SARSAPARILLA
Almost eight years ago, George Walker Bush took office, and the world has never been the same. Since then, he has redefined what it means to be an American, has never cracked under the scrutiny of his peers, and has remade the entire world according to his sincere beliefs. Considering all this, it is safe to say that George Bush is far and away the greatest president who has ever lived. His courageousness, imagination, and perseverance, are an example to all Americans.
Boundless Courage
While the President has shown tremendous courage many times during his stay in office (such as his attempt to entrust a seat on the Supreme Court to a woman with no legal experience, outing a CIA operative dedicated to stopping nuclear proliferation in a time where terrorism has never been so wide-spread, not mention the supreme ballsiness he showed by giving up golf for war widows) the greatest example of his valor can be seen in the Invasion of Iraq. In the same way that it is impossible to imagine the size of the cosmos in a real life perspective, we must create a model by which we can understand the sheer manly audacity George Bush showed when he invaded a sovereign nation, toppled its government with no plan, and sat back for about three years before he decided to half-ass a semi-solution. Therefore, we must perform a thought experiment.
Imagine being in a bar, when you see someone punch your best friend in the face. You look at the fist that hit your friend, you look at the owner of that fist, and you have no doubt as to what has transpired and who is to blame. The most cowardly people in the world would sit back and do nothing. The brave would come to their friend’s defense and retaliate against the aggressor. Only the bravest of men would lurch forward and punch the person that hit their friend, and then punch a stranger completely at random, for no purpose whatsoever, except that that stranger was “kind of sort of giving you a weird look, maybe.” This, on a much smaller scale, is analogous to George Bush’s response to 9/11.
As further proof of the President’s courage, I pose this simple question: how many Americans would have the guts to get up tomorrow and live for a single day as George Walker Bush? The answer is almost assuredly zero.
We many, we cowardly, we introspective Americans could not survive it. The guilt of having started an unnecessary war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, inflamed an entire region against us, not to mention the downright shame of taking no action during a major environmental crisis, or the economic plight facing millions of Americans would send our hands to the nearest dresser drawer in search of a pistol to end it all. To most of us, being George Bush would be a fatal illness. In fact, most of us would succumb to it within the hour. How great then is the perseverance of the President, when he can not only survive, but thrive?
No, we Americans know ourselves to be cowards when we behold such a man as the President. Such boundless courage in the face of obvious facts, accurate criticism, and the possible vengeance of God would cause our hearts to fail. Few can even grasp where we end and the President begins.
If I were the President, I would be unable to show my face in public, instead spending hours with experts, pouring over charts and maps trying to figure out some way to undo the horrors I had wreaked upon my citizens. Over the course of years, after refusing meals, I would begin to turn pale and sickly, eventually developing a case of insomnia before going completely insane. For the rest of my pathetic life, I would cower in an institution reading histories of the Middle East, tearing out pages and stapling them to walls, trying to show connections between various events with pieces of red yarn, looking without hope for a solution every minute of every day. At best, any treatment would only prolong my suffering.
But to actually insult those who were correct about everything I opposed them on? I could not muster the intestinal fortitude. To stare in the face of a better man, with all the facts behind him, and spit, while still believing myself to be fully in the right… this is where courage fails me. Rather, I would demand a guillotine, and place my head on the block than to face just one of my critics for the briefest instant. I certainly could not have willed myself to accept the Purple Heart of a War Hero.
So before you call George Bush a coward, remember, almost no one else could do the things he has done and survive, let alone continue on as if nothing has happened.
Depthless Imagination
When I was a young man, my Grandfather taught me that imagination is a virtue. He bought me tools and materials, and told me to build whatever I could think of. I had many dreams, and did my best to live out each and every one of them.
Sometimes I dreamed I was a knight errant, with an indestructible shield made out of a fallen star. Only it was really made out of pieces of construction paper glued back to back. I spent dozens of afternoons running around the yard using my shield to deflect the fiery breath of giant imaginary dragons. Sometimes I thought about running into the street and putting my shield between myself and a car… only this was where my imagination ran shallow. The input of the actual world was too powerful to be drowned out by daydreams. I knew I was a failure in the eyes of my Grandfather, for I could not bring myself to live out that one particular dream. My Grandfather told me that I had done the right thing, but I knew he was lying. George Bush suffers from no such weakness.
Time and time again, the President and his administration have demonstrated a creative imagination too powerful to be deflated. From statements like “the insurgency is in its last throes” to the President’s explanation of his secret mind powers that allowed him, after a brief glance into the eyes of Vladimir Putin, to determine whether or not he was a trustworthy man, the President’s powers make me tremble in awe. Against this creative knack, Dick Cheney’s petty fantasies that he belongs to some undefined fourth branch of government pales in comparison.
With an imaginary set of policies and beliefs, shown time and time again to be inadequate to deal with the real world, the President is still able to raise his shield skyward, believing that this time it will deflect his enemies. I say, if imagination is a virtue, that Jesus Christ had nothing on George Bush.
Impossible Perseverance
In the sixth grade, my class held a math tournament. The teacher read a problem, we wrote it down, and solved it. Two students at a time stood at the white board, the student who correctly solved the problem first was allowed to stay put. The student who lost was replaced by the student after them alphabetically. I had cycled through the class twice, unbeaten when Nathan entered the room. He had just returned from the special education class.
“Hey Nathan!” my teacher called, “If you can beat BC, he has to do your homework for a week!” It seemed a jest, but the irony of it had not penetrated Nathan’s skull.
Nathan stumbled to the white board, smiling dumbly, as my teacher began to read the problem. My mind was an analytical whirl, reading from left to right. I began to compute the statement before I even wrote it down. First I took the complicated fractions, carrying them out to four decimal places using long division. I only hoped there were no rounding errors as I carried on to the next step… I was confused when the class began to laugh. No one could have computed the answer faster than me… except that Nathan had.
My mind read left to right in computation, at that time. I never worried about how the rest of the statement affected the first half. Nathan had not known how to solve the problem so he hadn’t even tried. Instead, he had done what I could not. He had looked at the problem, seen that everything was multiplied by zero, and realized that no further work was necessary. While I was still halfway in the guts of the problem, Nathan’s confusion had given him a quicker insight than I could have achieved with my lightning quick calculation. He won. I admitted defeat.
I know now that this was a mistake. I chose to take away a life lesson from my bout with Nathan. I chose to see that day as an opportunity to remember that keeping a perspective on my problems and the people around me was key to living a complete life. The President’s example has taught me that I should have refused the loss. Winning, even if victory wasn’t meritocratic, was the only thing I should have concerned myself with. Abandoning every principle in pursuit of the appearance of achievement, I should have exploited every niche, played to every sympathy, appealed to whatever dark nature I could in order to crush my enemies.
Here we see the wisdom of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove. There are limits to what most of us are willing to do to get ahead in life. There are certain sacrifices we are not willing to make. Most of us could not have organized a calling scheme involving thousands of people to tell ignorant voters that a man who spent five years being tortured in Vietnam that he had an illegitimate black daughter, while knowing full well she had been adopted out of poverty. At a point, most of us will decide that the things we want aren’t worth who we are. We think that to give up our souls just to get what we want would only leave us hollow and unable to appreciate what we have. So we stop. We turn back. We renege.
And on this precipice that opens wide over the mouth of hell, those who cling to conscience stop. The President perseveres and steps onward, with an imagination so strong that even while he’s falling into the fire he thinks he’s soaring with the angels.
Why I have Never been so Proud to be an American
Lastly, George Walker Bush makes me proud to be an American because he has demonstrated the true strength of the people of this nation more than any other President.
After a never-ending war that has cost billions of dollars, multiple scandals that in any other generation would have warranted impeachment, absolutely no effort to focus his policies on actual problems, setting aside his shredding of the Constitution… America still stands the strongest nation on Earth. And we have stood like this for almost eight years. Against this, the idea of going to war against the Nazi Empire under a competent administration seems like child’s play. When I read about the exploits of my forefathers in this country I now think: “So what? If I had had even a half-decent President I could have done that in a tenth of the time.” From the many, America has become one in its suffering.
I ask you this, my fellow Americans: name one other country in the world, that could have withstood even six months of the Bush Administration. There is no answer save America. That, my friends, is why George Bush makes me proud to be an American.
