When word came out that President Bush would address the nation this morning, the media conversation naturally moved to what he would say. We knew via the NY Times and other reports that Bush had stuck a toe cautiously out of his bubble the night before, breaking his standard early bedtime to watch election returns. The fact that he didn't plan to receive them pre-digested from trusted translators the next morning marked a change of tone already. So it seemed reasonable when analysts and commentators predicted a conciliatory tone in the President's remarks to come.
That potential lasted less than sixty seconds into his press conference.
Over the fold, please ...
From the CNN transcript:
BUSH: Say, why all the glum faces?
Yesterday, the people went to the polls and they cast their vote for a new direction in the House of Representatives. And while the ballots are still being counted in the Senate, it's clear the Democrat Party had a good night last night. And I congratulate them on their victories.
There. Right there: "The Democrat Party".
The very beginnings of respect dictate calling people what they wish to be called. Bush chose to do the opposite. That shameful, small weasel of a man made sure to use his very first syllables to signal his "base" that, regardless of what words were to come, nothing had changed. Not his view of the world, not his delusions of majesty. It's still Us vs. Them. "They" delight in calling "Us" the "Democrat Party".
Whether the modifier "Democrat" for the party eventually catches on to the point of neutrality, or should, or is worth fighting over, is well beside the point in this case. The Republican/Right Wing choice to relabel the opposing party is tiresome and juvenile; there are certainly more urgent issues to expend our energy on. That in itself is not a fight I care to give my limited time to.
But - when the code word is used to pre-frame a longer message to come, it's important to note it. Bush may as well have said: "Disregard everything I'm about to say. The fact is, it's still me and my buddies."
Sadly, the assembled media - some of whom MUST have noted it silently - allowed it to pass unchallenged. No one asked the President about his apparently deliberate use of a divisive term. As a member of the media, their silence made me ashamed. Would they have sat still if he made reference to "colored people"?
His little show told as all we need to know about the job in front of us. Our president embedded a coded slight in an ostensibly conciliatory speech. He means to repair nothing, he's experienced no humbling, no epiphany, no growth as a human in the face of his party's overthrow.
And that's what we're going to deal with for the next two years. Let's never be lulled into the idea that we'll ever get anything better.
Message received, sir.