Oh yeah. That guy.
I gotta be honest — I forgot the president was in town today. It’s been six months since he’d been here last and, well, out of sight, out of mind. He never calls anymore anyway. He shows up for a one-nighter, gets us all giddy under the temporary lights in front of St. Louis Cathedral, then he’s gone again until he wants something. And we all know what that Something is. It’s what they all want. Just like a man.
Anyway, I’m tooling down Claiborne today and wondering WTF is it with all the cop cars. I mean, they’re freaking EVERYwhere. ‘Bout time they started cracking down on them outta-staters. A $125 ticket’ll show ‘em. But wait — naaaaah. It’s only the president. Here’s the story if you wanna get caught up.
There’s also plenty of discussion on several boards and blogs about the rebuke of the president’s visit. Take a gander if you haven’t had your daily bowl of Polarization Crisp. It’s good for you.
Certainly, the current process isn’t working. But I fail to see how admonishment from some self-appointed scolds is going to do any good either. I mean — Dubya apparently never listened to scolding when he was a kid (we’ll ask Barbara about that). Why’s he gonna listen now, when he’s (wincing here) the Leader Of The Free Damn World? Not that I’m Mr. Solution this evening. Just an observation. I stopped thinking I had the answer to everything about the time I stopped being a Republican. Odd.
Oh dear. I’m sure, by midnight tonight, my mailbox will be full of hate mail from some of the well-intentioned and justifiably angry people who hoped to accomplish something by staging this rebuke (the very word itself sounds so….so…..Old Testament. “And Abraham saith, ‘I rebuke thee and alloweth my sheep to crosseth into thy field to spew excrement thereabout…’” Or something.). Sorry. Can’t we agree to disagree on this little point? A 30-year career in journalism tends to give me a pretty jaded view of anything that has even the slightest possibility of political agenda — no matter which side it’s coming from or how well-intentioned it’s designed to be.
What I saw today during my drive along Claiborne was mostly a lot of people just trying to get some work accomplished and trying to live their daily lives — no matter which bigshot is in town. It’s what we do here these days, at least most of us. We have to. We just wish enough folks with Real Authority would — at some point — stop posing and posturing and being self-protective long enough to fully comprehend. Let us know you Get It.
That’s all we want.
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You don’t protest the president in hopes that he’ll hear you — he won’t, quite literally. You can’t even get in earshot of the man. Protests like that are media events, staged to get a message to the press. As such, they must be planned with a media savvy, and this one clearly was not, more’s the pity.
The really funny thing is that school’s across the street from my house (literally across the street) and I had no idea. Of course I was at work all day, but you’d think I’d have seen a banner or a flier or some shit like that. I don’t know how far away their message was heard but I’m 30ft way and I didn’t hear it.
I guess that’s alright. Editor B pointed out that its more a media thing, but I tend to take a more Socratic approach and feel it is mostly self-serving. So as long as they heard themselves then I guess something was accomplished.
I have to confess that the thought of doing something on principle like that occurs to me every now and then. Mostly just because that’s got to be one good nights sleep after. But then I remember that the same can be said of a couple of hours of yard work….heh heh.