"Oh, it's a dirty job/But someone's gotta do it"
I flipped over to NBC, expecting divers or gymnasts, and instead I got Bob Costas interviewing George W. Bush. He spoke on China, stressing the need for tolerance of religious practices but counseling that our interests are best served by remaining engaged with the economic giant; on the Russian-Georgian conflict, noting, when queried on his conversation with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that he also spoke to "the president of that country," Dmitry Medvedev; and he dissembled on the need for the host country to pressure the Sudanese government regarding the ongoing genocide in Darfur. It was a jarring moment, wherein I realized that President Bush was no longer a figure of the future but of the past; for the first time, he came across, to me at least, as the president he always wanted to portray himself as (which is to say, a president I still don't want, but, to quote Bono, even better than the real thing). There is nothing at this point that can redeem the incompetence, arrogance, and corruption that has characterized his administration, yet his appearance reminded me of the bizarre, ineffable process wherein all of our presidents are absorbed into history as a representation of the Americas they governed. The words were right, the sentiments perhaps naive (Vladimir Putin is no friend of the United States), the actions depressingly lacking; could it be that President Bush himself has subtly become a walking critique of the America he has led down the wrong path, the expedient path, the path for those unwilling to confront the realities of the world, be they far afield or right in our own communities? The fault, as they say, is not in our stars, but in our selves; perhaps, in other words, we get the government we deserve, not the government we think we deserve.
"Oh, it's a dirty job/But someone's gotta do it"
