Posted on 07/17/2004 10:01:07 PM PDT by blurb
President Bush has been taking some heat for having failed to respond instantly to the 2001 terrorist attacks. The movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" points out how Bush just sat in that second-grade classroom in Florida for seven minutes after he learned America was under attack. He was helping the children read "The Pet Goat."
I, for one, think this criticism of the president is terribly unfair. It's as unfair as criticizing "Fahrenheit 9/11" just because the director looks like one of those 750-pound rural dimwits in bib overalls who are occasionally photographed being removed from their houses by a crane as neighbors stand by and tsk.
Shockingly, this journalist is the first to obtain a copy of, and to review, "The Pet Goat."
The Pet Goat
A McGraw-Hill publication
Reviewed by: Gene Weingarten
The goat is an undisciplined pet, with a most extraordinary digestive system. To quote: "The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate canes. He ate pans and he ate panes. He even ate capes and caps."
It turns out this household also contains a "dad" who is "mad." The dad orders the girl to get rid of the remarkable pane-eating goat, but she pleads with him to let her try to cure the animal of its dietary excesses. And she does. With this restoration of order, one might expect the story to end, but here is where the author's narrative mastery comes in. Here may well be where the president elected to set a spell, spellbound.
In the end, "The Pet Goat" is the story of an authority figure -- the dad -- who learns to exercise his powers with restraint. When the security of his home is threatened by the goat's appetite for mass destruction, the dad's initial impulse is small-minded and simplistic. He focuses on one evildoer -- the goat itself -- to the exclusion of anything else. He thinks he knows goats, and they're trouble. Other voices -- specifically, the girl's -- raise less drastic possibilities: Possibly the goat can be reasoned with, or coerced, into altering its behavior. Possibly the goat is not the threat the dad thinks it is. Possibly the family is even complicit, for having trained the goat poorly. Possibly the goat is really . . . a scapegoat.
The dad proves a wise enough leader to heed this advice. In so doing, he avoids a costly overreaction, since, in the end, taking any action against the goat would have let the car robber get away scot-free. The car robber is the real enemy, and because the dad was so smart, the car robber was captured.
It should come as no surprise that the president chose to stick around for the end to this riveting story. Only the petty or small-minded could fault him for it. After all, there is much to learn from literature.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Besides, what should Bush done? Ran around the classroom frothing at the mouth screaming. (NYT Headlines, 09/12/2001 - "Terrorists Take Down WTC; Bush Panicks In Florida")
Isn't this article perpetuating the Moore LIE about President Bush finding out, going in the classroom and getting a photo-op?
I believe this articles objective is to perpetuate "the big lie" theory.
hahaha
Oh, I agree totally that Bush handled himself appropriately in the classroom. The "liberal humor alert" referred to his analysis of the story that Bush read to the class. Did you read till the end of the article?
I think the point of the article was to perpetuate the myth that Bush found out about the attack and THEN walked into the class room. Hence the "seven minutes".
The "big lie" is that when his aid walked into the classroom it was the second time bush had been told.
I think the point of the article was to perpetuate the myth that Bush found out about the attack and THEN walked into the class room. Hence the "seven minutes".
The "big lie" is that when his aid walked into the classroom it was the second time bush had been told.
Well, whaddayasay? Who is the goat in this story?
Lets remember, for the first 20 minutes of the attack, we all pretty much thought it might have been an accident.
The pet goat book is part of a remedial reading course aimed at improving reading skills with children who are having problems.
LOL!
thank you, thank you
And the author of this piece turned it into an allegory of Bush, the mad-Dad, and Saddam, the scapegoat.
The article would have been much better if it had ended just after the comment about Moore looking like he needs to be removed from his house by a crane.
In reality, that was just a feeble attempt at making a Bush hit piece seem fair and balanced.
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