The Emperor's New Limo
The 2000 Election
The new presidential limousine is just hideous. The car, however, is completely adequate, in tone and spirit, for our new president. I could have wished no more appropriate a banner for our new, ideologically bankrupt president. Dubya placed his hand on the bible, and I, literally, almost cried. Instead, I shook my head sadly and turned off my TV. It's a disgrace. It's hideous. And that was just the car.
George
W. Bush was sworn in
yesterday as the 43rd president of the United States, and I have
experienced a profound epiphany: the new presidential limousine
is just hideous. I have absolutely no idea what they were
thinking. I keep hearing these horrible reports of disgruntled
workers going on shooting sprees through corporate offices.
While I certainly could never wish this event on anyone, I wish
an emotional rampage on the designers of General Motors for
ruining the most classic, highest-recognition nameplate in the
world by turning it into a Cheshire cat and bug-eyed automotive
equivalent of Heathcliff, worthy of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The
limousine of the president of these so-called United States is,
undeniably, the highest profile vehicle in the world, a symbol
of power and prestige. GM's abortion of a design scheme fairly
screams about our country's ideological and creative bankruptcy.
Dr. Seuss' New Car. The Country That Has Run Out of Ideas. The
car, however, is completely adequate, in tone and spirit, for
our new president. I could have wished no more appropriate a
banner for our new, ideologically bankrupt president, a coward
of epic and stunning proportions who clearly does not himself
believe he was actually legitimately elected. Emotionally, this
“transfer” of power feels to me like a game of jacks played by
ten year-olds, where one of them snatches the prize from the
other and then goes on to stonewall, in the thinnest and least
defensible kid-argument, as to why he “won” the game.
The swearing in completely depressed me because it symbolized
the deep divisions of race, class, social status, sexual
orientation and religious preference in this country, and how
easily one interest group will pulp the other in brass-knuckle
contests to get what they want. Dubya, the 10 year-old,
stonewalled his way into an Oval Office he did not legitimately
win, So Help Him God. Sniffing piously that he is the president,
when his face betrays the fact he himself doesn't believe it.
Ronald Reagan never had to sniff and act pious. Nixon certainly
knew he was the president. Eisenhower had no cloud over his
head. But, I imagine, Dubya will spend a great deal of time in
his single term presidency acting presidential, looking
presidential, and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y pronouncing them big words
as he rides around in his Dr. Seuss limousine trying to govern a
country that didn't want him.
But, let's be fair: we didn't want Al, either. We wanted Bill,
but Bill wasn't running. The closest we could get to Bill was
McCain, who was too politically cowardly to spend that capital
in an independent run that many pollsters said he would have
won. Instead, now John has to grin and swallow it and pretend to
support Dubya, a man he loathes and who clearly loathes him. I'm
deeply offended by this hypocrisy, and Mr. Straight Talk Express
McCain has lost my vote for all time. What would the difference
have been between this cowardly capitulation and an Indy run?
John, for you, either way, it's over.
Most people think Al Gore won the vote in Florida. Dubya,
apparently, thinks so, too. Otherwise, why would he fight so
hard to prevent votes from being counted? Why would he or his
henchmen mount podium after podium declaring themselves, in
empty and hollow dirges, to be the “winner” in Florida? We kept
hearing all this stupidity about the good of the nation and the
rule of law and so forth, but the brazenly embalmed Katherine
Harris was just so very bad at hiding her chiseled-fanged
desperation to give the state to her honey that it tainted the
very prize she was awarding. Harris could have at least
pretended to be fair, or at least been less ruthless in her
relentless beat-the-clock certification process. Instead, she
handed Dubya the ice cream cone that had clearly been dropped on
the sidewalk. And that's about what Dubya deserves. And Dubya is
about what we deserve.
Dubya doesn't actually believe he won Florida. He claims to have
faith in the American people and faith in God. He has neither.
If he'd had any faith in God or man, he would have stopped the
Hatfield-McCoy feud, gone to Washington, and stood on the steps
of the Supreme Court with Al and bipartisan congressional
leaders, where they would have looked the American people in the
eye and said, “We're gonna solve this problem.” Certification
dates would go out the window and uniform standards would be
adopted state-wide, with a bevy of observers from both parties.
Had Dubya and Al and the congress stood united, no court— not
even the Renquist one— would have gotten in the way of a fair
and honest count in Florida. A count Dubya might actually have
won, had he had any faith in the process. And then I'd be less
depressed about the oath and the Batmobile and so forth.
I remember reading about the Civil War and the struggle to free
the slaves (the Civil War was not about freeing the slaves,
freeing the slaves was a political maneuver to help win the war,
but that's a rant for another day). I'd read about it and wonder
how we, as an American people, could ever have been so ignorant
as to think a person was somehow less human based on the color
of their skin. How could we ever have thought it was a good and
Christian thing to herd a proud nation of people through the
Middle Passage, sell them like property, and rape, as a matter
of course and consequence, their children (regularly and as an
accepted matter of consequence, slave masters helped themselves
to female salves. And, colorful notions of dancing darkies
notwithstanding, these rapes were usually of children- pre-teen
and teenage girls). How could this ever have been an accepted
practice? Have we really matured that much in a single century?
And, what will we think of the rigor mortified Harris a century
from now? Did anyone really believe slavery was ok? Did anyone
really believe in Oswald at the book depository? And will anyone
ever truly believe it was a coincidence that the 2000
presidential race came down to the vote in Florida— a state
governed by the candidate's brother and a vote administered by
Dubya's ghoulish campaign chair? Are we really that stupid? And,
Renquist swearing this guy in— credibility lost all over the
place. An inaugural parade route nearly empty of spectators
except for the protestors., whose number certainly would have
swelled had the futility of protest not discouraged most of us
from even bothering. And Dubya in his new Korageous Kat and
Minute Mouse limousine, a harbinger of things to come.
Personally, I blame Al for this. Al's a nice guy, but he's not
Bill. He's said that himself, over and over. And, as much the 10
year-old as Bush, he ran his campaign like a 10 year-old, making
Bill beg to help and participate. But Al, trying so hard to win
new friends and not offend old ones, kept the most exciting,
vibrant and powerful campaigner of the 20th century on the bench
because the guy acted inappropriately with a chubby gal. It was
stupid. We want Bill. That's what every poll said. If I were
running, there'd not be a clip of me on TV that didn't have Bill
shackled to my side.
Then Al let his moron advisors talk him into acting like a
Republican, playing politics with the Florida recounts. Instead
of pressing for a uniform standard and recounting the entire
state, they decided on “anything goes” non-standards (so long as
it generated a vote for Al), and they wanted only targeted
districts counted. Which left the door way open for Dubya, a man
who would, apparently, stop at absolutely nothing to prevent
those votes from being counted. It was a terrible political
blunder, second only to the exclusion of Bill from the campaign,
and, frankly Al, you got what you deserved.
In order to get anything done in Washington, you have to have
better street smarts than that. You have to be able to battle
these partisans on their own turf. Did Al win Florida? Who
knows. But the White House janitors will be trying for the next
three years, 364 days of Dubya's single term to get the stink of
it out of the West Wing.
Dubya is president. Bill is gone. The presidential limousine was
designed by Gumby. I'm terribly depressed about it all. All the
moreso because the very nature of these facts is revelatory of
the character of the American political culture. Nothing has
changed. We've just found tidier ways to go about being black
people and white people, rich people and poor people, all
fighting for 200 million special interests. What glimmer of hope
I once had that we as a nation had matured much beyond the
plantation days died when the Supreme Court of the land became
accomplices after the fact, halting the count and running out
the clock on behalf of their beloved Dubya. As though the date
of the Inaugural were more important to our fate than the
fairness of the electoral process.
Renquist, anointer of Weak Kings, is apparently oblivious to the
snickers echoing through the halls of so-called justice over his
theatrical Here Come De Judge six-striped Impeachment Robe. He
is, perhaps, even more oblivious to his plummeting credibility,
first for participating in the stunningly merit-less Bubba
ousting, and now for being too gutless to imbibe the “wisdom” of
his legal opinion with the emotional sustenance the nation as a
whole universally thirsted for: a sense of fairness and justice.
Had Renquist or Dubya or Al managed that hat trick— including
fairness and justice to the opinion of legal merit— the nation
would not now be spiraling out of the happy Bubba regime, camps
polarized and entrenched. There'd be more people cheering and
praying for the new president.
But, in his selfish, partisan, good ol' boy, small-minded,
ungodly, paranoid, STUPID, pouty 10 year-old's grab for the
White House, Dubya demonstrated his innate lack of spirituality,
wisdom, integrity or core values. He is the soulless president,
a man completely unworthy of our trust. Had he the courage to
risk his chance for the White House in an effort to bring
fairness and justice to the so-called “rule” of law— had he
gambled everything in the name of fairness and justice— had he
refused to become president by default— had he gone even two or
three steps in the direction of bravery, honesty and integrity—
and won— even I would be singing his praises now. But Dubya is,
in the final analysis, gutless. He is a very stupid man for
squandering his long-term legacy for a short-term, hopefully
single-term, grab at the Oval Office. He is very short-sighted
and, in the end, a very small person. That car fits him
perfectly.
Dubya placed his hand on the bible, and I, literally, almost
cried. Instead, I shook my head sadly and turned off my TV. It's
a disgrace. It's hideous.
And that was just the car.
Christopher J. Priest
21 January 2001
editor@praisenet.org
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