| Bush
seems to want a monarchy. Maybe we should give him one
By Jeff Wilder
OpEdNews.com
The late columnist Mike Royko, in a July 1982 column, wrote that what
America needs "is a king. Not a genuine king ruling and giving
orders. We need a figurehead of a king-smiling, looking attractive and
making stirring speeches, but not having any genuine authority".
At the time Royko wrote those words, he was referring to the late Ronald
Reagan. However, those words could easily be revived, 22 years later and
applied to the current commander in chief.
When George W Bush ran for election 4 years ago, he won by appealing to a
large percentage of the public. How did he appeal to this segment? By
looking good and telling them just what they wanted to hear.
In the aforementioned column, Royko expressed his viewpoint that looking
good and telling people what they want to hear aren't enough to qualify
one for the position of leading the most powerful country in the world,
that such a job requires qualities like good knowledge and judgment. To
bring that list up to date, let's also add: willingness to trust the
American people to make their own decisions, honesty and knowledge of
history.
George W Bush, depending on how you look at him, would make either a great
figurehead king or court jester. He says things that inspire some people
and amuse others. Yet as a president, the man is a train wreck.
I don't need to recite the statistics here, since most readers of this
space will be doubtlessly aware of them. Just to summarize: war in Iraq
started under false pretenses, minimal tax cutting without cuts in
spending, Patriot Act, Erosion of personal freedoms, FCC acting like the
Gestapo (as a Republican friend put it) and so on.
Yet we currently find ourselves faced with the real possibility that Bush
may be re-elected for four more years. In 1988, during the presidential
race, Michael Dukakis informed voters that he would raise taxes. George HW
Bush said that he would not. Bush promptly ran over Dukakis in the
election and went on to raise taxes. So what does that tell us? That
Americans like to elect leaders who tell us what we want to hear, even if
it may not be true.
That is the reason why Bush, despite his record of failures (and to be
fair, some minor success (in overthrowing the Taliban)) could wind up as
our president for 4 more years. Do we really want that? I don't think so.
So the solution is the one Royko proposed back in 1982: bring back the
monarchy. Since we can't have someone serve as both figurehead king and
president, we need to have both. We need to change the constitution to
allow Bush to serve as a figurehead king, much like England's current
king. He'd have no real political power of his own, all he'd have to do
would be to go up on TV and make speeches. Do some photo ops too, like the
one on the aircraft carrier where he announced (much too soon) that:
"major military operations in Iraq are over".
And for president, we would have to replace him with someone who knew what
he or she was doing. One who understands that starting wars under phony
pretenses is not how to fight terrorism. One who understands that you
can't cut taxes without cutting spending. One who understands that
you can't claim to be in favor of less intrusive government, yet keep
trying to find loopholes for the feds to spy on ordinary civilians.
An American royal figure? Since the Bushes seem not uncomfortable with the
idea of a monarchy, this might be the only way of satisfying their desire
while keeping the republic still intact.
Bio: Jeff Wilder NOSPOL@aol.com is
a 26-year-old freelance writer from Southeastern Florida. An independent
thinker who refuses to let himself get tied down to any one religious or
political ideology, Wilder has written articles for numerous online sites
and publications. Website: http://members.aol.com/NOSPOL
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