BUSH AS A "STRONG" LEADER: QUESTIONING THE MYTH

Ron Santoni

I spent most of this past summer overseas. During that period, I was not only alerted to my physical resemblance to John Kerry but gained an awareness of how George Bush and the current United States administration are viewed by people the world over. To be blunt, George Bush is seen as a simple-minded, arrogant, deceptive and inept leader; his administration as a group of smug, self-aggrandizing, narrow-minded, money-driven ultra-conservatives who have misled their artfully fabricated president into a precipitous and unjust war mainly to fulfill their pre-planned right-wing agenda. The current Administration has become the terrifying laughing stock of the world. Most of the outside world does not comprehend how the American people can put up with them, or even think of adding another 4 years to such recklessness, pomposity, and indifference to the cares of others.

For months, I have pondered this matter. As a philosopher, I have been baffled by the self-destructive, inflated pride and uncritical patriotism of so many Americans. And I have asked myself how the Religious Right --in the name of an alleged commitment to a God of Love--could engage with and support the Bush-led "coalition of the killing". Has the religious right taken time to study the theological meaning of hubris or sin? Has it understood that it continues to elevate its nation to the level of God--a blatant form of idolatry for any theistic religion? Isn't it time for the religious right to do some self- reexamination and show some human compassion for fellow human beings, rather than bow uncritically to a god made in its own image?

Viewing the campaign from home as well as abroad, I have struggled to understand how the president and his image-making entourage could have persuaded so many Americans that he is "strong" leader. Concerned with the integrity of language, I can't help wondering if the present administration has stretched the word's meaning beyond tolerable limits.

For was it "strong"to have led the nation into into a seemingly disastrous preemptive war before receiving a verdict on WMDs in Iraq from a scrupulously thorough investigating team that was receiving increasing counter-evidence? Was it strong for a leader to snub the United Nations at a time when that organization was awaiting the verdict, and was looking for an alternative to the destruction of human life and of another country? Was it strong for a leader to clothe his ever-changing justifications for going to war in half-truths? Was it strong for a leader to belittle and even mock other great nations and their leaders simply because they disagreed with his highly objectionable war-making decisions?Was it strong for a leader to allow his supporters to disparage the established war heroism of another presidential candidate when his own National Guard record was, to say the least, both open to question and uninspiring?

Further, is it "strong" for a president never to acknowledge a mistake when indisputable evidence shows otherwise? And then to defend his unacknowledged but unmistakable mistakes on the basis of an endless "war"on terror that he misleadingly tells his people he will end? And is it strong for a leader to try to frighten the nervous electorate into voting for him because of 9/11 and terror--the latter of which has increased abundantly because of his bravado, terror-inciting policies and actions? And, one more example: Is it strong for a president even to suggest that the present post -war quagmire in Iraq is even a semblance of the compliant, U.S-embracing, Iraq that he claimed the US invasion would usher in?

Does any of the above signify "strength" of a leader? Or does each exhibit what Aristotle and countless thinkers after him have contended--namely weakness of character and foolhardiness? Most of the world thinks the latter. It is now time for all Americans to do the same. The famous line that President Bush has been quick to use against his opponent applies better to the president himself: "you can run but you can't hide." Let us all recognize that belligerence and deviousness are unacceptable alternatives to strength of character.

(Dr. Santoni is Maria Theresa Barney Chair and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Denison University.