Integrity

I’d like to talk a bit about integrity this morning, Bush. For me, that means that my actions should be fully congruent with my words, so that what I do accords with what I say. You liked to put it a different way during last year’s election, in that distinctly annoying tone you adopt when you’re patronizing us as though we were a bunch of idiot children who are incapable of seeing the obvious: “I say what I mean,” you kept saying, “and I mean what I say.” I wondered at the time if you’d borrowed the words from Horton the Elephant in Dr. Seuss—the one who hatches the eggs, remember? You must have read that one to your daughters, Bush, when they were little. I read it to my kids a hundred times, and they could never get enough.

I mention this because I believe that you yourself are out of integrity with the American people. You’re certainly out of integrity with me. Because you keep saying one thing and doing something completely different. That whole “compassionate conservative” bit you did in your first election campaign, Bush. What a crock, really. Admit it. You spoke it so often and so nicely that people actually believed you. But since you’ve been in office, it’s been nothing but screw the poor, the defenseless, the sick. For a recent example, take another look at the Bankruptcy and Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which according to everything I’ve read does nothing but deprive the poor and ignorant of a last-ditch defense against the super-rich, while offering the latter new protections for themselves. Compassionate, indeed!

And now comes the nomination of your John Bolton to be US Ambassador to the United Nations. I say your Bolton, Bush, though there was a show of it being your Rice’s nomination, in her little red suit in front of the television cameras. But I won’t allow you to hide behind that skirt. It’s too small and too tight to hide behind anyway. I think we all know whose bidding she does, and who needs to be held accountable.

But didn’t you just get back from your European jaunt, Bush, where you spent the better part of your time selling this new image of yourself as the great conciliator? Mending bridges, was among the fine-sounding terms I often heard. The so-called “charm offensive”—though I myself preferred the wit who dubbed it “offensive charm”. Anyway, those were the words. And now here comes the action. It’s basically a finger in the eye. Your Bolton is on record as having nothing but very public, very outspoken derision for the organization in which he is now to represent the United States of America. I'll let the New York Times editorial speak for me, since it says everything much better than I could, and in Bolton’s own words. The man brings a familiar attitude, Bush. It's, Oh yes, we’ll make the pretense of listening. Then we’ll do it our way. The US way. We’ve heard all this before.

All of which, I’m sure, plays well in that paranoid section of our society that believes the United Nations is out to destroy the United States and take over the world—quite a significant section, as I understand it. These are the people who elected you, the Republican right wing base that you’re working so hard to secure for years into the future. A terrifying thought. For me personally, though, it all comes back down to a simple matter of integrity. And I don’t find it, Bush. I keep looking for it, but I don’t find it there. It might be a good moment to re-read your Horton. He could prove a useful reminder of what it was you sold us in the first place. And you might yet have the time to hatch those compassionate conservative eggs.