George Bush, Warrior Bureaucrat

by Greg Weiher

Ok, so now we know what that whole thing was about with President Bush and the aircraft carrier. He was obviously trying to make up for the days he missed in the Air National Guard! I can just see him now, rubbing elbows with the jet jocks and swaggering around in his top gun outfit.

Because this guy is nothing if not a warrior. I give him a lot of credit for putting the “mess” back into the national tumescence, you know?

Why, it seems like only yesterday that President Bush allowed as how there were evildoers who believed that the United States would lose its resolve in Iraq. “There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is ‘bring ‘em on’!”

And do you remember when he decided it was time to go “over the heads of the filter,” and how he told the National Guard troops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “Americans are not the running kind.”

And it was only November 3 last year, after sixteen soldiers died in Iraq when their helicopter was shot down, that he expressed again his flinty resolve – “America will never run!” I can just see his gunfighter squint.

So I don’t know if you remember when he made his visit to Indonesia last year? Not very many places offer a better opportunity to “beard the lion in its den”, as it were – I mean, what with the rebellion in Aceh Province, the presence of Jemaah Islamiyah, and the terrorist bombing of an Indonesian night club that killed more than 200. What better opportunity for the president to come swooping down from the sky in an F-14 Tomcat bristling with missiles and cannons, a .45 strapped to each hip, a bandolier hanging from each shoulder? You know, with his experience as a pilot and all?

So I was really surprised at the language of the report in the New York Times:

Mr. Bush’s three-hour stopover in the world’s most populous Muslim nation was restricted for security reasons to Bali, the overwhelmingly Hindu resort island, and he traveled less than a mile from where Air Force One was parked on the airport tarmac. . . . The secret service was clearly concerned about Mr. Bush’s visit here, and they selected Bali instead of the Muslim heartland of the country. . . . Mr. Bush tried to make the best out of what many Indonesians seemed to regard as an awkward visit. . . .With the battle with terrorists continuing here, . . . the pilots guiding Air Force One and a nearly identical backup plane made an unusual landing . . . low and fast over the water, and Mr. Bush never came in contact with the Balinese who live in this crowded city.

What’s up with this? Was Karl Rove consulted on this thing? This sounds like the work of some namby-pamby, secret-service-wimp holdover from the Clinton administration. I say, let Bush be Bush! Come on, now, if you take away his swagger, there’s not that much left!

We already have to refute that leftie drivel about him not being so smart, about him not being that stunning a businessman, about him not stepping forward to defend the country during the Viet Nam War (not an inch of America fell to the commies while he was on duty!), about him not really winning the election – I mean it just goes on and on.

Now, with this kind of stuff in the New York Times and all of that nonsense about him being AWOL from the National Guard, we’re going to be right back where we were with his dad – you know, the “I am not a wimp” thing. (Remember, it was Bush 41 who “kicked Geraldine Ferraro’s ass” in the vice-presidential debates, and she was one tough broad!). You might get the wacked-out impression from this Indonesia coverage that Bush 43 is willing to fight to the death to defeat global terrorism – just as long as somebody else is doing the dyin

Greg Weiher is a political scientist and freelance writer living in Houston, Texas. He can be contacted at gweiher@uh.edu.

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