According to Mona Charon, the real tragedy of George W. Bush is that his memory will be forever linked to the War on Terror, when what he really ought to go down in the history books for is a smokin’ hot case of Jungle Fever:
a poignant aspect of this president’s two terms is his unrequited love for blacks and other minorities.
Like Erik in Phantom of the Opera, Bush pours out his yearning heart in song to the naive and nubile Christine. But in the end, she will reject him for her own kind, and Bush, crazed with torment, will drop a chandelier on Iran. But perhaps the saddest aspect of the President’s heartbreak is that it need not have been. For like Desdemona in Othello, Bush’s pure and faithful love has been unjustly maligned by men of fell intent:
George W. Bush was painted as the devil by many black leaders. It’s remarkable that this was so, considering Mr. Bush’s steadfast and unwavering interest in the poor and minorities, but there it is. When no other opportunity for tarring President Bush presented itself, his detractors seized upon Hurricane Katrina as the catch basin for all the free-floating bile against the president.
I remember those days; sometimes the bile was so thick it was hard to see all the free-floating bodies. But in retrospect it’s clear that minority leaders were trying to break up Bush and blacks by spreading wild rumors and somehow making it seem like Katrina was the President’s fault, until the two lovers were helplessly entangled in a simple, but wacky misunderstanding, much like Gary Collins and Mary Ann Mobley in the Love American Style episode, “Love and the Sex Survey.”
Remember the way George W. Bush first campaigned? He was the “compassionate conservative.” He visited so many black churches he could have applied for membership in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He telegraphed early and often that if elected he’d choose Colin Powell for Secretary of State (and that was only the beginning of his promotion of blacks and Hispanics to high office — he might as well have believed in affirmative action).
Because he certainly didn’t hire Condi Rice for her mind.
He boasted (en Espanol) of his excellent record winning the votes of Hispanics in Texas. He lamented the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
He obediently mouthed other catch-phrases his speechwriters had coined for him, just like the ardent Christian in Cyrano. But he wasn’t all talk; Daddy showered his baby with promises of expensive baubles in the afterlife, too, like…
[T]he faith-based initiative that was aimed at helping all of those who for one reason or another fall into economic or psychic woe. As his former speechwriter Michael Gerson recalled, “He [wa]s deeply committed to the idea of helping the poor through community and faith-based institutions.”
“It wasn’t just a cynical way to seem sensitive to poor minority communities while funneling payoffs to the white evangelicals who’d gotten out the vote. No, baby, you know me better than that. Baby I’m deeply committed to the idea of somebody else helping you out sometime.”
Perhaps we’d all have been better off if Black America had just given Bush a pity fuck and let him get it out of his system. Instead, he’s running up debts and selling off parcels of the family estate just to buy trinkets for this saucy and elusive coquette:
When President Clinton traveled to Africa, black Americans rejoiced at the recognition. Poor President Bush practically bankrupted the treasury by spending on AIDS treatment in Africa.
We could have won the the war in Iraq already if Bush hadn’t blown the Federal wad by flooding the Third World with life-saving drugs and condoms.
The excitement at the prospect of the first African-American president is natural and understandable. But the total contempt shown by the African-American community toward this president is a staggering injustice.
Because no President since Thomas Jefferson has loved blacks more. Or at least tried to.
*snort* That was lovely.
Really, Mona is apparently even dumber than I thought. Which kind of impresses me. Like all nitwit conservatives, she appears to have mistaken speeches for reality, promises for action, words for, well, truth. And Bush, and maybe any politician, doesn’t work like that.
This is the saddest part though:
considering Mr. Bush’s steadfast and unwavering interest in the poor and minorities
You know, I’ve never accused the man of being racist. He seems to not give a fuck about poor white people he doesn’t know just as much as he doesn’t give a fuck about poor black people he doesn’t know. Which is egalitarianism, of a sort.
Left by D. Sidhe on July 27th, 2008