Bush to UN: Bend Over
Admittedly, there’s a lot of competition for this honor, but in the end, is there any part of the platform that Bush ran on during the 2000 campaign that rings more hollow than his claim that he would run a “humble” foreign policy? Circumstances have changed in the world since then, of course, but the idea of approaching the world community as equals is still works best as a way to get important things done.
Yesterday, Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly as if they were that class of kindergarteners in Florida that he found so entertaining as the planes were crashing into the towers on the morning of September 11. He spoke as if all the alarms he’d raised about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction had been true, as if there were a shred of evidence that Iraq posed a threat to anyone, as if it had been he, rather than the skeptics he scorned and mocked publicly, who had been right. And then, by the way, he finds time to lecture the world body on the issue of the international sex trade, although the United States is not a signatory to any of the major agreements the UN has crafted over the years to address the problem.
Yes, sometimes the United States has to “stand tall” amid a crowd of short-sighted pygmies and we shouldn’t let France or any other country define our interests for us. But part of the reason that France’s opposition is so troublesome to the US right now is because their objections to both the methods and purpose of the Iraq invasion resonated with the just concerns of many other foreign nations, and, by the way, turned out to be closer to the truth than the version offered by Bush. Jacques Chirac, as self-interested and unprincipled a political leader as there is in Europe today, nonetheless demonstrated more credibility than the President of the United States in terms of the veracity of his arguments and his assessment of the actual conditions. That isn’t some big secret. Everyone in the General Assembly hall knew it, and by persisting in insulting the intelligence of the delegates by pushing tired and discredited arguments, Bush did neither himself nor his country any favors.
Even so, Bush has a good argument that the interests of the world are better served by helping him clean up the mess he made rather than standing idle out of spite. The United States has a vital interest in winning that case. Right now, it is the lives of our soldiers, the money from our coffers, and our historical reputation that are on the line. The sooner we can share that burden, the better. Bush knows that (or at least he better), the UN knows it, and the American people know it.
And this is where it comes down to character. If Bush actually believed in the virtue of humility, he would know that sometimes you appear stronger when you admit your mistakes and mend fences. But if there’s one thing we’ve seen from this Administration from day one – even from before the inauguration – it’s an almost pathological inability to acknowledge error. Rather than defer in the slightest to the legitimate arguments of his critics, Bush preferred to push his policy through a sheer demonstration of authority, as if he were the fraternity president who delights in humiliating a bunch of pledges, knowing can do nothing to salvage their dignity in the midst of a cruel initiation ritual.
Some people like that: the tough guy never says he’s wrong. Word! I’m sure there are huge numbers of Bush supporters who would never forgive him for backing down on anything to anyone, because they see him as a surrogate for the strong father, and papa never let no one push him around. Others look at the same behavior and see breathtaking arrogance, stiff-necked stupidity, and, at best, a very poor strategy for achieving results in complex negotiation. When we talk about these differences, we are getting very close to the unfathomable distance that separates hardcore ideologues (of either the left or right) from thinking, breathing human beings. Bush is on one side of that divide; the 48% and growing who are losing faith in his leadership and strategy are on the other.
Many people look at the situation in the UN and see it in the microcosm of their own social experience. Someone shits on the floor and wants other people to help him clean it up. But rather than apologize, or even show concern over the accident and the damage, he claims the carpet had it coming and that all the people who told him he should go to the bathroom are a bunch of commie faggots, and, by the way, could someone run to the kitchen for some warm water and towels? Even though no one wants to stand around and look at the mess, human beings don’t like to be treated that way. They recognize the culprit as a careless idiot, a bully and a jerk, and even if they fear him, they are in no hurry to do him favors.
This is the reputation that our leader has hung on our nation because some flaw in his character prevents him from acknowledging his errors and accepting responsibility. Some people might think that taking this view is somehow un-American. Well, America is bigger than George W. Bush, and patriotism isn’t defined by the lowest common denominator of redneck flag-waving. Anyone who truly loves the country should have their cheeks burning with shame and rage at how it is being betrayed and cheapened by misleadership.
9:13:38 AM 
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