Walk this way

Usually, I'd frown on talking about Bush. I've given up trying to find new and clever ways in saying this man is an idiot and shouldn't be around any position of power.

That won't stop me from linking someone else, though. The Boston Globe's James Carroll offers up an insightful piece describing how Bush's lack of language is slowly ebbing meaning out of words that should carry a great and terrible weight, like "war." The trouble is, Bush's slothful use of words is spreading like a plague. And in a job where diplomacy and tact is key...well, let's just say the world is becoming a crude and monosyllabic desert where nuances and crafty plans go to die. A snip of Carroll.


In the beginning, the justification for ''regime change'' in Baghdad was entirely a matter of the threat Hussein represents but no more. Now the justification includes protecting the integrity of threat. We have to go to war now because we said we would. Language is no longer an expression of purpose but the shaper of purpose.

The United States, in fact, is in a crisis of language. This is what it means to have a president who, proudly inarticulate, has no real understanding of the relationship between words and acts, between rhetoric and intention.

Consider his heated boast about his own patience. I saw his declaration on the evening news, and it was clear that, as he began that second sentence, seeking to emphasize the first, he meant to find another way of displaying his determination. But he was, as usual, at a literal loss for words. And so he fell back on empty repetition. ''When I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man.''

Bush mistakes tautology for explanation, a habit of mind marking his entire administration. Bush governs by assertion instead of persuasion. Whether the United States seeks to exercise power over the Taliban, or over Sharon and Arafat, or over Russia, or over its European allies, or even over its own citizens, the method is the same. Washington doesn't waste a moment trying to persuade the Taliban to side with us against bin Laden. Washington rejects Arafat as a dialogue partner and forgoes any effort to influence Sharon. Washington presents Moscow with ultimatums on arms control treaties.


Over on Tom Tomorrow's blog, the cartoonist takes a moment to describe a new piece he has on the back of the latest New Yorker magazine, and how political satire is becoming tougher to think up and sell in this social climate, and how Sept. 11 reminded him about the futility of work in the face of disaster.

Working in a coal mine...going down, down, down

My poet friend Cori is interviewing for a job today at a newspaper in Idaho. Fingers crossed that she'll get it.