The Poet's Eye 
                    commentary by Lightning Rod

the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
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No Clothes

05-24-04

“Not to get personal about it, but the president’s capacity to lead has never been there. In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none.”

"The shallowness that he has brought to the office has not changed since he got there."

You wouldn't be surprised to hear THIS writer making statements like these, as he has many times. But these particular statements were made by the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and repeated last week when Bush delivered his closed door pep talk to his party members in Congress in order to force a show of solidarity for his war effort.

For their part, the representatives of this government are responding by trying to paint Pelosi as a wildly partisan liberal, pinko fag-hag from San Francisco (you know, where all the hippies and the queers hang out.) She has been called un-American for pointing out that the emperor has no clothes and I'm waiting for them to charge her with treason for aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war. The Republican National Committee has released an eleven page broadside against Ms. Pelosi entitled "Totally San Fran."

Tom Reynolds, (R-NY) said that Nancy should, "just go back to her pastel-colored condo in San Francisco and keep her views to herself."

And White House spokesman Scott McClellan said about Ms. Pelosi's statements:
"I just don't think that such comments are worth dignifying with any response from this podium."

They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to look at it. They don't want to hear it. They might have to admit the obvious.

It is obvious by the Republican responses that they are not concerned with the possible truth of Rep. Pelosi's statements but more with the fact that she has the right to make them at all. Freedom, Iraqi style. She is a woman, after all. Where is her burkha?

Even though I would personally add intelligence to the mix, Rep. Pelosi's requirements of "knowledge and experience" seem reasonable to me as qualities in a leader. I think her statements have had impact because they have merit.

George Bush's meager resume includes holding the august position of Governor of Texas, which is a completely ceremonial office with about as much real power as a dogcatcher. Bush is even more unqualified to be President than was Ronald Reagan. At least Reagan had been governor of a state where the office has actual powers, and he had been president of the Screen Actors Union. Up until his ascension to President, the only significant executive decision that Gdub had made was not to make Nolan Ryan retire from the Texas Rangers.

The only other qualification that G.W. Bush has to be President is that his father was one. The sad thing is that this dithering puppet of a president is being run by a cadre of very efficient and very competent neo-con fundamentalist bureaucrats who are leftovers from his daddy's reign.

Much light has been made of Bush's inability to articulate any possible ideas that he might have. Books have been published listing his clumsiness with the English language. Emails circulate the Internet with jokes about his malapropisms. This is endearing in a way, but also sad, because it reveals this president's lack of acumen at a time when we need a leader who can actually think and make decisions. As Rep Pelosi said, we need someone who has knowledge, judgment and experience.

The only experience that George Bush has of war is swooping onto an aircraft carrier in a Versace flight suit and declaring victory. And all the experience he has in government is running for office and delegating the responsibility of watching the henhouse to the foxes. And now he has a real war on his hands and he hasn't a clue what to do with it. Oh, let's appropriate another 25 billion and go wagging our tails to the United Nations in one last attempt for legitimacy.

The Poet's Eye sees the same thing that Nancy Pelosi's eye sees--that the emperor has no clothes.

 

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