gall, audacity and sheer criminal genius to transform civilian aircraft into deadly military weapons, America and its sleepy president were jolted awake.
They and the whole world have not been the same ﾖ since.
Awake, angry, determined ﾖand sometimes wallowing in panic drenched paranoia- George W. Bush his administration and their cohorts have declared all out war on World Terrorism.
Regrettably, this war against phantoms itself been so transformed that terrorists are being identified here, there, everywhere. Tragically in the hunt for them, tens of thousands of innocent people have been wounded, maimed and killed.
Many of these innocent people are children, some of them mere babes suckling at the breast. Others are old men and women laid low by precision-guided cluster bombs.
And notably, Osama bin Laden ﾖthe 9/11 mastermind- is still at large. And so too are his confederates. Afghanistan is being beset by Taliban and Iraq continues to bleed.
Almost five years later, the world is today demonstrably less safe than it was on that morning some five years ago. This is due ﾖin great measure- to George W. Bushﾒs penchant for over reach in his response to trouble.
And it is ﾖalso- due to some of the simple mindedness that comes with his black and white vision of world politics. In his world, there is Good and there is Evil.
The United States epitomizes the Good. Its enemies are the living embodiment of all that is Evil. And so, armed with this kind of understanding of the world, Bush has sallied forth. To date, all he has to show for his efforts is to be summarized in the deadly statistics that continue to mount. These statistics are coming in from seemingly everywhere.
Our fear ﾖ five years after 9/11- is that the United States of America is being confounded by its myriad of phantom enemies. They are seemingly everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
This is the stuff of which madness is made.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
