Nothing became George W Bush so much as the sight of his back...
Saturday January 24 2009
I said goodbye to babysitters the day I said goodbye to George Bush. A small moment for mankind, a huge one for me. Jon Stewart was lambasting the former US president on The Daily Show when I realised the happy coincidence that brought the US and me a new freedom at the same time. What were we going to do next?
As Stewart wondered what he'd use for satire in the Obama age, one son was filling in his CAO form, his brother was off with the girlfriend and my daughter was wishing her surname was Obama so The Jonas Brothers would come play at our house too. They've grown.
Bush was a satirist's night out, although he and his cronies did all they could to silence dissent: the Patriot Act, Fox News, the difficulty many Americans experienced when they tried to explain how they loved their country but hated the way it was governed.
Nothing became him so much as the sight of his back. That last press conference? Snide remarks (his), wholly inappropriate jokes about the bad luck of being president when recession hit (nothing to do with him?). Then, a really callous reflection on what he, Bush, should or shouldn't have done when the levees broke in New Orleans.
I'd needed a babysitter the day Ireland rallied against war in Iraq. Were the younger two still in a double buggy? It feels so long ago.
Of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Of course, the Iraq debacle was about something else. Yet Bush, in that desperate last press conference, said it was a disappointment not to find any. A normal human being would have been glad.
My discomfort with him didn't ease. "What's creationism, Mum?" my dinosaur-loving young daughter asked hopefully, aged eight.
"No, love, dinosaurs were extinct long before human beings walked the earth."
"But Clancy went to school in Houston and she says that's not true."
Or a son, aged 12, watching Abu Ghraib. "Why are those soldiers putting a lead on that man's neck? Are they allowed?"
I could have done without explaining sadism, never mind the contempt for rules.
The future I wanted for my children changed drastically because of Bush. Stewart had laughed about the Obama future when bluebirds would be singin', sun shinin', peace and love rulin' the earth. As if.
Children have to be tough as well as tender, but there was something insidious about Bush's world, all puffed-up chests, bulging wallets and why-wait-till-tomorrow-to-grab-what-ya-can-today. The vulnerable were named 'losers'.
Then his cronyism, his uncritical embrace for so-called free market principles started slip-slidin' into our lives. That rush to the bottom to make quick bucks fostered a kind of 'how-low-can-you-go' culture. The political became personal.
It wasn't Bush's fault directly that bullying increased dramatically in schools, on mobiles and in workplaces. Or that men and women were valued for their possessions rather than themselves. But it fit with his laws-of-the-jungle world view.
'Boston or Berlin?' Irish politicians began asking -- and you knew that 'Boston' didn't mean the great city that nurtured so many Irish immigrants. It meant making as much money as you could without pausing to acknowledge what President Obama this week called the 'obscure' men and women, from whose labours the greedy stripped profit without giving decent healthcare and retirement plans in return.
Bush's ideology made its mark on Ireland in almost every sphere. Having to hold a second referendum on Lisbon follows almost inevitably from the Ahern Government's smirky support for the 'Boston' model. Healthcare provision may be less of a disaster now that his pay-or-die politics have gone but what about education, what about the threat of introducing third-level fees?
Bush's contempt for human rights and the Ahern Government's pussyfooted compliance meant we didn't even police our own borders at Shannon properly.
His ideology meant, under Cowen, cutting budgets to the Equality Authority in an almost knee-jerk response to recession, because freedom of speech had become so uncool (like, uh, who gives a toss?). So, uh, freedom of the press now means telling business journalists their questions are 'dangerous' (to whom?)
The day of reckoning was the sub-prime lending fiasco, born in the USA because of the jungle mentality -- and the assumption that ordinary people were such fools you could take them for everything they were worth, trouser the money and let them live on the streets when they couldn't make their payments.
You can't learn until you're ready, but the one lesson Bush taught Ireland was not to ape America's excesses as though they're written in stone. There, at least, stronger regulatory laws than ours brought some justice. Here, the worst of the mess may be ahead.
My kids laugh at all the Bushisms now -- like, uh, forgetting what number president he was or not knowing how to talk about shame (as in, fool me once versus fool me twice). But it was serious.
As for me, well, it was a long relationship, too darn long. Sorry to meet, George. Very, very happy to part.
mruane@independent.ie
- Medb Ruane
