molly.com
Thursday 30 September 2004
fault this president
“I FAULT THIS president for not knowing what death is.” So writes E.L. Doctorow, one of my all-time favorite novelists, in an essay entitled 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 . . . He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.”
Sobering.
Filed under: faith(less), policies
Posted by: Molly | 4:08 am |
September 30th, 2004 at 5:18 am
very interesting. thanks, Molly for pointing this out. Mr. Doctorow articulates a great deal of my feelings in a very sobering way.
September 30th, 2004 at 7:02 am
While Doctorow is entitled to his opinion, he couldn’t be more off the mark here. View Bruce Vincent’s encounter with the President, which has been verified as true and not just an internet rumor.
September 30th, 2004 at 7:51 am
It’s easy to feel compassion on an individual basis when confronted with detail. That doesn’t bridge the moral chasm, exactly. An ethical man would be proactively aware of of the wrongness subjecting young people to potential death for dubious and uncertain reasons. He would be sentient of the gravity of war and not make such decisions lightly or with intent to profit. He would not be cocksure or boastful in matters of national security. But still it’s nice to hear he’s not a total bastard. I guess.
September 30th, 2004 at 9:37 am
As the only super power remaining in the world, the president of our nation faces making unpopular decisions. Unfortunately for whatever man is in the office, he doesn’t have the luxury of making decisions based on emotions and polls. He must do what he feels is the right thing to do given the intelligence reports and briefings of those surrounding him. To believe that Bush entered into this fray “lightly” or with “intent to profit” personally is naive.
September 30th, 2004 at 11:34 am
Thanks for posting that link, Molly. I participate on several political boards and this article has been posted to all of them.
September 30th, 2004 at 12:18 pm
If Doctorow faults this president for not feeling, one must fault Doctorow for assuming too much. One cannot look at public appearances and draw anything from them other than what is said.
No one can expect the President to break down in tears every time he steps to the microphone. Nor should we want him to show anything but strength in the face of our enemies. And to assume that because he does not break The idea that many Americans must be coddled, stroked and generally made to feel as though their leader “feels their pain” is secondary to protecting the United States.
To assume that a President does not care simply because he does not govern by emotion, and does what he thinks is right based upon the information he has is simply wrong.
I don’t know the man personally. But I’m not going to assume he doesn’t care, and I don’t think Doctorow should either. But it’s a free country.
September 30th, 2004 at 3:53 pm
The fact that there was a prayer meeting in the Oval Office is horrifying to me. Sure, have a prayer meeting, but not in one of the symbols of our highest office. What happened to separation of church and state? Oh, and I hope that Bush is still praying, as no amount of rebirth of faith will save him from hell after all of the lives he’s spent in his (and his father’s) war.
September 30th, 2004 at 4:19 pm
How many Presidents, all of whom have ordered American troops into battle, have known what it is to have lost one of their own children?
September 30th, 2004 at 4:22 pm
And to Kimberly, I would have to ask which is more horrifying while American troops are in combat zones - a prayer meeting or an adulterous sex act (one of which is a felony in the District of Columbia) within the Oval Office?
September 30th, 2004 at 8:39 pm
Hey, Kimberly - the seperation of church and state does not mean you cannot pray in a government office. It actually mean that you have the right to do that. People love to twist that saying. It mean the government cant force you to pray, not that you cant pray.
Oh, BTW, Kerry just said his plan is to KILL the terrorists. Not bring to justice, but KILL. It may be sematics but I have never hear any President say that we should kill someone.
October 1st, 2004 at 2:54 am
After reading more about Mr. Doctorow - I’d never ever heard of him before Molly’s post - I’ve come to the conclusion that not only is not a mind-reader and therefore incapable of knowing what emotions President Bush may or may not feel on any given day, but also that Mr. Doctorow certainly knows nothing of which he speaks. I find no evidence that he has ever ordered troops into battle or that he has ever shed tears at having lost his own children in a war - does he even have children? Looks like three of them. Have the ever served a day in the military? I’d bet good money the answer is absolutely not.
October 1st, 2004 at 3:29 am
Sobering, no. Idiotic, yes. He is a complete fool.
October 1st, 2004 at 5:15 am
I detect a little bias here….Unless one knows a person personally, I think it would be best to refrain from making character judgements. It simply is unfair and exposes one’s ingnorance. Remember when you point a finger at someone there are three pointing right back at YOU!
October 1st, 2004 at 11:33 am
“The novelist E.L. Doctorow has a house in Sag Harbor.”. What a bizarrely irrelevant fact to add on the end like that.
October 1st, 2004 at 2:06 pm
A prayer meeting.
October 2nd, 2004 at 7:11 am
I think he may be trying to compare how previous presidents have reacted to similar situations in the past and how the current one has reacted. I think the majority of the other presidents reacted to these events with gravity and called troops to war with a heavy heart, but this president seemed almost gleeful and vengeful. I remember a few days after Sept. 11, he was giving speeches that reminded me of a kid playing cowboys and indians. Everything is black and white, we are good, they are evil, we must have our revenge. All very mature.
October 4th, 2004 at 9:00 am
I feel that the “novelist E.L. Doctorow” has shown a perfect example of the liberty and freedom of speach which we Americans enjoy and take for granted.
I also wholeheartedly DISAGREE with his judgement of the character of our President. All those adjectives about the evil man, just from looking in his eyes? Has he even met him face to face?
“He does not mourn.” How does this novelist know this? “He doesn’t regret” anything? Has he asked the President if he regrets the loss of life in Iraq? He doesn’t “drop to his knees”? Has he been present when the President prays?
I think I’ll go alittle further.
The war has not got the country behind the President, it has hurt his popularity. And dissent, like that reflected in his article is accepted. So much for that being a motivation for him to go to war.
But, have we had attacks on American soil since 911? Is this just coincidence? Or have the efforts of Our President and all involved in the “war on terror” made a difference?
It is my opinion that President Bush LOVES this country, and his people, and that he is determined to preserve and protect our nation from those who would destroy it.
October 4th, 2004 at 1:06 pm
It’s kind of hard to know what death is until you’ve experienced it. And since that makes you dead, he couldn’t be President.
My statement is nearly as stupid as E.L. Doctorow’s.
October 4th, 2004 at 6:54 pm
There’s quite a one-upmanship these days in people competing to see how evil they can portray George W. Bush to be. Pretty soon we’ll see someone claim he eats babies for breakfast. Too bad for Michael Moore - the first liar never stands a chance.
October 4th, 2004 at 8:09 pm
President Bush eats babies for breakfast, puppies for lunch and kittens for supper. He is the supreme evil.
There, now it’s been said.
October 6th, 2004 at 9:43 pm
Jason, if it weren’t for Presidents such as Bush, you’d be living in a socialist totalitarian state, and such comments as yours (being illegal under such a government) would therefore have already gotten you - after a very brief “trial” - executed by firing squad in a public courtyard. Or worse still, your family, friends, and comrades (who would actually have been the ones who turned you in to the police) would be wondering what had become of you since your disappearance.
October 9th, 2004 at 7:24 am
Molly, some of your commenters above seem to have missed several points.
Any one of us, if we have average intelligence, is able to make judgements about someone’s character. We do it all the time, and on far less information than we have about the current President. We make character judgements about someone we’ve seen for five seconds on the street. To call into question Doctorow’s right to make a character judgement is juvenile and insulting. Almost as sobering as Doctorow’s piece is how dense, how unable to think or form individual (as opposed to the party line) opinions or respect differences, some of your commenters are.
Secondly, to damn or ridicule Doctorow the person because you don’t agree with his observations or conclusions is irrelevant and illogical. (Makes you look stupid… cf the Republican Far Right’s current campaign tactics.)
Maybe it’s because of this president’s example that so many people nowadays think in black and white, re-state someone’s opinion in the most facile damning when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife manner, and are ready to instantly state their own opinions without a thoughtful dispassionate examination of the original argument.
Sigh.
October 9th, 2004 at 9:50 pm
I made a comment on this post because, like the author of the article we are commenting on; I have an opinion.
My opinion of the authors judgement of our President’s character is that he is wrong.
I don’t see that anyone has damned this author in these posts. Ridiculed him maybe; but I did not. I simply stated an opinion which is diametrically opposed to that of the author. And furthermore, after examining the article again, I think that my questions are certainly both relevant and logical.
Some people have a real fear of seeing anything in black and white (as in absolutes like Right and Wrong). When you look at it in black and white there are just alot of superfluous words in some of these posts, wrapped around the name calling (juvenille, stupid, etc…)
And no, I’m not the Tom who called Mr. Doctorow a fool.
October 11th, 2004 at 9:10 pm
No, William Hamby, we’re not living in a socialist, totalitarian state, but that is no credit to Bush and his gang. We are, however, well on our way down the slippery slope to a fascist (see Mussolini’s definition of this term) authoritarian regime. I think a point the Bush-lovers in this forum have carefully elided is that he thought it expedient to order our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters into a war that had no moral backing, almost no international support, and no sober assessment of the strategy for and costs of building a nation out of the rubble.
You can’t just cowboy your way in and out of these things. That’s the lesson Johnson learned, and it’s the single reason he did not run in 1968. If GW had even a shred of ethical backbone he would have done the same, and we’d be seeing a matchup of McCain versus some popular Democrat (maybe Kerry, maybe not). At least we’d be rid of the grotesquely delusional neocons who are wiping their nether regions with the founding documents of this nation, and illuminating their memoirs with the blood of the working class.
November 4th, 2004 at 7:29 am
To accuse President Bush of rushing into war is to ignore the facts. Facts are black and white. Truth is black and white. He didn’t get a lot of international support because many countries were profiting from the oil-for-food program. UN sanctions failed. Saddam did not comply. He had years to comply. Saddam used the profits from the oil-for-food program to fund terrorism. President Bush had to remove Saddam from power for the safety of the world. He didn’t do it lightly. Too many people think ignoring problems make them go away.
As for separation of church and state, people need to actually read the Constitution. It says congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion. That means the House & Senate cannot pass laws that establish a national religion. It does not say we cannot pray in government buildings or post the Ten Commandments in public places. People need to go to some of the old government buildings in the original colonies and see all the scripture engraved in them. If our founding fathers meant to separate religion from government, then why did they pray? Why did they post the Ten Commandments? Why did they build buildings with scripture engraved in them? Why did one quote scripture (except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it) when drafting the Constitution?
When I voted, I voted not for the man who relied on his own abilities and wisdom but rather for the man who realized he is weak and imperfect and relied on God for strength and wisdom.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
http://www.sh-scpv.com/ pump
http://www.sh-scpv.com/ china pump
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:23 am
http://www.sh-scpv.com/Diaphragm-Pumps.html Diaphragm Pumps
http://www.sh-scpv.com/Screw-Pumps.html Screw Pumps
January 29th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
thanx
January 30th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
thanx
March 30th, 2008 at 9:30 am
thanks
April 7th, 2008 at 1:46 am
it is easy to find it, i think u just search on google or yahoo
April 8th, 2008 at 5:45 am
but, i think it is another thing which you have
April 8th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
i like it
April 8th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
interesting, thanks
April 9th, 2008 at 5:57 am
do you know everything about css?
April 9th, 2008 at 11:43 am
how can i find everything about css?
April 10th, 2008 at 4:31 am
what do you want to learn about css? we can help easily
April 11th, 2008 at 7:48 am
i want learn too, i want start at the beginning of css
April 11th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
it is good t see u
April 21st, 2008 at 6:01 pm
thats the matter i want to learn
April 21st, 2008 at 10:10 pm
ok,thanks
April 24th, 2008 at 5:23 am
hi, umit. how is going on
May 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am
it is easy to find it on google