The Unfeeling President - by E. L. Doctorow

[TacticalPeek]

From last September . . .


GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow

The Unfeeling President

I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.


more
http://www.easthamptonstar.com/20040909/col5.htm

[applegrove]

1. Well said. America the leader of democracy has lost its way.

Well said. America the leader of democracy has lost its way. And it is sad for all of us to see it happen.

Britain got away with being an Empire because it did in the end let go. Empires have only been kept alive in the dreams and plans of corporations for the last 50 years.

When we evolved ourselves - we forgot to get the corporations to evolve with us. We must remember to do this. When we get the chance. Corporations were put there by humans to be tools for us. They belong to us. And our leaders and our economies should not be remade in their image.

[indigobusiness]

2. kick

[War Pigs]

3. I live among 59 MILLION assholes. That's the bottom line for me

[bklyncowgirl]

4. Thenk you Mr. Doctorow

I feel the same way but you have put it into words much more beautiful than anything I could ever write.

[rodeodance]

5. I recall this article--great last fall and great now--Fits the Prez

[MaineYooper]

6. the last line is amazingly powerful...

He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.