I imagine my previous entry probably ruffled a few feathers, so as long as everyone in Utah is pointing and hissing at me anyhow, I may as well go ahead and reference Scalzi’s recent post on President Bush’s plummeting national (if not local) approval rating. I find this section especially resonant:

What do I think about the Bush’s approval rating? Well, I think it’s exactly what he deserves. He’s a terrible president with an incompetent administration, and it’s gratifying to see the large majority of the American people coming around to this fact. Would that they would have come around to this conclusion a year ago, when the vote was on.

 

You’ll note, however, that I did not say that I was happy that Bush has such a God-awful rating. I’m not. Having a weak and deeply unpopular president makes us vulnerable as a nation, particularly when we are engaged in a war, and especially when engaged in a war that it is becoming increasingly clear the origins of which are best described as an administration misadventure. I don’t like Bush, and I wish he weren’t president; nevertheless he is my president, and my country is ill-served at home and abroad by his weaknesses, both real and perceived. Noting that this is a mess of his own making is cold comfort indeed. Bush may have made this bed, but we all have to lie in it.

 

One hopes that if the American people get anything out of the Bush second term, it’s to be reminded that the next time around, Republican or Democrat or something in between, they might want to try for competence. It’s not too much to hope for. Because at a 35% approval rating, we have a clear indication people recognize that incompetence isn’t working.

That’s pretty much exactly how I feel about the current state of the nation. I’ve made no bones on this blog about the fact that I have little use for George W. Bush or any of his crew. I dislike their arrogance, their manipulative appeals to fear and adolescent machismo, their scorched-earth political tactics, and their stubborn inability to admit that maybe, just maybe, their ideas aren’t working out quite the way they planned and they ought to actually consider what other people think. I have long believed that the policies of the current administration were creating messes that are going to take years, if not generations, to clean up, and I have also believed that there’s a strain of corruption in this administration that makes Nixon’s people look like amateurs. Now we’re starting to see some actual evidence that backs up my gut feelings, and a little voice inside my head is whispering, “A-ha! I knew it!” Like Scalzi, I am pleased that so many other people are finally beginning to see things my way. But again like Scalzi, and unlike a lot of lefties who are taking a perverse delight in the White House’s recent stumbles, I find no satisfaction in being able to say, “I told you so.” It’s hard to indulge in schadenfreude when it feels like the whole damn country is teetering on the edge of an abyss. The history books may eventually validate my low opinion of George Walker Bush, but what good will that do if the American experiment comes crashing down around our ears?

That’s not hyperbole, by the way. I really do fear that America’s days as the preeminent power on this planet are about to end, and I think the presidency of G.W. Bush has accelerated our decline and fall. To be fair, though, I don’t think it’s entirely Bush’s fault. He’s only one man, and he’s not a dictator no matter what the so-called “Bush haters” may say. He is a convenient lightning rod for all our troubles, but the real problem is manifold. In addition to an ineffectual president, we’ve got a Cabinet that won’t tell the president anything he doesn’t want to hear. We’ve got a dominant party that seems to have little interest in anything that doesn’t reinforce their own grip on power, and an opposition party that seems incapable of mounting any kind of actual opposition, or even of defining what it is they oppose. We’ve got a corporate-owned media so cowed by accusations of liberal bias that it won’t ask any penetrating questions or pursue any real investigations unless there’s an overwhelming groundswell for them. (I recently saw Good Night, and Good Luck, the movie about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow’s clash with Senator McCarthy, and it made me want to cry to see what journalism could and should be like: tough, independent, and unafraid to piss people off. It’s probably just as well that Murrow died back in the ’60s. I can only imagine how it must pain surviving members of his generation to see how far journalism has sunk.)

We’ve got a culture that values ignorance over intelligence, convenience over conservation, consumption over compassion, and profit over people. We’ve got an electorate that rarely bothers to vote, and those who do often vote based on emotionally charged social issues instead of the Big Picture. (Seriously, can someone explain to me how and why abortion has come to be the definining issue of our times? I don’t dispute that it’s important to a lot of people and that it comes loaded with a lot of thorny ethical questions. But I question its importance compared to, oh, let’s say national security, or the economy, or the healthcare crisis. The fact is, the abortion issue is nothing more than a useful cudgel for both sides of the political spectrum to wield against the other; I doubt that any of the politicians themselves care about the subject one way or the other. It’s too useful for them as a weapon.)

I could go on, but you get the point. I wrote awhile back that America is like an engine that’s running faster and faster and faster, and now it’s starting to shake itself to pieces. At a time like that, I would love to be able to say I believed in the abilities of the guy at the top, regardless of his party affiliation or his ideology. I’d like to believe we had someone in the Oval Office who could get things done and who was working hard for the benefit of all Americans, not just the ones who contributed the most to his campaign funds or the ones who attend the same church he does. At the very least, I’d like a president who doesn’t give the appearance of playing his fiddle — or clearing brush on his ranch — while the city burns. But that ain’t the kind of guy we’ve got. And while it’s refreshing to see tha the general public is finally waking up to that fact — well, the public outside of Utah, at least — nothing much has really changed, has it? That engine is still rattling like it’s on it last legs, and the guy at the top still has no idea what to do about it.