Legacy

November 5, 2008 at 12:36 pm (Culture, Happiness, Opinions, Thinking)
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This article, in the Wall Street Journal, displays, I believe, an accurate portrayal of the last eight years, and of the George W. Bush presidency. It is written by a Democrat who worked alongside John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.

Published, ironically, the morning after the election of Barack Obama, it details that Bush’s presidency is not so much a portrayal of one man, as it is a mirror image of the United States. And never mind what it says about how the current man became president, with his revolutionary ideals of change.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace
What must our enemies be thinking?
by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
From the Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2008

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president.

According to recent Gallup polls, the president’s average approval rating is below 30% — down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

The president’s original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, “We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”

To be sure, Mr. Bush is not completely alone. His low approval ratings put him in the good company of former Democratic President Harry S. Truman, whose own approval rating sank to 22% shortly before he left office. Despite Mr. Truman’s low numbers, a 2005 Wall Street Journal poll found that he was ranked the seventh most popular president in history.

Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman’s presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years — and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

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Ironic

September 3, 2008 at 6:24 pm (Culture, Entertainment, Opinions, Thinking)
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I think we are learning, right now, how we really feel about women in power.

Through the nomination of a woman for the vice-presidency, I believed that I would bear witness to a keen cultural shift, a shift that would move our contemporary society to a more generous acceptance of a woman with great power.  As both a student and teacher of history, that is incredibly fascinating.

I also believed, last Friday, that there was great hope for girls.  As a director of a rather large student ministry, with a rather numerous group of girls, and having girls in my own family, I really believed that the world in which they are growing would give them respect and equal footing.  I thought times were changing.

But how wrong I was.

I still may be sitting on the front row of an historical moment for women.  But those who are first in great movements bear the greatest amount of stress, and Governor Palin is no exception.  All things aside, when looking at this moment in perspective, it makes a little more sense.  She placed herself on the altar of criticism, and she knew full well what was coming.  And she did it, anyway.  She did it, perhaps for several reasons, but also knowing that if this election resulted in victory, she would be the first, perhaps of many.

And, for better or worse, she is partnered in this journey with her daughter, who is soon to be a mother herself.  If anything, the current situation shows the real humanity of both mother and daughter, but by no means does it speak of vulnerability or senselessness.  This young mother-to-be is, in many ways, similar to the girl whose life intersected with Jesus, a girl who was discovered and brought to face a soon and sudden death because of her adultery, until those who would deliver the blows were confronted with their own selfish greed and morality.  And those very accusers have spawned their own ancestry.

All of that being said, then, these two ladies are in a unique situation to do things on behalf of women that need to be done. 

Because yesterday, Australia held it’s first-ever Stiletto Sprint, encouraging women to join in a race, wearing stiletto heels, also breaking a world record for the greatest amount of people to enter such a race.  There was a monetary prize, along with a golden pair of high heels.

Stiletto Sprint, Sydney, Australia

And I, for one, have seen, and been part, of meaningless games and activities, all in the name of good fun and fellowship.  But I also think that, in the context of Sarah Palin, the timing of this race in Australia seems a bit ironic.  We, in a modern society, should be lauding the accomplishments of a renaissance woman, for once, who can have a family, run a government, and gain tremendous respect throughout.  But, instead, we ask women to run a race wearing high heels. 

Maybe I am reading too much into this.  And maybe I’ll be proven to be a bit off-center.  But I am offended, not because of the Australian race, and not even because of the explicit criticism of Sarah Palin, but because we have not entirely come to expect, deserve, and appreciate more. 

And that is what is most disappointing.

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Misplaced

August 29, 2008 at 2:54 am (Church, Culture, Entertainment, Opinions, Purpose, Thinking, Worship)
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It’s as if they have lost something.

They filled the stadium in Denver, some 80,000 of them, and lights danced on their faces and they listened to the music of popular musicians, and they held their signs, and showed their smiles, and their exuberance flowed through the screens of televisions, and it was almost infectious.

The stage was built to mirror the architecture of ancient wisdom and democracy, and the stage, the blue stage, looked like the color of the world’s most famous office.  And then he appeared.

He walked into the moment, into the charge, and the stadium with the thousands erupted into a climactic and communal experience.  They have come to see their deliverer.

They would not stop their applause, their emotions overflowing, and he stood there, with what seemed to be a look of almost sheer terror, as though this notion, this idea, this race, was almost too big, even for him.  And the grandiosity of the stage, and the thousands of people, made him look so very, very small, and I had the passing thought that this great idea to stage him in such a large venue with such common and enduring symbolism should have been given more thought.

But that is all pomp.  There are plenty political statements to be made.  And he made them, without shame.  This deliverer decided to use his stage, and his moment, to use biting words, attackful words, that played to the crowd, and the more he delivered his diatribe, the louder the voices became. 

And I feel sorry for each of them.

For the entertainers, who were needed to help fill the oversized arena, and for their songs, their petty, momentous songs. 

For the politicians who were asked to speak, needing and craving the high of the moment. 

For his one-time political rivals, who wished the stage bore their name instead. 

And for the people who felt the need to venerate a mere man.

That’s all he really is.  Place his record aside.  Place his issues aside.  Forget his agendas.  Forget even the controversies.  He is just a man.  A man in a seemingly excitable moment.  But he is just a man.  He cannot solve the myriad of problems his followers endure.  And surely, no man can solve the problems of some three hundred million people.

And to what does this lend any conventional thought?  We are known as a nation where most hold some type of belief in God, with some type of guided and consistent morality.  At least that is our learned reputation.  But this idea that we can put all thoughts of faith to the side to almost worship one man – this smacks at the core of who we think we really are.

These people, these 80,000 strong have gathered together, amidst the lights and the sounds and the exuberance, to place this man and his ideals above all else.  And when they go to their places of worship, and offer their sacrifices of time and money and praise, I can only imagine how God must feel to know that these people may have so misplaced their faith – that these people have taken a part of their dependence on God, and placed it on the shoulders of just a man.

How will God accept their songs?  What does he think when he hears them offer prayers for this one man to save their troubled country?  Once, God saved a great and large group of people from oppression, only to hear their cries to be returned to slavery.  And God met their demands and complaints with a generation of wondering and purging for the very people he liberated.
____________________

So as these people, these 80,000, wash themselves in this contemporary moment, beneath the lights and the celebration and the hope they now place into the hands of just one man, and as their fascination grows with the cacophony of applause and emotion, I can only spend time in prayer, that in some way, they can find the only one that can really save them.

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