Posted on 12/26/2008 6:46:21 AM PST by vietvet67
The Bush hatred we are seeing in the media today belongs in the long catalogue of human psychopathology -- not rational behavior. The latest version is the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq. Iraq happens to be a hot war zone, in which tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed by hidden bombs. Bush' protective detail had no way of knowing whether an assassinaton attempt was under way, in just the way Saddam tried to assassinate George H.W. Bush, Sr. At the end of his two terms of office, the President flew to Iraq, into harm's way, knowing the dangers, to hold an open press conference.
But our media harbor such bitter hatred for him that they turned a potential bomb-throwing incident --- by one of their own --- into a joke, just another reason to sneer at the President. If anybody threw a cream pie at Obama, screaming headlines would be launched for days afterward. Nothing but sneers followed the potential attack on George W. Bush, which he fended off with his usual grace and humor. I have never known a US president to be treated as disgracefully as this one. The political case against him is based almost entirely on media falsehoods, slanders, and greed for power. Not much rationality there.
Our public melodrama is therefore being driven, not by facts and reason, but by the most primitive emotions that prey on human minds. Human brains haven't changed much in the last thirty thousand years. Homo sapiens is a lot more prosperous species than ever, but prosperity just allows those ancient demons to come out more freely. If we were huddled by a small fire in a cave, hungry and miserable, we could not indulge our fantasies as much as the pop media now allow themselves to do. Prosperity permits our primitive urges to flourish on the public stage.
President George W. Bush is being crucified in the public square in spite of his plain decency and goodness, and in spite of his remarkable success in winning two difficult wars to protect this nation from harm. All wars are hard; all wars involve mistakes and self-correction. All wars, if they are to be won, come at a cost.
While it is natural enough for conservatives to be upset by the blatant unfairness of the propaganda media --- indeed, by their visible madness --- if we just take a little mental distance, we can easily see an ancient anthropological drama: The crucifixion of the reigning king, along with the messianic glorification of a new one, who will surely rescue us from our media-driven despair. (Of course the new king will also grow weaker in time, in spite of his charismatic magic ...) This is the stuff of Shakespeare and Sophocles. George W. Bush's "head is bloody but unbowed," to quote the poem Invictus, ("undefeated') the Victorian answer to political witchhunts.
The novelist Mary Renault described the whole ordeal in her classic story, The King Must Die. Renault based her tale on legends of royal sacrifice from the ancient Mediterranean world --- in Greece, Asia Minor, Crete, Italy, and elsewhere. Read it if you want to understand Bush hatred and Obama worship. Her source was Sir James Fraser's remarkable book, The Golden Bough. While anthropologists have backed off Fraser's claim that king sacrifice is universal, the respected scholar James D. Brown argues that the evidence favors "Oedipal rebellion" as a universal among native peoples studied over more than a century. We no longer hang our kings physically, but the Left and the media act just like the lynch mobs of old. Listen to their voices and you'll hear the ancient roar of the mob.
We can watch the tragicomedy of our psychopolitics unfold and still keep some perspective. Think of it as a stage play like King Lear, and pray that reason prevails in the end. The Leftist media are actors playing the ancient role of the politically envious, who exist in every tribal culture where the head of the clan sleeps uneasily, fearful of plots and assassination attempts. All politics is not just local, as the Washington saying goes, but deep down it is tribal.
What is hopeful today is what was hopeful at the American founding: the use of constitutional means to channel our loves and hates into a fairly reasonable course of common action. The majority of Americans are pretty sane and rational; they don't trust the political class, and they are deserting the Big Media in the tens of millions even now. The American Founders knew all about vulgar mobs, and lived to see them in the French Revolution of 1789, with Napoleon rising on top of the revolutionary chaos to explode into a mass war of conquest in Europe. The Founders despised all that. They designed the Constitution to steer a steady course in spite of mobs and demagogues. It has worked magnificently for two centuries, and with luck and courage, it will hold.
Alexander Hamilton famously said, "The people? The people is a great beast!" But that was not accurate: We are all "the people," as the Declaration of Independence tells us. "The people" are the source of all good and bad things. The people -- properly balanced by a constitutional apparatus -- have brought prosperity that was unimaginable two hundred years ago. The people harbor wisdom and common sense in a way that snobbish elites soon forget. Conservatism is skeptical about human nature, but not cynical or despairing. Nor do we look to messianic leaders like Barack Obama to solve our problems. We look to muddle through, to give individuals the space to grow and succeed, to stand against the mobs, to fail at times, and then to fight again.
Whenever conservatives see yet another mob movement from the Left, we feel it is our obligation to stand in opposition. It is not unpatriotic to criticize the messiah of the moment -- though the Left will say so. It is our duty. We can do so with reason, with humor, and with clear thinking about the bad ideas the Left seems to carry around like a scratchy case of the fleas.
President Bush is not a theoretical politician. He is a practical man. He has constantly made the best decisions by his lights, sometimes against his own ideals, because reality sometimes makes things like war necessary; sometimes it makes massive bailouts necessary. The conservative question is always, "What is the realistic alternative?"
The end product of conservative politics is a mix of realism and idealism. Bush has liberated some fifty million Muslims, including one Arab journalist who just hurled his trendy hush puppies at him in an ancient gesture of contempt. That man is alive today because of George W. Bush -- Saddam would have fed him screaming into a plastic shredder. Compared to Obama and the corruptocrats, Bush will soon look like an American hero. Just watch it happen.
You used too many words.
The Sheep will never see this.
Once again, if President George W. Bush is so hated, then why was he elected President of the United States TWICE? the media just makes up crAP.
No W is being crucified exactly because he is a decent human. He has let the MSM turn on him in a shark type feeding frenzy. Those around him seem powerless to stop it or get him to act. It is too late now to do anything about it. The more he talks the more he feeds them. It is a co-dependent relationship of the most destructive kind. He needs to just step off the stage and let the public and the MSM get on to other targets. A modern President in the US needs to be able to control the press and/or keep them neutral. Reagan was a genius at it and Clinton was very good at it. Bush Senior was the prototype for W. Many things he did started the sharks down this road. At least he did not generate a new page of gaffes on Youtube every time he gave a public speech.
Mr Bush, our President, is probably the classiest man to ever hold the office. He learned civility at the knee of his father. A kinder, more decent soul would be a world rarity. He has led us through difficult and dangerous times, with constant sniping and backbiting unseen in many a decade.
Might God continue to grace this great nation and all of our leaders, for he has led with humility and wisdom and courage at every turn. As CinC he merits the MOH.
A great man for challenges at nearly every turn. Thank-you to G W Bush and Laura.
Amen.
I wish our guys would quit with this “Two wars” bullsh!t.
We are fighting one war - a long one, to be sure - against islamofascism.
Iraq and Afghanistan are requisite campaigns on the road to victory, much the same as North Africa, Italy, France, and the Pacific Campaigns were in World War II. I don’t believe FDR was criticised for starting three wars, was he?
No, but back then the political opposition and press were not traitorous activists.
Liberal/Socialist/Progressive/Marxist/Stalinist (all one word)
hate mongers. They are nasty, self serving pieces of lying crap on which the air they breath is a waste.
If I were Bush and Cheney I would buy 30 seconds of airtime on the networks and cable and flip the bird to the whole country for 30 seconds. I don’t see how they have stood the hatred and spewing of verbal venom for this long.
In this way, people who fancy themselves "citizens of the world" in reality become narrow, parochial and bigoted.
Liberal/Socialist/Progressive/Marxist/Stalinist
They're also getting their just rewards and the "print media" arm" of their politburo is dying.
Good commentary but he shakes some readers loose, quite unnecessarily, by the initial reference to the “crucifixion” of the king. “Ritual slaughter” would have been a better term.
Nor do I think the reaction to Bush rises to the level of mythological impulse. But it’s a good read and offers an interesting perspective.
You said — “Once again, if President George W. Bush is so hated, then why was he elected President of the United States TWICE? the media just makes up crAP.”
Well, there have been FReepers posting to me that hate Bush for what he has done and they are sorry that they ever voted for him.
Some cite the idea that Bush (and Cheney said recently that they would have to sacrifice free market principles in order to save the economy...
Bush says sacrificed free-market principles to save economy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2149830/posts
That has caused some hatred to be vented. Along with that goes the bailouts, too.
Then there is the immigration bill that the President supported. A lot of people vented hatred on that basis.
And then some FReepers have vented hatred because Bush is not a conservative or not conservative enough (according to what they say).
The list keeps getting bigger and bigger by the day — even around here on Free Republic. Many are glad to see Bush go, according to what I read. This doesn’t appear to be media “made-up crap” from what I read from FReepers, right here on this board.
—
As for me, I even still support Bush in his statements that perhaps free market principles may have to be sacrificed in order to save the economy. Sometimes emergency measures must be taken. BUT, that will generate a “lot of hate” around here.
And I support Bush for going into the war with Afghanistan and Iraq, but I don’t think the “freedom” has made a real difference in Iraq like freedom is here (and that’s because of the false and evil religion of Islam).
I don’t support Bush for what he’s doing in trying to “divide the land of Israel”, because I believe he’s totally wrong in that regard. But, I’m not hating him because of it. He’s just going to be on the wrong side of God on that issue.
Also, I think Bush is totally wrong for saying that the god of Islam is the same God that we worship in Christianity. That’s totally false — *absolutely* false. So, Bush is misleading a lot of people in that issue.
So, even as one who doesn’t hate Bush, I still see that he’s not been right on a lot of matters...
“While it is natural enough for conservatives to be upset by the blatant unfairness of the propaganda media -— indeed, by their visible madness -— if we just take a little mental distance, we can easily see an ancient anthropological drama: The crucifixion of the reigning king, along with the messianic glorification of a new one, who will surely rescue us from our media-driven despair. (Of course the new king will also grow weaker in time, in spite of his charismatic magic ...) This is the stuff of Shakespeare and Sophocles. George W. Bush’s “head is bloody but unbowed,” to quote the poem Invictus, (”undefeated’) the Victorian answer to political witchhunts. “
England was part of this madness with King Charles II. They overthrew a monarchy in place of a Parliament. The Prime Minister then attempted to place his son on the ruling seat upon his death, which pissed everyone off. “If we are going to have a monarchy, why one like that? Let’s just go back to the monarchy” which allowed the WONDERFUL King Charles II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_England) to be placed back on the throne. He was the save all, end all of England. It wasn’t until a few years later when he himself was just as corrupt (even though he lived as almost a Pauper in France while in exile and vowed to not fall into the trappings of royalty), but he did. And the people became just as upset with him as any other.
Just give it time.
This does not say everyone hates him. It says a certain hate-filled, mob mentality has consumed the Left and the Media. I would add that some conservatives also hate him, but for different reasons.
In 2000 the Left and Media had not yet coallesced against him (from an old political family but a new national personality - everyone thought it would be Jeb but George surprised them) yet clearly wanted Al Gore. When they did not get Al Gore and could seize upon the Florida recount confusion and Bush’s popular vote loss but electoral vote win, they came at him with a vengeance.
By 2004 they had the death toll in Iraq and no weapons of mass destruction found to use against him. But John Kerry and his wife helped Bush by being who they are. The Swift Boat Vets advertising helped, too. Rove engineered a magnificent campaign outreach into the blurbs - beyond the suburbs and found new voters with conservative values to turn out -
Even with all of that and a strong popular vote margin, Bush is President by only 100,000 votes in Ohio. Flip Ohio and Kerry would have won.
The economy thanks to the tax cuts held Bush up. The insurgency in Iraq and war mismanagement almost sank him. Then the Surge allowed him some breathing room. Then the economy tanked, for which the Dems rejoiced - appropriately, since they engineered the collapse and always rejoice in bad news for America.
Returning to the point - the Left and Media’s behavior (NOT most Americans) after the Shoe Incident is beyond reprehensible and is driven by Bush hatred and mob mentality. So, although low in polls and ungratefully shoved aside by the American people, Bush isn’t (and this doesn’t claim) hated by most of us.
Rush said this several times. He said Bush is an unpopular President but most Americans don’t hate Bush the man. The two things aren’t one and the same.
However, there is dripping, smoldering hatred for him expressed on this conservative site. By people who can’t disagree on some issues without becoming consumed by hatred and wishing that we had had Al Gore/John Kerry all these years just so Bush could retroactively lose two elections in their minds.
For the last eight years we have witnessed the most distasteful media coverage, coupled with internet insanity take shot after shot against a man who is a decent, gentle soul.
We have witnessed calendars made out of his verbal failings while being told Obama is the greatest orator ever.
We have witnessed caricatures of monkeys made out of our elected leader while we were told the use of Obama’s middle name was a scare tactic.
We have witnessed books and shirts depicting the murder of our elected leader while we were told that any critcism of Obama was nothing more than veiled racism.
The liberals won the war of words and imagery because our side does not fight back.
The liberals have managed to destroy any positive that may exist with innuendo, supposition and conspiracy. At this point, most people cannot agree on the most simple fact anymore.
The death of “truth”. There are no facts.
We’ve seen this all before with President Nixon. What is amazing to me is that the nutjob libtards display no cognitive dissonance in their hatred of President Bush, despite the fact that Big Government continued to grow throughout his presidency. As a conservative I was often displeased with W’s policies, but personally never even came close to hating him.
I think this guy is on to something. We shall see. I am sure history long term will be much kinder to Bush than the MSM and pundits of today.
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