In honor of Loyalty Day, I mock thee, President Goofus

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, well. Apparently it was Loyalty Day here in the U.S. on May 1, a touching little tradition that dates back at least four administrations, probably more. (I learned this from RTFirefly’s thread in Great Debates.)

In recognition of this, our egregious President issued a Proclamation. There’s nothing wrong with that – this is what government leaders do. Heck, some years ago I had the unusual task of ghostwriting a proclamation for Mayor Rudy Giuliani, declaring a day in honor of the president of the arts organization for which I worked at the time.

So, you may well be asking yourselves, if this Loyalty Day thing is an annual (if wince-inducing) event, why does choie think it’s pit-worthy?

It’s not the Loyalty Day thing that disgusts me. That in itself is merely lame, lamer than the lamest thing ever. However, you’ve gotta read the proclamation. Go on, now, read it! I did so with my jaw gaping wide open and with tears in my eyes – literally grieving for my country.

At first, I was all like, I am speechless. I am without speech. Unluckily for you who are now stuck reading my diatribe, that didn’t last long. :wink:

Compare the intro paragraphs from two Loyalty Day proclamations – one from Clinton back in 1998, the other from Bush.

Clinton:

Bush:

These two leaders approached the same event so differently, I decided to have some fun using the time-honored literary device made famous by no less an august publication than Highlights for Children.

Thus, it’s my pleasure to present to you, "How Goofus and Gallant Celebrate Loyalty Day!"

President Gallant (Clinton) humbly and graciously honors the founding fathers who fought for and created our government.

President Goofus (Bush) pays only brief lipservice to the founding fathers, preferring to emphasize the “Almighty” meme despite the fact that the constitution that formed our country makes no mention of either God or a magic pixie in the sky.

President Gallant soberly notes that true democracy is strong enough to allow dissent.

President Goofus warns us to be “patriots” and to give our war effort unflagging support, while his administration attacks those who speak against the government, and his PATRIOT Act abridges the very freedoms our brave soldiers are allegedly fighting for.

President Gallant lauds the country and its citizens while making no mention of himself or his own accomplishments.

President Goofus uses the opportunity to shill his own initiatives, because to him, everything is All About Goofus and the glorification thereof.

SIDEBAR: Hey kids, here’s a fun project for you while reading the proclamation! See how many times YOU can spot the words “my administration” or references to projects for which Goofus takes credit!!!

President Gallant thinks that loyalty is something that a government must earn – a gift that a worthy and just country inspires its citizens to grant.

President Goofus thinks that loyalty is something that we owe our government, apparently regardless of any monstrosities and unconstitutional acts said government may perpetrate.

Sigh. Every time I think this asshat-in-chief has sunk as far as he can go, he or one of his minions goes out of his way to dig the cesspool a little bit deeper. (I know he didn’t write it, obviously; neither did Clinton or Reagan write theirs. That’s not the point, though; the message certainly came straight from what Bush is pleased to call his ‘heart’.)

Now, of COURSE Bush’s cloying, self-serving proclamation isn’t the worst thing Bush has done, not by a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong shot. Hell, it’s not even the worst thing he’s done in the last 24 hours. All I know is that when I hear the words “loyalty” and “patriotism” coming from the mouth of this pissant rat-bastard, I get the shivers.

He is truly scarier than any leader this country has ever had. We none of us will be safe until he and his Mayberry Macchiavellian thugs are booted out of office.

2

President Clinton disappointed me quite a few times, mostly by waffling and trying to please too many people. But, damnit, I miss having a Rhodes scholar in the Oval Office, and one who shared the basic principles I believe in regarding what kind of country we ought to have. Reading the current Loyalty Day proclamation, I didn’t feel a strong negative reaction, but also not an iota of inspiration. My expectations regarding what issues from the White House have been lowered so much in the past few years… I’ve gotten used to a President who speaks to us as if we were children.

3

I never understood the derision about a President who “waffles” (read: changes his mind based on new data and situations) and “panders to the public” (read: carries out the populace’s will). Aren’t those supposed to be good traits, especially compared to a President who’s too stubborn to listen to the public and too stupid to adapt to changing circumstances?

That said, I celebrated Loyalty day by reaffirming my pledge to the ideals and values of the United States, and will redouble my efforts to throw out the stubborn moron currently in the White House who’s shitting all over those ideals and values.

4

Whew, my ears were burning for a second there.

5

Consider me underwhelmed. Though “loyalty day” is certainly a ridiculous observance, I think Choie’s overeacting to Bush’s proclomation. Yes, he mentions “the almighty”, but the Declaration of Independance mentioned “the creator”. Now, before anybody rushes to point out that the Declaration is not a binding document regarding the laws of this country and the policy of it’s government, etc. etc., please remember that some inane “loyalty day” speech isn’t binding on laws or policies, either. Most presidents make mention of a deity at one time or another. Hell, Clinton even mentioned the Almighty in the fourth sentence of his first inaugural address.

Secondly, why get so hung up on Bush mentioning “obligations to our country”? How is this fundamentally different from JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”?

I’m not a big fan of our current administration, but criticizing him on this brief proclamation seems more than a little petty. It’s grasping for any excuse to bash the guy. Bush didn’t say anything here that hasn’t been said at one time or another by every single president in the history of the United States.

6

Sadly, this President speaks to us as if he were a child. I long for a White House with an adult behind the desk in the oval office (even if there is another adult under it).

7

I wonder…

When will he justify military actions by saying “That’s what happens when you don’t Hail to the Chimp!”?

'Cause that’s what I always think of when I see him.

8

I mock thee, choie.

This is not pit worthy. This is not thread worthy. This isn’t even worthy of grumbling under your breath while alone in your car.

Let it go.

9

Yech.

I mean, it didn’t even move me to derision, except that when reading it I was struck with the knowledge that the speechwriter had either never graduated from the five-paragraph format from high school, or he just assumes that nobody listening to the president can handle listening to something more elegantly wrought.

It sounds, honestly, like a tenth-grader’s end of term paper. It filled me with deep and abiding “ehh”.

10

Hee. Yep folks, I DID say, didn’t I, that I knew this wasn’t a big deal? That this is so far from being the most offensive thing Bush has done, that the light from “offensive” will take fifty years to reach it? That this is not even 1/100th as bad as any of the 927347 other things that Bush and his thugs have done to insult my country?

However.

If this – and by “this” I mean the flag-waving, almighty-invoking, gotta-be-a-patriot-and-say-nothing-against-this-country-spewing – were a rare event for Chimpy, I’d just shrug my shoulders and say, “okay, bad speechwriting, it happens.”

But as most of us know, this isn’t rare at all. It’s pretty much his M.O.

So why does it piss me off to hear Bush suddenly so enthralled by the idea of voluntarism? Because he is a fucking hypocrite, that’s why.

*What sacrifice has he ever made? What sacrifice has he EVER asked of his rich buddies and corporate whores? *

Did he say to Cheney, “Naw, sorry, Dick, we can’t award your old company, the one that you’re still receiving dividends from, the Iraq contracts – and certainly not without asking them to bid. I know you’ve still got friends there; hell, so do I. But it’s just wrong, it looks wrong and is bad for Iraq. We shouldn’t be making money off this war, y’know?” Answer: Nope, he didn’t. Halliburton got its precious no-bid contracts, the Pentagon got overcharged, and Bush’s pals got richer.

Did he tell Congress, “Garsh fellers, this is a rough time and we’re gonna be spending lots of bucks on building up the country we just tore down; I think we’d better raise taxes on the multi-millionaires to help even things out”? Answer: Nope, he didn’t, preferring to be the only president to CUT taxes during a war. He saved his friends a lot of money, suckered everyday folks into thinking that they were getting $300 back for FREE! instead of actually borrowing it from their children’s future, made plenty of political hay out of being a tax-cutter … and racked up a record deficit.

Did he risk hurting his reputation as a man unwilling to jump to war, ask Congress to pull $700 million from the ACTUAL WAR ON TERRORISM in Afghanistan so that he and his cronies could use it for the preparation for his WMD Snipe Hunt? Answer: Nope, of course not. Instead of following the appropriate channels for allocating money, he said nothing to the Congressional leaders and stole money that should have been put to use fighting al-Qaeda. And so Bush got the oil-rich add-on to Texas that he’s always wanted, not to mention getting revenge for Saddam trying to kill his daddy.

Did he nobly insist on a full and frank investigation into the illegal, shameful security leak that led to the endangering of a CIA agent – an investigation that would almost certainly result in the ousting of his pals Karl Rove or Scooter Libby? Nope. Agent Valerie Plame’s undercover status was destroyed, the weapons investigation ruined, and her life conceivably put in grave danger – but hey, on the plus side, Bush got revenge on her husband for revealing Bush’s lie regarding Saddam’s alleged attempt to buy yellowcake in Niger.

Did he, knowing the vital importance of preventing more intelligence failures, strongly support the 9-11 investigation? Did he give them as much time to go forward as they needed without restricting them to arbitrary deadlines? Did he even go through the minor discomfort of testifying before the Commission on his own, without the reassuring and oh-so-familiar feeling of having Dick Cheney’s hand up his ass?

Nope, nope and nope.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. The point is, George Bush has an outrageous sense of entitlement that dates back to his misspent youth and, sadly, continues to this day. He knows nothing of sacrifice. He is a great, steaming hypocrite of the highest order.

So, yeah, again, I know that the proclamation wasn’t that big a deal. Certainly it wasn’t the same disgraceful level of pitworthiness as cats eating tampons, or bad service at Walmart, or tailgaiters, or people using the word “meh” too much.

Sue me. Bush’s latest stupidity just really got my goat, y’know?

And not the same fictional one that Bush was so enthralled by on 9/11 that he couldn’t be bothered to get off his ass and give NORAD the approval to shoot some planes down.

If nothing else, I hope someone enjoyed the walk down memory lane with Highlights. Dang I loved that magazine.

11

Were you under the mistaken impression that President Cumstain never invoked the almighty?

12

If I’d been drinking something, I’d have just sprayed my monitor! :smiley:

…

So would Monica. :eek:

bada-bing! Thank ya folks, I’ll be here all week!

13

I didn’t even mention Bush’s “with obligations to our country” reference italicized in the OP. Hell, it was a Democrat who invented that notion. He didn’t want us even to *ask * what our country could do for us. We were to ask only what *we * could do for it.

14

I don’t think that’s the same thing, Lib. Kennedy was stressing service. Bush has told us in many ways not to criticize the government.

15

Ok. That’s funny, dammit! :smiley:

16

Yep, but you also said that the speech was jaw droping and made you cry.

Darling, you thought this was a big enough deal to start a pit thread. You can’t use the “not a big deal” defense.

17

Be that as it may, what the OP italicized in the speech that he hated was the same thing Kennedy stressed.