Two Men, Part Two

There’s something very unpleasant about complacency, Bush. There’s something very unpleasant about boasting. It comes out of a sense of insecurity about oneself, and a simultaneous need to make the other man feel inferior—and look bad in front of others. I saw you do it in your press conference with Putin, and it wasn’t a noble sight.

“I live in a transparent country,” you told him—indirectly, because this purported to be an answer to a journalist, but it was addressed to Putin—“where decisions made by government are wide open, and people are able to call people—me—to account.” It was a blatant, smug attempt to preach to your diplomatic partner, Bush, in front of the entire world; a blatant attempt to humiliate him, while boosting your own image. To teach him a lesson in democracy. He may need the lesson, but was it your place to offer ir, in that way?

The trouble with boasting is that it usually reveals our own weakness as much as the other man’s. And what you said only drew attention to your own failings in precisely that same area. Because what you said, Bush, was patently untrue. It may be the ideal to which you’d like to strive, and in which you’d like the rest of us to believe. But there are simply too many examples that deny your claim.

Let me suggest a few: the most glaringly non-transparent action of your administration to date, at least to my mind, remains the Cheney energy gambit, early in your presidency, about which your Vice-President has steadfastly refused to allow even the names of those attending to be known, let alone the tenor and the outcome of discussion that led, presumably, to this country’s energy policy—whatever that may be.

Transparency, Bush? It sounds like a bad joke. Equally opaque are many of the decisions you and your people have made regarding the imprisonment of those deemed, for reasons undisclosed even to those subjected to this treatment, to be terrorists. As for other examples of your assault on transparency in government, I invite you to consider the overview of the Government Reform Committee’s report of September 14, 2004. It’s a shameful list, Bush. “The Bush administration,” the report concludes, “has systematically sought to limit disclosure of government records, while expanding its authority to operate in secret. Taken together, the administration’s actions represent an unparalleled assault on the principle of open government.”

Ouch! As for accountability, we need only to look to your Rumsfeld, whose planning and conduct of the war has proved a disaster from beginning to end—or rather, to the lack thereof; and whose policies, whether stated or implicit, on the treatment of prisoners exposed to the world the hypocrisy of this country which so freely preaches human freedom and human rights while itself practicing inhuman treatment of its prisoners. Has he been “called to account”, Bush? On the contrary, he has been given your accolades for doing “a superb job.” And your Gonzales, author of the infamous memo opening the door to torture? “Called to account”? No. Promoted to the highest law authority in the land.

By the same token, who has been called to account for the lies and distortions laid upon the American people by your Rice, your Cheney, your Wolfowitz, and countless others—including your good self—to justify your invasion of Iraq? Not a single soul, Bush. Who has been called to account for the outing of Valerie Plame? For the absurdly underestimated costs of the war? For the budget overruns? The staggering growth in the deficit? The sale of your medication bill for the elderly on the basis of patently low-balled cost estimates?

No-one, no-one, and no-one. It’s all been about deception, sleight of hand, passing the buck, pointing fingers… Open government, as we used to say in England, my foot! Transparency? You’ve got to be kidding. No wonder Putin stood there, stone-faced, while you lectured him. If I were him, I’d have been tempted to throw the podium at you, Bush.