Resisting The Election Narrative

There's a picture floating around the Internet of President Bush weeping at a memorial service. One long tear streaks his cheek, and his thin lips are pressed together hard, as though trying to flatten a nickel. "I've got God's shoulder to cry on," is the line attributed to him. It's a stock moment of "presidential" caring, a cliché of manly mourning. Just the single tear allowed to run the full length of one cheek, undabbed, lips pressed fortitudinously.

Apparently this captures what it means to be "presidential" at a time when the disastrous Bush presidency has left our economy ruined, our international reputation a shambles, NASA in the hands of people who don't believe global warming is a threat, our soldiers mired in a "pre-emptive" war, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg codes violated, the Justice Department gutted. Frankly, I could care less about the visuals. Yet to judge by the popular media, being "presidential" is akin to winning a popularity contest in middle school.

It's all about what they wear, how tall they are, how much they spend on a haircut, whether their spouses are spousal enough, who has a "forced jackal laugh" (as the Guardian described Hillary Clinton), who is "blessed with a weighty baritone" (as Newsweek described Obama).

As November draws nearer, the race is likely to become much nastier. Republican strategist Richard Viguerie has promised to figure the Democratic Party as the umbrella of women, wusses and special interests. The powers that outed Valerie Plame, the lobbies that mocked Clinton's proposals for healthcare as an ungodly communist plot, the Swift Boat gang and the deep-pocketed Scaife Foundation - they haven't gone anywhere. Republicans can't win on their record; their strategy will depend on having us forget that when Bill Clinton left office, he not only had balanced the budget but left a significant surplus of strong dollars. In casting the Clintons as a power-hungry "dynasty," they would have us forget that it is Republicans who have reinterpreted the presidency as a monarchic "unitary executive." It is my hope that we can inoculate ourselves against the apocalyptic nastiness that the past two elections indicate we may be in for. In anticipation of that turn to the low, however, it's worth looking at the race and gender narratives already circulating, whose exploitation we need to resist ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/10/opinion/main3696854.shtml

Who would not wipe a tear before it ran that far?? Unless it was dramatization?

But, there is a good point in the article. It is not the Clintons that are the dynasty. It was the Bush family and their connections. Bush Sr served 8 years as VP under Reagan then 4 years on his own as President. Then his idiot son served 8 more years which our country may not recover from. Bush Sr also served as CIA Director and Ambassador of China. That was the dynasty. Not the eight years of Bill Clinton or the years that Hillary might serve if she is elected?