[lit-ideas] Re: with or without Bush
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 00:28:28 EDT
In a message dated 8/2/2004 11:30:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
mccreery@xxxxxxx writes:
It could be, of course, that this whole argument is misconceived, since the
mere presence or absence of one or another president is supposed to have some
magical effect.
In some cases, I don't think we can contend that outcomes would be different
if Gore were President, because many of the constraints on tactics were
external. We probably didn't want to start pouring massive forces into the
Pakistani
tribal area because we feared that Mushareff would be overthrown, pro-Taliban
factions would try to gain control of the Pak nuke forces, and that would
cause us to intervene in Pakistan in a particularly terrible way.
This isn't the Eisenhower Presidency either, but a far less powerful
presidency, its executive powers reigned in and severely checked. For example,
I doubt
older-generation presidents would have had the trouble about their mistresses
that Clinton did. Eisenhower would have silenced Kenneth Starr. Andrew
Jackson would probably have shot Starr himself.
While I agree (as Kerry said at the Convention) that it would be good to have
a national leader who believed in science, I also think that the election
year has everyone drowning in metonymy.
By this metonymy, "Bush" has come to mean, not Dubya's particular directives
or policies, but everything that happens. "Bush" becomes our scruples about
the Pakis. "Bush" becomes FBI bureaucrats covering their butts. "Bush" is the
PhD sweeping Walmart floors. "Bush" is the tacky, anti-intellectual,
antipopulist fill-in-the-blank.
That can't be right. If everything is "Bush," then we can't really complain
about "Bush" because there's nothing but "Bush" out there, and hence nothing to
which we can compare "Bush." It's "Bushes" all the way down.
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