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February 11, 2004
Enemies and Haters
VJ asks what is Bush afraid of? He's afraid of the truth, not because he himself can't handle it, but because his enemies cannot and of course will not.
I understand what they are afraid of, but it's something you can't quite really know until you are wealthy and/or powerful in a kind of untouchable way. The simplest way to explain it is when I go back to my friend Bernard. Bernard was some sort of Engineering major and he'd probably kill me because I don't remember. But anyway, one day we're out cursing and spitting on the basketball court early one afternoon. Bernard has a bad attitude on the court and while we're there some homegirls smack their lips and roll their eyes at him. We ignore them. They turn their backs on us and walk off muttering about how trifling we are not respecting them blah blah blah.
What nobody said was that Bernard was pissed off because he was failing optics, which was the final level of college physics he had to take if he wanted to be electrical engineering. (That was it). He couldn't stand the prospect of having to be mechanical engineering - after all this was the 80s and who cares about mech E's (or worse yet Industrial Engineers). But when you are out balling at the park, you are not about to get any sympathy from the homegirls because you are struggling with 4th year Physics.
Two summers ago, when I got cut from a project in Houston, it was the middle of the Enron / Andersen scandal. I lost a gig that was paying me something north of 70 bucks an hour, and of course a lot of people were kicking Andersen to the curb. I learned the lesson again. When you have reached a certain level of success, your failures don't mean a hill of beans to the ordinary joe.
Now neither I nor Bernard have reached the point in our lives where we have professional haters dogging us. Although B sold his little business back in the 90s and cruised around in a convertible Porsche for a while (dating waitress/actress/models, aka WAMs) he got a little bit of hateration, especially from his old girlfriends. But that's nothing compared to being a Bush.
So understand that while Bernard could blow off the homegirls and live with himself, human nature is such that the failure of him to acknowledge the homegirls means he made enemies. They let him off the hook because they dissed him like he was a triflin' n-----. But they would have pressed the issue if they knew he was a real gentleman (or at least he was until he got the Porsche).
So I believe GWBush is saying, yeah I ditched some National Guard BS way back in the day. I don't even pay attention to that mealy stuff - understanding that there are millions of Americans who do (or need a positive head nod from the b-ball court out of common courtesy and respect). But he did what he had to do way back when and got the necessary credential - what does that matter now, he's the President for chrissake.
Haters don't get over slights like this, and they don't want to acknowledge the truth that their concerns are bigger than the Presidents can ever be. But since this is politics, Bush has to pretend that it's as important to him as it is to everyone else. (I'm sure this same rationale applies to Valerie Plame).
An enemy is someone who won't lift a finger when you're failing because they oppose you in the matter you're failing in. A hater is someone who will point a finger at your every failure because you don't recognize them. So who is really concerned about the integrity of the National Guard's personnel records? Nobody.
UPDATE: Isn't the substance of the 'duty evasion' question that as President someone who was evasive would be incapable of leading the military? It seems to me that for a 'dodger' GWBush has done admirably well in the ass-kicking department.
Posted by mbowen at February 11, 2004 03:56 PM
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Comments
Uh, yeah I guess Bush's opponents are just playa-haterz. Or they could just be playing politics, just like Bush and his supporters do ("I am a wartime President, madman, war, madman, war").
Most of the people raising a big stink over this issue don't particularly care about Bush's National Guard service 30 years ago. But they are opposed to Bush, who will run for re-election almost entirely on the idea that he is the only man who can protect us from terror. So they will dig into this and see if it has legs. No surprise.
Posted by: Barbar at February 11, 2004 04:42 PM
That is the best interpretation of this "scandal" that I've read.
Posted by: Keg at February 12, 2004 07:34 AM
"It seems to me that for a 'dodger' GWBush has done admirably well in the ass-kicking department."
He has? Last time I checked it was the guys in uniform doing the kicking of ass, not Bush. He just gave the go ahead and put on a flight suit. Didn't he just say last weekend that the problem with Vietnam was the politicians were running it? If he isn't running the war, he can't take credit for the fine job of the armed forces.
Posted by: walter at February 12, 2004 01:24 PM