Imagine, if you will, a privileged young American coming of age during the 1960s. He's just graduated from a prestigious college with grades of gentleman's Cs. More interested in laissez le bon temps roulez than doing anything productive, he leads a riotous, aimless life, dabbling in drugs and drinking heavily. He behaves recklessly when intoxicated and is arrested for driving while under the influence. When confronted with his disturbing behavior by his father, they almost come to blows. When faced with the war raging in Vietnam, he finagles a way to avoid fighting in it. Unwilling or unable to stand on his own, he trades on the family name to get by.
We all know who I'm talking about, right? Well, guess again. That is, unless you guessed Bruce R. Mulkey. And, yes, according to some biographers of the Bush family, George W. Bush would have been a good guess too.
And the similarities continue. I started an energy conservation company, and George started and oil and gas exploration company. But here's where we parted company. Though family and friends propped up my failing venture for a while, I wound up going bankrupt, losing my home and a marriage in the process. When George drilled one empty well too many, his bankrupt company was bought out by Harken Energy, and Bush became a director of that organization.
I paid the consequences for my irresponsibility and inexperience. George W. did not. My bankruptcy and its aftermath led me to awaken to the fact that I'm responsible for my life and what I make of it. It was clearly time to defecate or get off the toilet. I stopped drinking and taking drugs and got on with it.
George W. Bush's family and friends, on the other hand, continued to shield him from the consequences of his actions enabling him to further prolong his adolescence. And so he's persisted in using family connections to become part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, governor of Texas and president of the United States without having to really earn those positions on his own merit. He gives the impression of being an effective leader to the inexperienced eye. But in the first presidential debate against the Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry on Thursday night, Bush revealed that he's been in the protective cocoon that his handlers have created for a bit too long. During the one and one-half hour debate the president had to go mano a mano against a formidable opponent. And it was apparent that he wasn't up to the task. George appeared hesitant, short-tempered and defensive much of the evening. Rather than effectively advocating his positions, the president robotically repeated the same phrases like an unprepared frat boy during oral exams. It's easy to shout “Bring ’em on” to a foe thousands of miles away. It's quite another to effectively defend a dismal record without a script and Vice President Cheney whispering in your ear.
When I look into the eyes of the current occupant of the White House it's like looking into a mirror of the distant past and seeing myself as I once was. Before I changed my ways I was a danger to myself and to those around me. Fortunately my sphere of influence was small. George's is not. His simplistic notion of good guys and bad guys, his naïve belief that might makes right, his vengeful exploits against wrongdoers real and imagined jeopardize the people of this nation and the entire planet.
In his exaggerated view of his own self-importance, the born-again Bush believes that God has chosen him to lead our nation at this time. And in his mind and in the minds of many of his followers, this is the reason enough for his reelection. Yet who really knows? Maybe God did choose him. Maybe God thought we needed an opportunity to clearly see this government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy for what it really is. Maybe the political pendulum needed to swing to this extreme position for us to wake up from our perilous complacency. Maybe we needed to see on national television that the emperor has no clothes. And maybe family and friends won't be able to rescue Bush from the mayhem he's created this time. Maybe, just maybe, it's finally time for George W. Bush to be held accountable for the consequences of his irresponsible and foolhardy actions.
