Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Ozymandias

The excellent HBO miniseries John Adams concluded Sunday night with some ruminations by our second President about how the gritty history of the American revolution had, after only 50 years, been lost to the mythologizing processes of patriots and painters and poets. I'm not sure that he ever read Shelly's ironic poem of 1818, although he lived long enough. I'm sure however, seeing his classical education, that he knew that such things are eternal and ineluctable. Indeed, anyone with any kind of memory at all can see that the words and deeds of our current administration are lost to reinterpretation, redaction, braggadocio and denial in a far shorter period than a half century and eventually are reduced to ridiculousness.

If I still had a sense of humor about such things I would laugh at Flim-flam George's latest attempt to blame the effects of his fiscal irresponsibility on the failure of Congress to solve our problems. They failed by looking the other way at Corporate swashbuckling, by bitching excessively about no-bid contracts to companies that pay no taxes and will not be investigated when billions disappear, by not taking the burden of inheritance taxes off the very, very rich and by ignoring a host of other really brilliant ideas like unrestrained spending and profligate borrowing, but of course I don't. I lost it some time ago and all I could wish for is to miraculously to survive the explosion of our sun just long enough to see the man vaporize into a wisp of plasma to be born by the solar wind into the infinite emptiness of the universe.

But I digress. The Bush Nebula is still Earthbound and the Occupation still awaits a definition of "victory."
"I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems, yet time after time Congress chose to block them,"
said the Sultan of Smirk today. Too bad they didn't block the "warpresident" entirely by impeaching him or at least keeping him from starting the war, but what we're seeing here, I fear, is the beginning of a tendentious falsification of history on a level not seen since the great Redactor put together the Bible.

Canonical History will be kind to George Bush, since it isn't really possible to be unkind in degree adequate to his stupidities, his iniquities and his weakness. Indeed, knowing this country and its love for self-ennoblement, he may be sneering down at us from Rushmore or gleaming at us from the face of a highly devalued Dollar before my grandchildren are old enough to be cynics. Some Parson Weems will emerge to write stories about his early honesty and there will be paintings of George the Brush Clearer and heroic marbles of the Commander Guy in his flight suit poking up through the desolate sands of post-apocalyptic America. Who will be there to laugh?

7 comments:

d.K. said...

Maybe you're being facetious and I'm missing that, but I don't believe historians will EVER redeem Bush in any way. He will become a textbook lesson about why students who are mediocre and who have jaded pasts that last into their 40s shouldn't be given that chance to become president. He'll be a lesson in how horribly wrong our system can be -- how flawed our system of electing a president (if they even acknowledge that he was in fact really elected) can be. History will not be kind to him, I'm convinced of that. I hope he lives a long, long life, and becomes the loathed pariah he has worked hard to earn.

Capt. Fogg said...

Who? Me? Facetious?

Yes, of course I am, but I'm also cynical about how we invent heroes and whitewash history. The only thing I'm confident is the enduring gullibility of Americans when it comes to self flattering propaganda.

They did try hard to redeem Nixon and it almost worked. It just wouldn't surprise me if Bush is rewritten as well.

Intellectual Insurgent said...

At best, our Chimperor is deserving of a statue in a wax museum with the banner "Mission Accomplished" in the background.

Capt. Fogg said...

You're probably being too kind to him.

Buffalo said...

Every one has a place in the master scheme of life. Perhaps his is making the mentally challenged seem intellectually superior by comparison.

RR said...

The John Adams series was excellent... should be required viewing for all high school students.

Capt. Fogg said...

Buff

You've got a point there. I think the Republican Party has been - since Reagan, at least - been gaining support by making dummies feel like their dumb, ignorant, racist and narrow minded ideas are brilliant.

I'm sure the 27% who still support Bush look up to him as an icon of their kind of intelligence.

rr

I think the program is amazingly accurate on many levels - yes, it would be a great help to teaching American History.