On Monday the president finally fessed up. Gone was the
overarching optimism. The word
”
progress
”
did not pass his lips. He finally admitted to disappointment
with the situation in Iraq.
”
Frustrated?
”
he said at a press conference. Sometimes I’m frustrated. Rarely
surprised. Sometimes I’m happy. You could almost see his mind
wander. Then he blessed us with one of his special rhetorical
flourishes:
”
This is
– but war is not a time of joy. These aren’t joyous times.
”
Good to have that settled.
On Monday the president finally fessed up. Gone was the overarching optimism. The word “progress” did not pass his lips. He finally admitted to disappointment with the situation in Iraq.
“Frustrated?” he said at a press conference. Sometimes I’m frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I’m happy. You could almost see his mind wander. Then he blessed us with one of his special rhetorical flourishes: “This is – but war is not a time of joy. These aren’t joyous times.”
Good to have that settled.
How he finished that thought was most revealing: “These are challenging times and they’re difficult times,” he said, “and they’re straining the psyche of our country.”
Call it Bush’s malaise.
On July 15, 1979, in the midst of an oil price shock that left millions of frustrated Americans waiting in line to buy gas, President Jimmy Carter went on TV to talk directly to the American people. Did he comfort them, tell them the Marines would solve their problems, promise that his government would teach those recalcitrant oil producers a lesson they’d never forget?
No. He talked about sacrifice. He scolded us.
“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God,” Carter said, “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.”
It became known as his “malaise” speech, although he never used the word. At first the reaction was positive, but as the reviews rolled in Carter was pilloried, realizing the worst fears of his more practical vice president, Walter Mondale.
“I argued,” Mondale said, “that if, having gotten elected on the grounds that we needed a government as good as the people, we now were heard to argue that we needed a people as good as the government, that we would be destroyed.” He was right.
But the speech also contained a good deal of truth. His deeper message was an appeal to achieve energy independence. Self-indulgence and lack of willingness to sacrifice had made Americans soft and vulnerable.
That is even more true today – and in a considerably more dangerous world.
Carter’s speech was a watershed moment. Previous presidents had asked for sacrifice and gotten it. Franklin Roosevelt made sacrifice patriotic during World War II. John Kennedy asked us not to ask what the country could do for us, but what we could do for the country. We responded.
Now Bush’s malaise is upon us, driven home by anniversaries, less than two weeks apart, of the two great disasters on his watch: Katrina and Sept. 11. There is a legitimate argument as to whether the latter could have been prevented, and the former at least mitigated.
What is no longer in doubt are the disastrous consequences that followed both that were the results of real choices and decisions coming from this White House. They have, to say the least, strained our psyche.
Instead of asking us to sacrifice, Bush divided us to achieve partisan goals. He paid for the war – over $300 billion so far – on a credit card while his tax cuts pushed the definition of wealth beyond mere obscene excess.
War supporters have been complicit, knowing that if Americans were on a pay-as-you-go “war footing” the clamor to bring the troops – whose sacrifice has been heroic and tragically misspent – home immediately would be overwhelming.
With election season upon us, the last thing Americans can expect to hear from their leaders and leaders-in-waiting is a call to sacrifice.
Gone is a Roosevelt’s robust call to put aside fear; Republicans will monger fear, while Democrat’s run on an undefined “we can do better” platform. There will be hollow appeals to common purpose, but neither side will offer a realistic way out of the world – literally – of hurt we now find ourselves in.
Voters may well throw the Republicans out, but it will be purely out of frustration – a notion that has at last pierced Bush’s bubble.
Before that happens, we will pause to acknowledge recent history. We will talk about how the world has changed since Sept. 11 and Katrina. There will be nostalgia for The Big Easy and the world of Sept. 10.
And the killing will continue.
Perhaps we should have listened to Carter in 1979. We have learned so very little since then.
