Dead vote walking

The Mystery of Master Bush

We were sickened four years ago when Mr. Bush, ensconced in tuxedo, danced his victory jig in Washington, Enron money flowing in Dallas, Karl Rove massing for action. That was before Mr. Bush discovered that being Presidential didn't matter. He had, thanks to Osama, carte blanche to act up. Instead of respecting the teenyweenyness of his electoral mandate, he chose to morph into a fringe candidate without portfolio, a bellicose little pundit running for class clown.

Now we can say: We forgive you, Mr. Bush: You are weak, you are small, you know only a world malevolently rinsed to Republican clarity and purpose. Your irrationality is terrifically postmodern, perhaps a little ahead of the historical moment. Could you possibly come back in, say, 100 years? Have a lager on US.

The Mastery of Mr. Bush

Alas, Mr. Kerry, you articulate reason's best arguments with all the passion of a bot. Your exhortations trail off, elide the emotive punch. Your seemliness, your classic political style belongs to a world of dioramas, civics lessons, and watery drinks. We all sense what your logic does not feel. To be other than Mr. 0 to Mr. Bush's 1, you need pixie power equal to Mr. Bush's venomous gifts of freedom.

Between the president and the present is 'id.' Instead of leaders, we're dealt well-heeled lads in knickers, incapable of regarding, let alone probing, the problem, which is, as always, us. Hard to listen to passion; harder still to hear the enemy. Injustice is easy, but justice takes balls. Coglioni. Cojones.

If we can't abide these two men whose positions are rooted in moments other than now, what might a plausible president of the present look like?

To "run" for president in this moment would mean running against the presidency as it is currently constructed. To say,

Look, it's time to change not horses, but streams. Terrorism is not some mysterious or psychotic power lurking out there. It is what we have long nurtured through our inconscient action in the world, and therefore it is, with some effort at self-understanding, in our power to cure.

Until we the people can swallow this, we're no less lost than are these frantic boys of ours, Mr. Future and Mr. Past. Still, this is Florida. I'm out, canvassing for the dems.