From Essays After Montaigne
...our mindes are often agitated by divers passions; For (as they say) there is a certaine assembly of divers humours in our bodies, whereof she is soveraigne mistris, who most ordinarily, according to our complexions, doth command us: so in our minde, although it containe severall motions that agitate the same, yet must one chiefly be predominant. But it is not with so full an advantage, but for the volubilitie and supplenesse of our minde, the weakest may by occasion reobtaine the place againe, and when their turne cometh, make a new charge; whence we see not only children, who simply and naturally follow nature, often to weepe and laugh at one selfe-same thing, but none of us all can vaunt himselfe, what wished for or pleasant voyage soever he undertake, but that taking leave of his family and friends, he shall feele a chilling and panting of the heart, and if he shed not teares, at least he puts his foot in the stirrup with a sad and heavie cheere.
It's difficult at this moment to contemplate the necessarily contradictory and disorderly nature of human emotions without noting the conspicuous absence of any such complexity in the public character of our president. Graydon Carter dedicates his Editor's Letter in the current Vanity Fair, which would normally describe the contents or theme of the issue, to just this topic:
I look at George Bush and I see none of the worry lines that should be etched in the face of a man taking the greatest military power ever assembled to war. I want my presidents to visibly age in the job, the way Clinton did, or John F. Kennedy. The week Bush returned from his summit in the Azores, he looked as if he had just gotten back from two weeks in St. Barts.
I've developed the prejudice (apparently shared by Carter) that wisdom is revealed in gravity and nuance. I see effortless certainty as deeply suspect. Can the complete absence of skepticism be a virtue? Mustn't a man who has no second thoughts be somehow defective? Shouldn't even (perhaps especially) someone who's right suffer doubts? Isn't a man who orders actions that will result in hundreds or thousands of deaths and then sleeps soundly at night clinically psychotic? As sensationalistic as the association might sound, reading people's accounts of the state of President Bush's mind during the current war, I can't help thinking of the accounts of the police officers who interviewed David Berkowitz after his arrest as the "Son of Sam." One said that "after talking to him....I feel sorry for him. That man is a fucking vegetable!"
It's at this point that I could don my tinfoil hat and launch into a righteously sarcastic description of Bush as the "Son of Dick," who receives messages to kill from the vice president, wears an unnerving smirk (like Berkowitz's "moronic smile") when speaking of that killing, and shares Berkowitz's father issues and difficulties with effective communication ("I am deeply hurt by your calling me a wemon hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the 'Son of Sam.' I am a little brat."). But I don't want to do that.
I don't want to offer criticisms of the president in lieu of legitimate objections to this war, and I don't want to give the impression that my objections to this war are the result of my misgivings about the president. This war is wrong for the pragmatic reason that, though it has been undertaken to make us safer, it's likely to make us much less safe in the years to come by significantly increasing anti-American sentiment and undermining the authority of institutions of international law without effectively addressing any current threat. And it's wrong for the moral reason that we (along with the United Kingdom) have no claim to the moral clarity and authority required to act unilaterally and preemptively against other nations.
The question of President Bush's competence is a separate matter entirely, and one I look forward to seeing thoroughly considered in the period leading up to next year's presidential election. But his aggressive, smug, and shallow certainty, his focus on this war to the exclusion of virtually all other areas of policy (including the continued lethargy of our national economy), makes it very difficult to treat these matters separately. He seems to be trying to force us to view the issues of this war and his leadership as inseparable, unaware that's he's diminishing the apparent legitimacy of both. As Graydon Carter puts it:
You really have to work at it to create a situation in which Saddam Hussein is looked upon as less of a threat to world peace than the U.S. president. In his little more than two years on the job, George W. Bush has proved himself to be more than up to the task.
7:47:30 AM 
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