presidential material?

by robert marcom

The Ultra-conservative elements of the US "liberal" press have been laboring without let in the effort to convince the American people of George W. Bush's presidential character, bearing and behavior. Nonsense.

It is difficult to imagine a human being with less presidential character and characteristics. Bush is anti-populist: he prefers courts, to votes, having proved this fact by dispatching James Baker, a crony of his father's day, -- before the ballots were cold -- to file action in Federal Court at the first sign of a legal challenge by recount in Florida.

He is anti-intellectual, by his own admission. He has trouble with basic grammar, preferring instead the creation of his own twisted "Texas grammer." He has difficulty with vocabulary and loses track of facts at an alarming volume; yet he will represent the US to the world. He will negotiate treaties while being ignorant (as demonstrated in the campaign) of current affairs.

He will propose to represent a spiritually diverse country as the President of all the people, even though subscribing to a fundamentalist religious conviction that damns 90 percent of the people in the world to everlasting hell.

George W. Bush has small chance of being regarded as presidential because he has the character of an unreformed, un-rehabilitated alcoholic. He is suspicious of his closest allies, insisting on demonstrations of loyalty. His character is provincial, paranoid and simplistic. These do not bode well for a presidential legacy.

His political base consists of a group of activist conservatives who have done their best to overturn the will of the people, by deed and deception, for the past seven years. They have no compassion, prompting Bush to coin the slogan "Compassionate Conservative." They resist reform of any social magnitude, bringing the Bush slogan "A reformer, with results."

Absurd.

He claims educational "miracles" in the State of Texas with the Texas Academic Assessment Stupidity. We Texans are familiar with the legislative pressure brought to bear on educators to "teach the TAAS." It has been a disaster for education, and produced failure of Texas students by national standards, in order to provide Bush with a record in education reform.

Miracles? Nonsense.

Presidential? Yeah. Sure. In his mind, but nowhere else.

Copyright © 2001 Robert Marcom. All Rights Reserved.

Robert Marcom is a senior contributor to *spark-online. He loves Texas.