Bush the CHEERLEADER...
(My apologies to the cheerleaders out there)
Watching the press conference yesterday, something about Bush struck me. Although peevish and irritable and bitter, and obviously just playing a role, he was, was... comfortable, somehow. I couldn't figure it out until I remembered the he was a CHEERLEADER. Let's not forget folks, that this great leader, this tough, no-nonsense man of virtue and vision, this authentic, rock solid, American-to-the-bone regular guy was actually just a CHEERLEADER.
http://images.google.com/...
In fact, he has never really been anything but. He has always stood on the sidelines and clapped and jumped up and down as others put in the hard work, paid the price of daily drill and long hours of dedicated effort, not on a treadmill, mind you, but real work such as lifting weights or actually doing your assignments in school, day after day, dedicated to building up their bodies and minds. This is what real people do, while the CHEERLEADER...sings and yells and jumps up and down.
Others go out to put their bodies on the line, testing their hard won strength and skills and brains against the enemy to see who can outlast the other, whose sweat and toil and sacrifice is greater, who had the greater heart and soul to win. And the CHEERLEADER...yells and claps and cheers: "YAY!!" In his nice white sweater, advertising to all the world that he is a fraud, an also ran, proud that he is a coward who sits on the sidelines. He may not grind it out on the field of battle, but he has a... a megaphone!! His is the loudest voice heard, encouraging the others to go on. As Pink Floyd said: "'FORWARD!' he cried from the rear and the front rank died..."
As if they needed encouragement. They don't. The cheerleader is not there for the team. Athletes and warriors have enough motivation from inside, they don't want to let their teammates down, that is why they sacrifice as they do. Just thinking about how hard they and their mates have worked to get there is enough for them. No, the cheerleader is there for the AUDIENCE, for us! To make us FEEL like we are part of the team's sacrifice, too, to make us FEEL like we're part of the team without having to spend all those long hours doing actual preparation to meet the enemy. We just clap and sing and make noise, noise that cannot be heard over the strains and the grunts of the players.
When he got out of school, he got to stand on the sidelines again, CHEERING, while others paid the price for HIS support of the Viet Nam war. He went to get his MBA at Harvard where he must have sat on the sidelines again, because he obviously couldn't run a company, driving several into bankruptcy. When the owners of the Texas Rangers needed, guess what?!? a CHEERLEADER to force the taxpayers to give them a new stadium, they picked one with lots of experience. And all it cost them was 2% of the team.
And he is doing it again, using the sacrifice and patriotism of our soldiers and their families and friends and businesses for his own glory. Yesterday, all he was missing was his megaphone and USA!! logo sweater to complete the picture. What has every press conference and public appearance been in his entire presidency but a CHEER squad performance? From the repeating patterns of non-sensical phrases on the backdrop to the scripted questions, they are nothing but pep rallies... meetings of our leaders with their bosses, the people, turned into those most pointless, time wasting elements of high school afternoons. "YAY!!" And the warriors? Those actually fighting, for pride, for their buddies, for their families back home cannot hear our cheers over the bombs and the bullets and the explosions and the screams.
Why "Stay the course" was just another CHEER!! Can't you hear it?
"STAY THE COURSE!!
STAY THE COURSE!!
WE'RE GONNA STAY IT
WITHOUT REMORSE!!"
It has been posited that our characters are determined at an early age and by the time we are in High School and College, we can see the person we are to become. How true. He's just a CHEERLEADER. Again and again and again.