Letters to the Editor
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Bush has greatness?
I could see from watching Alexandra Pelosi's documentary 'journeys with George' following Bush around his 2000 campaign trail, that he wasn't without a certain charm at times. There is a memorable scene when it's his birthday and he comes across as at least capable of being affable.
but greatness? It was said that Fuhrer was very charming with his secretaries and took pains to discuss their more mundane concerns, It's perfectly possible to accept that however 'beastly' he'd been to others, the secretaries viewed him as likeable, and rightly so, as he had showed a softer side to them.
This is the nub, is it not? you can say what you like about a human being, most of us being people pleasers, are mightily impressed when the powerful deign to give us any time or show us kindness.
I rememember thinking that the world would never be the same again after seeing that the presidential candidate for '92 was playing the Sax on Jay Leno's show.
And here for me is the most interesting facet of what comes across so powerfully in Bush and his entourage. They were going to be different to Clinton, and they were. They reeked of a macho pre-watergate 1970s vibe, the GOP as anti-therapeutic, anti touchy-feely, lock-em-up, shoot-em-first , ask'em questions later.
That's what was so shocking, I thought that world had moved on, and this sort of stuff couldn't return, it was after all the new millenium but the public had 'sort-of' voted for a bunch of buttoned-up, hard-assed emotional neanderthals, emotional assholes even.
To paraphrase Hitchens, Bush is not great, no, not in any sense. The only thing they misundersestimated about him is what a colossal disaster would befall the republic from this word-mangling buffoon and his malevolent entourage and shady backers.