January 5, 2009 -- “Well, I've been down so Goddamn long that it looks like up to me” sang The Doors 40 or so years ago.
After eight Bush administration years and decades of Republican rule that seems a fitting way to begin 2009. It all looks up to me. As columnist Eugene Robinson put it in the Washington Post it is a “bright line between yesterday and tomorrow.”
All of the punditry, and the denizens of the White House, have spent the last few days and weeks reflecting on the past or foretelling the future. Most of the famed columnists of the New York Times have been taking time off lately. I thought it was just to enjoy the holiday season, but it could be that they are out looking for other work. The mighty Times is on the list compiled by 24/7 Wall St of organizations that will not make it through year 2009. The Rock of Gibraltar of the newspaper business. Makes you think of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “My candle burns at both ends, it shall not last the nig, but oh my foes and oh my friends it gives a lovely light.” If the Times goes down it can be said it gave a lovely light.
Like the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado he’s got a little list which includes Chrysler, Sirus XM, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rite-Aid, and Pier 1 among others. Is it too early to say Sayonara?
There is much to look at in the rearview mirror. For instance, where did the money go? On Wall Street, about $7 trillion of shareholder’s wealth, to paraphrase the character Roy in the movie Bladerunner, washed away “like tears in rain.” It represented the gains of the last six years. Market value lost totals $30.1 trillion. Banks that failed in 2008 numbered 25. That’s a pretty penny (an expression that no longer has meaning).
If you would like to revisit the last eight years, the February issue of Vanity Fair published an excellent piece: “Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House.” The threat of 9/11 ignored. The threat of Iraq hyped and manipulated. Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Hurricane Katrina. The shredding of civil liberties. The rise of Iran. Global warming. Economic disaster. How did one two-term presidency go so wrong? “A sweeping draft of history—distilled from scores of interviews—offers fresh insight into the roles of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and other key players”… all of it. You can read it on line, but I suggest you not print it out. It is 31 pages in 12 point type. Wait and buy the magazine.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/bush-oral-history200902?printable=true¤tPage=all
As the President makes his rounds of exit interviews, more than any other outgoing President has ever done before, his reflective mood is chilling, especially if you have seen the Frost/Nixon movie, or play, in which Frank Langella does such a masterful job as Nixon. New York Times columnist Frank Rich calls these interviews the Bush “legacy project.” You can watch Nixon, vilified, disgraced, admitting at last his capability, and think but Bush and his cohorts did so much more damage and yet they are getting off free. Scot free.
Rich is particularly rough on the President, calling him “smaller than life. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana. Pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is.”
Rich writes about the Bush “alternative-reality history.” He asks how “someone so slight could inflict so much damage?” But then “his every action is blessed from on high.” The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Karl Rove, as well as Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, claims Bush has been reading as many as 95 books a year. Not just any books, but ones as intellectually challenging as Albert Camus. As he reads and reflects, you wonder if he came across this quote by Camus: "Life is the sum of all your choices.” courtesy of Dr. Mardy’s quotes this week. Richard Cohen in the Washington Post calls this … “dropping the good ol' boy persona and picking up the ol' bifocals one.”
I have a hard time buying this for several reasons. That’s about a book slightly over every three and a half days. What with reading those books, riding his bike, and cutting brush, when did he have time to be President? Condi Rice was quoted as telling others to keep their memos short because the President was “not a reader.”
The real question in my mind is how can you read all of those books and not get a better feel for the English language? Here are a few of the memorable Bushisms from a long list compiled by the Associated Press.
"I want to thank the dozens of welfare-to-work stories, the actual examples of people who made the firm and solemn commitment to work hard to embetter themselves." April 18, 2002, at the White House.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill.
"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job." Sept. 20, 2005, in Gulfport, Mississippi.
"I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office." June 26, 2008, during a Rose Garden news briefing.
"This thaw _ took a while to thaw, it's going to take a while to unthaw." Oct. 20, 2008, in Alexandria, Louisiana as he discussed the economy and frozen credit markets.
The President may be a little pensive and reflective, but the Vice President is as brazenly unremittingly Cheney as ever. No second thoughts for him. Everything went swimmingly. On December 21, Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday even got him to echo the Richard Nixon line that caused such a stir. He asked Cheney "If the President, during war, decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?" "In general proposition, I'd say yes," Cheney said. Nixon said “If the President does it it’s not illegal.” From a man who fit’s the criteria of “war criminal.”
But what of some of the things we may expect in 2009? What if Obama makes his summer White House in Hawaii? George Bush made his in Crawford and invited visiting heads of state to visit him there. If Obama does the same, can you picture a Saudi in flowing robes on a surf board? Or German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the beach in a bikini?
Here are odds of certain personal disasters befalling you in 2009, by NASA. The likelihood of being hit by any of the six substantial Near Earth Objects is 1 in 2,518,070. Your chances of falling out of bed or off other furniture is set at 1 in 329,819 (considering my track record I don’t believe I could get anyone to give me odds like that). Choking on food: 1 in 343,179. Motor vehicle accident: 1 in 6,539. Have a Happy New Year.
On a sober note, columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. in the Washington Post writes "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." We need to get away from the concept of a “War On Terror.” We are battling against “ideas rooted in the medieval past.” He writes of the “urgency of disenthralling ourselves from dated market ideas.” We cannot operate without significant regulations. Well, now I’m pretty disenthralled.
It looks like we will not have governor and ex-presidential candidate Bill Richardson as Commerce Secretary after all. Under investigation for some kind of supposed misdeed, he withdrew his name from consideration. Republicans in the Senate are threatening to filibuster against seating ex-comedian Al Franken as senator from Minnesota, proving once again that the GOP has no sense of humor. The famed Rainbow Room will be closing its restaurant, the sign of a new era, though the owners plan to keep the bar and banquet space open. “The Rainbow Room has symbolized cosmopolitan elegance since it opened in 1934, during the Great Depression” (AP). It is located above NBC's studios at Rockefeller Center. I suppose they will have to disinter the remains of Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians and move them someplace else.
On the food and drink front, Bon Appétit magazine says it will be the year of Peanut Butter. The trend is to peanut butter desserts. (Sugar that sticks to your teeth ought to be a boon for dentists). Locavores will be snaking on caffeinated sunflower seeds, potato chips, and candies according to Time magazine. That ought to make for a hyper year. Tex-Italian is a trend. Jalapeño stuffed with Gncchi?
Upscale Saki is a trend, with one Las Vegas restaurant offering 110 varieties. The Japanese are drinking less Saki, but more Scotch. We are drinking less scotch, but more Saki. Wonder if we can get them to buy American cars?
“Beer is the new wine” they say. Now they tell me, after years of trying to get that “hint of saddle” or “wet dog finish” out of my glass of wine. I will have to count on help from the beer Sommelier, and some restaurants now have them.
Thanks to Dr. Mardy again, comes this quote from author, playwright Jean Kerr: "Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living."
I would take that as a challenge, except it is too late in life. I’m just happy to be able to get the glass to my lips now and then.
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