Bush should practice what he preaches

I don’t understand why, but I’m absolutely drawn to George W. Bush.

While I’m not a big fan of the blood and gore of a road-side crash, I am unable to pull myself away from this Bush kid. It’s like watching Alfred E. Newman in a pod race. You know that sooner or later, something is going to happen.

It’s just a matter of whether Bush will hit a wall, a rock or just explode.

He says the most unexplainable things, and the media have done its best to insulate him so far. But really, how long will it be before Dubya has to explain himself?

I am aware of this fascination of mine (in fact it’s becoming a vice) and it is just so hard to turn away from the cognitive dissonance of that man. For those of you wondering about that last phrase, ‘cognitive dissonance,’ it denotes the difference between speech and action.

Let’s take a look at some of his greater moments …

“I want those young people who commit crimes to be held accountable for their actions.”

“We need to say that each of us need to be responsible for what we do. And people in the highest office of the land must be responsible for decisions they make in life. That’s the way I’ve conducted myself as governor of Texas. And that’s the way I’ll conduct myself as president of the United States.”

OK, George. Take that first step, and come clean about your drug use and certify once and for all the president is not above the law.

I know what you all are saying: “Come on, it happened a long time ago.” It was a different era, the 1960s and ‘70s were about self-discovery and exploration. Everybody was doing drugs. Well surprise! Drug use in the ‘90s was about self-discovery and will continue to be in the future.

So how can Dubya tell others to take responsibility while shirking it himself? Maybe he did not learn as much as he pretends from those “mistakes he may or may not have made.” Go cognitive dissonance!

Note also, our government feels alcohol and tobacco are safe for public consumption, and they topped 500,000 deaths in 1998.

“I was asked what (philosopher most) influenced my life, and I gave an honest, unvarnished answer (in Jesus Christ). It doesn’t make me better than you or better than anybody else, but it’s a foundation for how I live my life. Some may accept the answer and some may not. But I really don’t care. It’s me. It’s what I’m all about. It’s how I live my life.”

George W. Bush can allow the execution of almost 150 people and still say he lives his life by the teachings of Jesus. I must be unfamiliar with his version of the Bible. All I have read about Jesus has stressed the importance of love and that Christians must not judge others. Long live cognitive dissonance.

Dubya’s nomination of John Ashcroft and reinstatement of Ronald Wilson Reagan’s “Mexico City Policy,” effectively a world gag order eliminating any funding for organizations that in any way fund abortion, are starting to raise some questions as well. People are beginning to realize a government willing to remove one’s sovereignty over their body when it comes to some drugs feels that a woman’s reproductive rights are similarly governable. Please don’t think that I’m picking on Bush. It’s not that I think he’s so much worse than Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, LBJ, JFK, Nixon, Eisenhower or Truman.

Lately I have been hearing “the Rule of Law” being thrown around as a political buzz word by Bush and Ashcroft, and according to the United Nations, the only legitimate use of force on the state level in the world is that authorized by the U.N. Security Council. So if these people really want to follow the Rule of Law, then we must indict every president — except Dubya incidentally — we have had since the United States signed on as a member of the United Nations on Oct. 24, 1945.

Chris Dobson is a senior history and political science major from Arlington.
He can be reached at (c.p.dobson@student.tcu.edu).

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