WE HAVE NOT COME TO PRAISE BUSH; WE HAVE COME TO TELL THE TRUTH…!
GEORGIE ANNE GEYER HAS VIOLATED AN INVIOLABLE RULE OF TRUTH TELLING—JUDGE NOT UNTIL ALL THE FACTS ARE IN!
This morning (November 24, 2008) I was reading Leonard Pitts column in the Chicago Tribune read two apologists for George Bush. In the Wall Street Journal, one Jeffrey Scott Shapiro who according to Pitts “described himself as an investigative reporter, a lawyer and a former intern for, of all people, John Kerry,” and one Jim Towey, a former White House aide, wrote pieces expressing pity for the treatment President Bush has received from the press and the public.
I do not know of nor have ever heard of either of these gentlemen, but if these articles reflect the character of these men, they suffer mightily from gullibility and naïveté. I cannot imagine from whence they have come, where or if they were educated, and what sense of values have been installed into their innocent minds.
This thought, however, came up in a class I have been teaching at Roosevelt University. A very lovely young woman expressed the identical idea as the men above; however, she couched it in the context of Christianity’s agape which is a self giving love that expects nothing in return. She pondered aloud, whether Jesus who preached acceptance and forgiveness would have been as harsh on the George Bush Administration as I apparently have been?
While I was so taken aback I responded far too flippantly, on the next day, I explained to the class that I was not pleased with my response to the student and that I should have explained more fully my spontaneous and surprised reaction.
Jesus certainly did preached acceptance, forgiveness and agape love to those who wished to follow him.
However, he also preached denunciation of those who were malevolent and practiced malice toward those they deemed outside their all too precious law.
While speaking of the Scribes and Pharisees, he said they were like dead men's tombs, they were all white and pure on the outside, but inside they were filled with all kinds of filth and dead men’s bones. He openly and frequently criticized those who worshiped the law so much that they missed the love of God. And he reminded them over and over again that the only two “laws” that truly mattered were love of God and love of your fellowmen. Love others as you would have others love you. The key here is the phrase, “as you would have others love you.”
He did not vacillate when he saw men violate these two basic laws.
What distresses me is that after all of the damage Bush and his administration has done to this nation and its people (I will not enumerate since that damage is well known to the people who simply declared their judgment on November 4, 2008 and who have expressed their opinions by dispensing to Mr. Bush the lowest approval rating of any president since opinion polls became an integral part of our political system.
Georgie Anne Geyer wrote a piece this past week that condemned Obama’s selection of the few people he has appointed to his White House staff and those rumored to be appointed to his cabinet.
I am not overly familiar with Ms. Geyer and I do not know her political proclivity, but in the case of this article I fear she has rushed to judgment.
First of all, Obama needs people on his White House staff who are friends in whom he can confide. He needs trusted associates who know him well and who will be the “keeper of the gate” allowing only those who should meet with the president of the many who will charge the door of the Oval Office.
Whatever else you may think of Rahm Emanuel he knows Washington well, he served in the House for years and is well known by those in the Senate because of his unquestioned success serving as chairman of the House Committee assigned the daunting task of electing Democrats to the Congress. He is the man who more than any other brought the Democrats to a whopping majority in 2006 and he is the man who knows Obama’s agenda and will be more than capable of helping him implement that agenda in the Congress.
Ms. Geyer wrote in her article referring to Emanuel that he is “an amply talented man, but with one of the dirtiest mouths in Washington.”
And then, with only the logic of a woman straining to say something outlandish and thus more readable to her audience she backs her thinking right over the embankment, “…Obama is, quite incredibly, appointing some of the nastiest people in Washington, and bringing into his administration some of those least-talented for the special jobs at hand.”
I am sorry, Georgie Girl, you cannot have it both ways. After all Obama has appointed only Emanuel and a couple of campaign staffers to date. If Emanuel is, in fact, one “of the least talented” appointees, why did you open your discussion of Emanuel, writing, that he is “an amply talented man?”
Writing of Obama, Ms. Geyer goes on, “For yea these last two years, the picture we have had of our president-elect has been, without exception, that of a gentleman, proud yet humble, with an inner centeredness and an outer composure that have fascinated and often mystified the nation. Where, we kept asking ourselves, did such a man come from? What elements of fate and nature merged in him to create this preternaturally poised leader?”
Frankly, I think you owe it to yourself and to your readers to wait until all of the appointments are made before you commit the sin of rushing to judgment.
I think you will find that this man knows how to organize his White House much better than you do, and certainly from a personal perspective, knows what and who he needs around him to make the White House operate at its maximum efficiency.
To the Bush sympathizers, I would say that Bush is not even receiving his just desserts. This man and his Vice-President may well be guilty of international crimes through the damage their war policy “hath wrought.” He certainly would have been impeached were is not for a lack of time since the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006 and the total unwillingness for the Republican Party to conduct itself in a reasonable and responsible manner in the name of the American people prior to 2006.
Bush is a man that in many ways people like, but he is not a leader, he is not smart, he is emotionally crippled and surrounds himself strictly with people that agree with him and, if possible, with whom he has had a long term relationships. Like-thinking does not produce great policies in a Presidential Cabinet or a corporate board of directors.
9:08:58 AM 
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