Anger

I sit here today in just plain anger, Bush. I sat through my morning meditation and watched it rise, and rise, and rise… It would not stop. I felt it taking charge of my entire body. I watched myself attempting to contain it, just by sitting there and watching it, and breathing, and allowing it to pass, as it usually does. It wouldn't this morning, though. It just went on rising, and I went on watching. I still sit with it now.

The anger has two proximate causes. Triggers, really. "Causes" sounds too deeply rooted in the psyche to be relevant here. The first trigger, then, was watching you on last night's television news, all smug and smirking, as you spoke before the assembled European community, pontificating about things like transatlantic unity, and democracy, and peace, and freedom, when everything you have done as President of the United States amounts to an assault on those very same values. I was angered by your Rice, who sat there nodding sagely at your side, all attentive and adoring in her familiar helmet.

Because, Bush, it's my judgment that you have no right to be there. It's my judgment that you are an imposter, unprepared for a position you usurped by guile and by deceit; that you are unqualified by character, or intellect, or knowledge, or experience, or breadth of human understanding to be the President of the World.
Which brings me to the second proximate trigger for my anger. Last night, after watching you on the television news, I tuned in to a documentary on the Sundance network--a documentary entitled, aptly, "Bush's Brain." It was the story of your Rove, and his Machiavellian machinations to elevate you, first to the governorship of Texas, then to the Presidency of the United States. It was a story of outright cheating, lies, deceit--anything it took to destroy opponents and clear the field for your incompetence. It was the destruction of Ann Richards, on your way to the Texas Governor's mansion, and of John Mccain on your way to the White House. (Ellie wondered aloud, giving voice to my thoughts, how Mccain could have come back to support you, after your deplorable attack on his war service to this country, and your scurrilous, heartless rumor-mongering about his black, adopted "love child"--as you people had the boundless, reckless temerity to suggest.) It was the story, too, of the crushing of Max Cleland in your ruthless pursuit of even greater Republican power when you were already in the White House.

I'm sorry, Bush, but I judge your Rove to be despicable, and your reliance on this despicable character to achieve your ends to be equally despicable. You'll probably tell me that I'm politically naïve: too true, but I wear that as a badge of honor, not the reverse. You'll tell me that this is all past history, no point in rehashing it now, that the time has passed for crying over spilt milk, it's time to mend fences, forgive and forget… all those old cliches. Everything that you're telling the Europeans in your speeches there.

Speaking for myself, I just can’t do it, Bush. Maybe politicians can, for the sake of practical necessity. Maybe diplomats and world leaders can, recognizing that they have no other choice. But that doesn't mean that I have to, Bush. And I choose not to. At moments such as these, when the anger rises, I find myself seething with rage at what you have done in the world, and in this country, and what you continue to do with the trust that you have failed to earn. I choose to remain your implacable opponent. I choose to disbelieve you, and your motives. I choose to distrust your words, because they have so often failed to mesh with the truth, or with the deeds that follow them. I choose to mistrust your leadership. I choose to continue in my anger.

There. That's it for today, Bush. Sorry to intrude on your moment of apparent European glory. But sometimes the anger just rises, and needs to be expressed.