A National Embarrassment

I am, admittedly, a total and utter geek. I actually look forward to watching a show on C-Span on Sunday nights. It's a rebroadcast of "Prime Minister's Question Time", a half-hour period every Wednesday where members of the British House of Commons get to ask the Prime Minister anything they want. Half the questions traditionally go to members of the Opposition parties, and the questions can be pretty pointed. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, responds to all questions, whether they are the (usually) friendly softballs coming from his side or the poison darts thrown by the parties opposite. In watching Blair respond over the years, I've always been struck by his verbal facility, his quickness of mind, his ability to form and state arguments coherently, and his impressive command of facts. I disagree with Blair on many things, but you have to admit that he is intimately familiar with the details of public policy in Britain, often showing familiarity with even the smallest issues and the most remote constituencies. And it has occurred to me several times over the past five years that George W. Bush would be pathetic beyond words in such a setting. Blair has every gift of communication that Bush lacks. Blair has a lawyer-like command of argument; Bush can barely string together a sentence that hasn't been written down for him. Were Bush subjected to the kind of environment we see in "Prime Minister's Question Time", he would be (even more of) a national embarrassment. Moreover, I think even a lot of honest Republicans (there are some) would admit this in private.

Moreover, watching the British House of Commons, I remembered something else: on the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War, which fell on 11 November 1998, there was a ceremony at which the Queen was, naturally, the key speaker. But also in attendance, with no one outranking anyone else, was Prime Minister Blair standing alongside the leaders of all the parties represented in Parliament. It was a very powerful statement of national unity and a recognition of the patriotism of all British citizens, regardless of party. And thinking about this, I thought about Bush again: would he give such prominence to any Democratic leader at such a function were it to be held in this country? Would he be secure enough as a person and magnanimous enough as a leader to give the Democrats such a place in a ceremony like this? And the answer again was, no. He's too arrogant, too insecure, too determined to be held up above all others. He might allow Democrats to attend, but in no way would he allow himself to be anything but the star of the show. And I was embarrassed about that, too.

I crave the day when I can look with pride to the occupant of the White House and see someone of genuine intellectual curiosity, a person who is well read, someone with a strong command of all the issues facing our country, and someone with respect for our language. Yes, Bush's dishonesty, incompetence, phoniness, and hypocrisy are loathsome. But sometimes I think what I despise most about him is simply this: He is the face of my country. He is the best known of all Americans. He is held up as my country's leader. He is now the representative on my country's political system. It is the acute embarrassment and dismay that I feel about this situation that is, in some ways, the hardest thing for me to bear about Bush being in office.

After 230 years, this is the best we could do. And that hurts.