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| Peggy Noonan: A Father's Tears |
| 2006-12-09 |
| Former speechwriter Peggy Noonan writes about George H.W.Bush breaking down in tears while speaking at a tribute to son Jeb Bush. Ms. Noonan, who used to like his other son, the sitting president, has some (to me, unnecessarily) pointed things to say about Bush 43's competence. Read the whole thing if you're so inclined -- the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com is free, but you have to register. The bit that actually interested me came near the end: And the younger President Bush, what of his inner world? He has been shorn of much--his place in the winner's circle, old advisers. A man who worked for Richard Nixon reminded me the other night that when Nixon fired Haldeman and Ehrlichman, "he lost his asbestos suit." He lost his primary protectors and loyalists. President Bush is now without a similar layer. Old staffers gone, Rumsfeld gone, Cheney marginalized He is? I hadn't noticed., Condi and Karen off representing. And the ISG. And the loss of Congress.That last remains to be seen -- Lieberman controls the outcome in the Senate; it seems they're to have a re-vote down in New Orleans for the money-in-the-freezer gentleman. And Representative Pelosi just announced they won't be trying to impeach Bush, et al. And yet the president presents himself each day in his chesty way, with what seems a jarring peppiness. A person who saw him in the White House a few days ago described him as "perky, seemed happy." At the modest dinner for outgoing U.N. head Kofi Annan--one participant called it "stinting"--the president joshingly approached a guest. "I don't see many friendly faces here!" he said, leaving the guest deadpanning later, "He mistook me for a friendly face." Unlike anguished wartime presidents of old, he seems resolutely un-anguished. Think of the shattered Lincoln of the last Mathew Brady photographs, taken just weeks before he was assassinated. He'd gone from a bounding man of young middle age who awed his secretaries by his ability to hold a heavy ax from his fully outstretched arm, to, four years later, "the old tycoon." Or anguished Lyndon B. Johnson sitting in the cabinet room by himself, literally with his head in his hands. History takes a toll. But George W. Bush seems, in the day to day, the same as he was. It is part of the Bush conundrum--a supernal serenity or a confidence born of cluelessness? You decide. Where you stand on the war will likely determine your answer. But I'll tell you, I wonder about it and do not understand it, either what it is or what it means. I'd ask someone in the White House, but they're still stuck in Rote Talking Point Land: The president of course has moments of weariness but is sustained by his knowledge of the ultimate rightness of his course . . . |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 "the Bush conundrum--a supernal serenity or a confidence born of cluelessness?" 'God grant me the courage to change what I cannot accept, the serenity to accept what I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.' Words to live by. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-12-09 18:37 |