Re: Global War on Terror III: Dick Cheney's Hague ICC Vacation
A fitting send off.
"The mere sight of Dubya prompts outrage for most of us. I've had several conversations about the moral implications of rooting for the Rangers, specifically, for that charming, wizened gentleman known around certain Twitter circles as "Uncle Ron." And from a narrative standpoint, there's really nothing richer than Bush cheering on the Rangers a week after his signature foreign policy blunder has finally been put to bed. His face, like Nixon's, should probably be shamefully totemic.
Yet subjected to repeated shots of Bush, interpolating them into the game as I would any other recognizable face in a baseball stadum, I rarely think "arch-fiend doodler" or even "apocalyptic klutz." He's utterly harmless, and actually, seems natural in a way he never did while attempting to run the country. But the Bush reax shots—and our reax to them—are not just a question of relief. This is George W. Bush's element. He's no different from any number of Texas oil brats who went off and had themselves an adventure, one that involved sizable failures but never a crisis of confidence.
As undeserved as it might seem to the 66 percent of the world that loathes him, the man just wants to get on with his life, legacy be da
mned. For Bush, that means attending the World Series, not endlessly revisiting the battles of his presidency. Like us, he seems glad the whole thing is over.
The injustice we might feel seeing Bush have a nice time at the game days after his war finally closes on Broadway offends far less than the dissonance of his time in office. At least he's had the decency to step away. Or was he ever really there to begin with? Maybe sports, not statesmanship, was always his primary frame of reference, with Bush conceiving of himself as part Tom Hanks, part Roger Staubach. Realistically, he was always a cheerleader at heart. He shows up, eschews the luxury boxes, and enjoys himself. That's more than we can say for Zooey Deschanel.
Somehow, George W. Bush is a straw man, one of many rich and powerful folks at sporting events with sh
it on their hands. Clueless destroyer that he was, he remains a jovial, well-meaning fan, with no armies waiting his command once the game winds down."
