The amazing shrinking president

[paineinthearse]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/10/09/the_amazing_shrinking_president/

The amazing shrinking president
By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist | October 9, 2005

IT'S HARD to listen to George W. Bush and not think about the Wizard of Oz. What comes to mind is the weak, fallible human being who was revealed when Toto pulled the curtain. There, in the small booth, a small, ordinary man, not an omnipotent sorcerer, frantically yanks at levers and dials. When the ''wizard" finally admits the obvious fraud, Dorothy says, ''Oh, you're a very bad man." Replies the wizard, ''Oh, no, my dear, I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad wizard." Of course, ''The Wizard of Oz" -- published first in 1900 as a children's story by L. Frank Baum, then made world-famous by the classic 1939 movie starring Judy Garland -- has long been debated as political allegory.

Today, some people will see presidential adviser Karl Rove as the man behind the curtain. But I see President Bush -- a decent, but flawed man with grandiose intentions, who is looking right now like a very bad wizard-president. Like the wizard, he huffs and puffs in an attempt to maintain bamboozlement in the Land of Oz. But once the curtain is pulled, the people of Emerald City can never look at the fellow behind it the way they did before. The curtain has been pulled on Bush, not by a tiny, black terrier, but by the outcome of presidential decisions and policies.

In recent weeks, Hurricane Katrina revealed a nation unprepared for natural catastrophe. Bush looked weak and ineffective in his initial response to the hurricane. And he was further weakened by the bureaucratic ineptitude televised from New Orleans and personified by Bush's longtime friend, Michael Brown, the deposed head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It all raised serious questions about the nation's preparedness for terrorist attacks.

Bush's most recent Supreme Court nomination adds to the sense of a weakened president. Harriet E. Miers is known chiefly as a friend of Bush, not as a well-known attorney, judge, or legal scholar. In that, she is the opposite of John Roberts, who was confirmed as chief justice on the basis of his credentials and intellect. But it is Iraq itself that pulled the curtain on Bush. His recent speech before the National Endowment for Democracy is yet another attempt to push the levers and turn the dials to gin up support for a ''war on terror" fought in Iraq. Instead of lions and tigers and bears, it is Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and ''a dictator who hated free peoples" (Saddam Hussein). Bush once again links the US invasion of Iraq to the ''great evil" of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush also tries to reverse the creeping feeling of national insecurity by telling Americans that the United States and its partners have disrupted 10 serious terrorist plots since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the damage is already done.

more....

[ixion]

1. I'm sorry, but IMO, * is not a 'decent man'. Not one bit.

He's a spoiled little imp with psychotic and sociopathic tendancies. He has demonstrated nothing more than his ability to be a cruel tyrant and an incompetent leader, and nothing more.

[Captain Hilts]

3. That line surprised me too, when I read it in the Boston Blob. nt

[paineinthearse]

9. The Globe is not what it used to be, a family-run paper

Since the NYT take-over, it has shifted decidedly to the right. Many local beat reporters have been terminated, and their column inches filled with feed from the parent korporation.

So sad.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. A man who promotes torture, murder, and extraordinary rendition

all in the maintenance of continued political power. If there's a decent side to this man, I've never seen it.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Maybe the author is related to the scarecrow. n/t

[Raster]

21. I'm with you and nothing to be sorry about. He is judged by his actions,

not his p.r. I find nothing, NOTHING, decent about or with bush*. It was lies and chicanery that took him to the Oval Office and since his arrival, we have realized the worst of our fears. We-Americans-have been lied to, deceived and outright cheated. Not one fucking decent thing about the man or his misadministration.

[Puglover]

22. Thanks Ixion

you beat me to it. I could'nt have said it any better.

[Aviation Pro]

2. One more time, Vennochi...

...the man stuck firecrackers in frogs asses therefore

THE MAN IS NOT DECENT!

He is a yellow bastard scion of an alcohol-based family whose legacy was started by a Nazi trading, stolen honor thief.

Repeat:

THE MAN IS NOT DECENT!

[Aviation Pro]

5. Addendum

Nearly every forensic and criminal psychologist agree that every mass murderer and serial killer got started by torturing and killing animals.

Sounds like Psycho Killer Cuckoo Bananas fits the trend.

[patricia92243]

4. Excellent article. Bush is a man, and a very bad President. n/t

[afdip]

6. you give dubya the demigod too much credit . . . .

he's a small-minded moron who has, not now or ever, been the architect of his own actions. wm faulkner used to send people who fell out of favor in his novels, to texas. with dubya the demigod, we see what happened to their future generations. he's a scopes from yoknapatawpha county, transplanted to texas.

[Straight Shooter]

7. There is nothing "decent" about bush.

He lies, he cheats, he steals. He's a hypocrite to the nth degree. He's a privileged elitist piece of snot who thinks he's the whole nose on the face of America.

He has an infamously volatile temper, he's petty and vengeful. He uses the followers of God and Christ to implement an agenda of death and destruction.

What's decent about any of that?

Either Venocchi hasn't been paying attention, or else this is the new bush meme for the GOP: forgive him, for he knew not what he was doing

:puke:

[marylanddem]

8. A "weak, fallible human" who is "decent"

I think not. He is a lying piece of crap who stole the White House.

[belle]

20. Well, two out of three, anyway...

Weak and fallible, yep. Decent, not so much.

What's interesting to me is that for the truly hardcore base, I think, they'd could overlook his indecency indefinitely, but for him to show weakness is *really*unforgivable. And that's what's happening here. The rest of us, who value decency, already couldn't stand him.

[susu369]

10. "Bush's longtime friend, Michael Brown"

This is news to me...I've read Brownie was Joe Albaugh's "longtime friend" but did not know bu$h* and Brownie are old buds.

?????????????????

Can anyone confirm this?

I agree: there is nothing "decent" about bu$h*.

[Lisa]

13. yes -- I thought he was a "crony of a crony", not a particular pal of *

I'm getting my degrees of cronyism muddled again. It's easy, with this crowd.

[Cha]

15. she's a reporter in the

21st century..that means they don't know shit..lazy assholes.

[Mass]

17. Not a reporter, a columnist.

and a fairly bad one, as far as I am concerned.

She just thinks she is entitled to her facts.

[Kahuna]

11. I had to send this lady an email re calling bush "decent."

From your article: " But I see President Bush -- a decent, but flawed man with grandiose intentions, who is looking right now like a very bad wizard-president".

Decent??? What's decent about him? Practically every word that falls from his lips are lies meant to mislead and hide his real agenda. What's decent about that? I guess now you're going to tell us that poor little Georgie doesn't even realize that he's lying.

What good thing has he ever done in his miserable life? The man stole the presidency in 2000 to hoist his fascist agenda that we have seen played out before us for the past five years on unsuspecting citizens. He doesn't give a damn about anybody. Prove that he does! You can't. the proof is in what he does. Not, what he says he does. As a reporter you oughta know better that the rest of us. The sooner people start to believe their own eyes instead of the bile fed to us by media types like yourself the better off we will all be. He's evil. He's always been evil. He will always be evil. That's just him. His father was evil before him (Iran/Contra anyone?). But for pure guile Jr. takes the cake.

[Lisa]

12. I almost misread the article as "wizened president"

And yes, he does look kind of shrunken and wrinkly. At this rate he will resemble those heads that some of the indigenous peoples would make in New Guinea.

[Cha]

14. bush is not DECENT, joan!

Buy a clue! Wasn't this the one who wrote lies about John Kerry?

[Mass]

16. JOhn Vennochi is a closet Republican

She supported Romney, hates most of the MA Democrats one way or another. Now she finds Bush a decent man.

[Puglover]

23. I got a response from Vennochi regarding my letter to her

I sent her a note this morning telling her I found it laughable that she could refer to him as a decent man. This is her response.

"well laugh away.
I find it laughable that is the one phrase you would focus on in a cloumn that basically kicked the you know what out of him."
Sincerely, Joan Vennochi


Well honestly I was impressed she replied and she does have a point. I think I'm just so over the top filled with anger with this guy that I can't hear anything good about him without a huge reaction.