I really do plan to get back to mostly non-political stuff in the days ahead. I guess I’m on The Rude Pundit’s schedule for the five stages of grief of “Acceptance” by Friday. I might even be a little ahead of that, but the issues stay at the forefront of my mind.
President Bush is giving a press conference right now, which I guess, actually, is a step in the right direction since it is very unusual for him to do so. But the first journalist asked three important questions off the bat, and Bush’s first response was that now that “the people have spoken,” he now has the power to enforce his “one question rule.” Yeah, it was in a somewhat jokey manner, but not completely, because when the second journalist asked two related questions, Bush chuckled again to comment about how the journalist is obviously disregarding “the will of the people.” He also mentioned that there’s a “no follow-up rule.” Again, it seemed to be partially in jest, but considering his dislike of press conferences and answering questions, especially those that challenge him, I’m sure it’s not completely. Meanwhile, the AP headline this morning reads, “White House Claims Mandate for Bush Agenda.”
It’s not surprising that a President who places everything into an either/or context, without any complexities or shades of grey, sees a 3% popular vote win as a “mandate” or the “will of the people.” I’m not trying to claim that Bush didn’t win legitimately: he did. But it would be more accurate to say that he has won the will of slightly more than half the people. If he’s a true leader, he would recognize that his only actual “mandate” — one definition by Webster’s states “an authorization to act given to a representative” — is to convince those 49% who didn’t vote for him that he’s going to do the right thing without pissing them off. Instead, he just said, “I earned political capital in this election, and I’m going to spend it.” A majority rule is not the same as “the will of the people” when there are so many people who disagree.
Of course, the question remains, when the differences are ideological and so stark, is it even possible to find compromise and ways to bring in those who fundamentally think you’re wrong? No, not everyone, of course. There are plenty of people on both sides who would be angry with any compromise whatsoever. But the greatest successes in our government and country have been specifically due to two ideologies coming together to find the middle ground and creating change. (To be fair, so have some have the greatest failures because sometimes ideas get too watered down until they become change in name but not in fact.) I do believe that somewhere down the middle lies what’s best for everyone because when you don’t get to implement everything you believe in 100%, that means you’ve also stopped thinking completely selfishly and become more tolerant of others and their opinions.
Sadly, this press conference continues to indicate an opposite reality — as I too live in the “reality-based community.” He just stated that a president has to “make decisions and lead,” meaning make decisions without truly considering the dissent to those ideas and forging ahead disregarding the number of people actually following. Again, that’s not leading.
Bush was just asked what is his definition of bipartisanship? Is it simply getting a few Democrat votes in order to pass his bills or is it actually trying to bring in the other side and work with the leadership in an effort to get true bipartisan support. His answer was, “Do you remember the No Child Left Behind act? That’s the model I’d look at. I worked with both Republicans and Democrats to get that bill passed.” Which is true. But his government has also not supplied the promised funds necessary to make the program work, and since then, all the Democrats have criticized how his administration has followed through with its own law. That wasn’t just for political purposes; it was true.
And he continues to joke about how “sometimes I mangle the English language. I get that.”
Oy. Not that I expected anything different, but … oy.
Out of Focus 