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Blaming Bush
 I
don’t watch television much anymore, but I gather that
Stephen Colbert is the hottest comedian on the tube this month. I missed his
latest achievement, an act of lese majesty at the White House
Correspondents’ Association
Dinner,  where
he ridiculed the chief guest, President Bush, without mercy.
Bush and his wife had to take it,
but they obviously didn’t enjoy it. Colbert raked him for the Iraq war,
his stupidity, his low approval ratings, his domestic eavesdropping, you name
it. His monologue might have been titled “America’s Dumbest
Criminal.”
Even the columnist Richard Cohen,
a keen and harsh critic of Bush, found Colbert offensive. He calls his jokes
“lame and insulting.” Because decorum prevented Bush from
walking out in a huff, “Colbert was more than rude. He was a
bully.”
Needless to say, this is far from a
unanimous verdict. Millions of others think Bush got what he deserved for
more than five years of abusing power. For once he was momentarily
vulnerable for a change, and Colbert took the occasion to make him squirm,
rather like the king who watches his crime enacted on the stage in
Hamlet.
Cohen objects that what Colbert
did took no courage, since we have free speech and you can insult the
president without risking martyrdom. But the point of free speech is that it
should be used, all the more so if it’s safe, and rebuking a criminal
ruler, even with “lame and insulting jokes,” is a splendid way to
exercise it. In fact, finer witticisms might have bounced off the target. Bush
got some rough feedback, but at least it doesn’t seem to have gone
over his head. He’ll get more in the November elections.
The worst punishment you should
wish on your enemies, but also the most charitable, is that they may see
themselves as they really are. Self-knowledge can be either a curse or a
blessing, depending on whether you are humble enough to accept it.
Unfortunately, Bush’s self-delusion appears all but impenetrable.
Politicians can have thin skins and tough hides at the same time. Appeals to
their consciences can be like horseflies to a stallion — no more than
minor irritations.
![[Breaker quote for
Blaming Bush: America's dumbest criminal?]](2006breakers/060504.gif) As we all know, James Bond, in his capacity as
Agent 007, is licensed to kill. This is supposed to assure us of his
deserved heroic status — we are to trust him not to use his power
wantonly — but it tells us something crucial about the nature of
government: that some men are authorized to do things that are inherently
criminal, and even to decide what shall be criminal.
One of man’s oldest follies
is the belief that such authority can exist and that some men can, and must,
be trusted with it. Democracy supposedly gives everyone a fair share of it.
We all get to help choose our rulers. What could be fairer than that?
And yet, for some reason,
politician is a disreputable word in democracies. People speak
of government with irony even as they demand that it improve their lives.
Last week Jean-François
Revel, an eloquent champion of democracy, died in France at 82. In his book
The Totalitarian Temptation he made the arresting
observation that whereas other systems were judged by their records,
Communism was judged by its promises — no matter how often they
had been brutally broken. Revel aimed his barb at Europe’s leftist
intelligentsia.
But doesn’t the aphorism
really apply to government in general? No matter how much harm it does,
men continue to believe in its promises. Individuals are blamed for its
failures, as Bush is being blamed now, but most of us persist in thinking that
this is a mere personnel problem, not a problem intrinsic to the very nature
of government. The wrong men are in power. We can see that power is
handed over to the “right” men in the next election!
Somehow, though, the
“right” men never seem to turn up. After a short time, we find
that those in whom we placed our hopes were just a new set of wrong men.
Bill Clinton was the wrong man for the presidency. George W. Bush
would restore morality, honor, resolve, and other fine things to the White
House. Now look!
As long as there is government,
the wrong men will rule. This is not a prediction. It’s an axiom.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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