NegativeSpin - Our Day of Pity

We Have Pity - August 19, 1999

We're starting to pity him...

We've got one of those days, trying to compile a few more verbal jabs concerning this fellow whose biggest proven crime is nothing more than wanting to serve his country with honor and dignity, and we're starting to pity him. This is an entirely unnecessary and unprofessional attitude, we know. But there is something pitiful about watching G.W. face the cameras, darting his eyes back and forth as he tries to anticipate the exact question and respond to it without really saying anything new.

Today he was on TV, for a few minutes anyway. (It was Fox News and they don't like to show anything that might last more than three minutes. And especially if there's no hint of scandal; we can imagine that back at the studio when the subject went from drugs to something else, they were frantic over how quickly they could cut away.) Anyway, the first reporter took his cue from the Dallas Morning News, and asked specific questions about drug testing regulations for federal officials, since G.W. left out the time from his 18th birthday till 1974 in the scope of his denials. But G.W. stuck to his line, and it was pitiful to see.

When another reporter tried to interrupt him, G.W. shot a look in that direction that seemed to promise an oncoming temper tantrum. (It's funny that he thinks they'd be shamed, when a good blow-up would be their greatest glory to date.) Fortunately for him, he counted to three and kept his cool. Poor guy, we were thinking, here he is in the Presidential race and his skin is about as thin as we'd like to be. It is hard to imagine him actually as President with all the sorry stuff he'd have to face. We hope, of course, that he won't have to face scandals or any questioning harsher than "How's your day going?", but if he does it won't be pretty.

He gave his answers then, actually a little more than he'd said before, but also he repeated the same sorry lines that he's already run into the ground. In this vein he said, "I believe it's important to put a stake in the ground and to say 'enough is enough' when it comes to trying to dig up people's backgrounds in politics." Of course it's not comfortable to have people digging around in your background looking for the precious treasure of scandal, but that's why you remain a private citizen, with a privacy fence around your background. But isn't it utterly bizarre that he could have lived through the Clinton years and not have expected this? So there's something to pity him for, that he missed all the examples set in the Clinton years.

And as for his person and what life is doing to him, look at all the lines on his face, his forehead. If they ever wanted to put him on Rushmore, there's no way they could dig that deeply into the rock and still have it geologically stable. If this is what life has done to him thus far, imagine what the Presidency would accomplish; he'll have to turn completely around to wipe his brow. Pitiful.

Well, at least he has handlers to help him handle the burden. He doesn't have to face all this stuff alone. They're inside, at first telling him what to say, no doubt, floating all the options and all that, and then crossing their fingers that he'll say the right thing when he's out there. We'll see the book someday, maybe the movie, like "Primary Colors," showing us the varying states of elation and grief that these proud foot soldiers of the campaign are experiencing. That'd be a pretty cool job, enjoying the camaraderie of the quest and then having a cigar after election night (even the women) and saying "Mr. President." Maybe one of us could get a job with the campaign, some new job like "First Vice President in Charge of Restricting Tucker Carlson's Access to the Candidate."

Part of our pity today is also for ourselves. This might sound kind of "flighty" and maybe like we also suffer delusions of grandeur at times, but our fears are not entirely unjustified. We know the campaign has lots of power and probably lots of corruption. And we're a little nervous that they might try to strongarm us, to silence our powerful voice. Everyone has a price, they say. And it'd be possible that they could buy us off, although if we were to be bought off we'd hate to go too cheaply. There's not much difference between a hundred and two hundred dollars. But there's quite a difference between a hundred dollars and, say, $50,000. And while we could hardly respect ourselves if that were to happen, it would be a temptation that would be very hard to resist. Especially if they were also busy poisoning pets and relatives and all the other corrupt things that they are no doubt adept at. To be a great public servant, as the candidate desires to be, doesn't always exclude being a little on the shady side. No one expects there to be nice guys in politics, and certainly not with all the corruption and graft at stake. (It's not like we're George Will, who has some decent resources at hand to fend off these kinds of assaults. Hey, has anyone noticed how Cal Thomas has spent the last eight years crucifying Clinton for every little thing, and now all of a sudden politics doesn't matter, that it's all inner conversion? Just in time for Bush and his faith-based self-sufficiency doctrine, and Cal will be justified in overlooking his inevitable sins. Although, to his credit, Cal doesn't like Bush using words usually associated with the 'unredeemed'.)

You know, we're almost talking our way out of this pity. And we're getting back a little of the spirit that inspires us to jab at a screwball like Bush. He frankly just doesn't seem good enough to be President. Like today, even if it had been some other subject, assuming Fox News would have shown it, he'd have probably come across just as whiney and snivelling. In contrast, one thing we like about Mr. Clinton is that he seems to know a lot about every little subject. And while the things he says tends to be predictable, he also tends to say them with a Presidential pose, like he believes someone is always standing close by and chiselling his words in granite. Bush slurs his words, drawls, stammers, and sounds kind of like a guy we knew in sophomore speech class. One Clinton thing Bush is trying to emulate, it seems, are all the different facial gestures Clinton makes. But with Bush at this point it can't connect, since we don't yet know him. He ends up looking like someone who thinks exercise prevents palsy.

Well, the election is a long ways off. And we still have a lot to learn. Maybe Bush will grow on us, maybe we'll get used to him and his antics. Or maybe the Republicans will spare us that unlikelihood by finding someone better. It's tough to predict the future, notwithstanding the great Dan Quayle line, "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."

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