If I read the news more, I'd probably realize this point had been made a million times, but I’m a media recluse, so the thought just occurred to me: I think George Bush is actually doing America a valuable service. He's performing a task that has long needed doing, one that no leader before him has been able to accomplish. He is finally ridding the United States of our superiority complex.
You know the one I mean. Not just the red-faced, old-fashioned, "our corn is higher" sort of bluster you're always reading about in Sinclair Lewis novels. I'm talking about what happened after World War II, when we came to the aid of our European allies and made the world safe for democracy. We were awfully pleased with ourselves after that, and could beat up anybody in the bar because after all, the world owed us.
We've spent a lot of years being quietly or not so quietly smug about our moral superiority. Conflicts like Vietnam or El Salvador or Somalia have certainly tarnished our image of ourselves as selfless purveyors of democracy, but we've always found something good to hold on to. Our bravery, our tenacity, our devotion to duty. But not any more. With our invasion of Iraq, George pushed us a little bit farther than we’d ever been before, in terms of world policing. Since the fall of Baghdad, we’ve shown the world and ourselves just how corrupt, self-serving, and short-sighted we are. We no longer have any image of ourselves to hide behind.
The presidency is a mirror held up to our national character. When we held Nixon or Truman or Clinton up to the mirror, yeah there were some warts, some scars, maybe a crack or two. But the mirror held. When Bush looks into that mirror, he shatters it but good. The shards fly every which way, and they cut deep. Hm. Our national character as a fragmented tumble of bloody bits of glass, each one reflecting a different face of shame, sorrow, and confusion. That sounds about right. Thanks, Mr. Bush!
