Get the Feed
|
I M P R E S S I O N S
Compassionate Rhetoric Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature. Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country.
6.19.02 | In case you haven’t heard, compassionate conservatism is back. It vanished for a time after Sept. 11 as Bush & Co. concentrated on smoking out bad guys and conquering evil. By all accounts, this was a happy change for Bush, who never really seems comfortable “feeling the pain” of hungry children, unemployed workers and displaced caribou. Acting tough, however, comes naturally. Mark Crispin Miller, a media critic and author of The Bush Dyslexicon, suggested in an interview with Norman Solomon last fall that this may be the explanation for why Bush’s communication skills seemed to improve after the terrorist attacks. “The president has lately spoken relatively well for the same reason that he’s always broken into sudden fits of lucid English — because, in speaking of our national mission of revenge, he’s speaking from the heart,” Miller said.
It’s no secret that Sept. 11 was a political bonanza for Bush. And he hasn’t been shy about exploiting this advantage. As Karl Rove made clear in his January speech to the Republican National Committee, the GOP intends to make the war on terrorism a centerpiece of the 2002 congressional campaign. (To this end, could there be a crasser exploitation of a national tragedy than the recent GOP fund-raising letter offering a photo of Bush on Sept. 11 to anyone contributing $150 or more to the Republican House and Senate campaign committees?) But a funny thing happened on the way to this war-based Republican nirvana. It turns out that while most people give Bush high marks for his handling of the war on terrorism (even given all of the recent revelations), this doesn’t necessarily mean they will vote Republican. In the end, bread and butter issues like the economy, Social Security and education, which traditionally favor Democratic candidates, seem likely to resonate more with the voters. Thus, despite Bush’s stratospheric approval ratings, the Democrats continue to hold their own in most generic congressional party preference polls. The Republican response, not surprisingly, has been to dust off the touchy-feely Bush of the last campaign. This (re)rebirth of Bush as a compassionate conservative began in earnest during a speech he gave in San Jose, Calif., April 30: “I call my philosophy and approach “compassionate conservatism,”" he said. “It is compassionate to actively help our fellow citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on responsibility and on results.” To hear all this again, one might think that Bush himself invented compassionate conservatism. He didn’t. (That honor is generally credited to Marvin Olasky.) But in making the concept his own, Bush assured Californians that he did, in fact, feel their pain. “I understand people are hurting here in the Silicon Valley,” he told the crowd in a similar speech at a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon. “So long as people can’t find work, I’m worried,” he added. These tender words might have sounded a touch more sincere, of course, if they hadn’t been spoken by the same man who had recently told the entire population of California to go to hell when they were suffering from power shortages, rolling blackouts and predatory pricing for energy products. We now know that these problems were created, at least in part, by the unethical and probably illegal market manipulations committed by Bush’s buddies at Enron and elsewhere in the energy industry. And yet Bush’s compassion has never driven him to acknowledge, let alone to attempt to rectify, the wrong his administration did to California. This has been a familiar pattern with Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”: The compassionate part of the equation is generally all talk; the conservative part is where the action is. Consider, for example, his double-cross on the much-touted No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This was supposed to be the opening act of the new era of bipartisanship Bush had promised to bring to Washington. Working with Democratic liberals, Bush reached a compromise, which, among other things, provided for increased education spending. Just five weeks after the much-publicized presidential signing ceremony, however, Bush submitted a 2003 budget that proposed cutting $90 million from the Act’s agreed funding. Overall, Bush’s proposal would provide the smallest increase in education spending in seven years (a 2.8 percent increase compared to an average of 13 percent over the preceding years). So much for the “education president.” But at least he’s consistent. He also broke his campaign promise to increase funding for Pell Grants, which will make it much more difficult for poor and middle-income kids to afford college. Other examples of Bush’s compassion include the decision to start enforcing the previously ignored ban on financial aid to college students with drug convictions (notwithstanding his own self-confessed "youthful mistakes"), and the welfare reform proposal that would significantly increase the number of hours a mother must work to receive benefits without increasing child care assistance. The truth behind the spin is that George W. Bush is probably one of the least compassionate men ever to serve as president. Even Ronald Reagan, whose public policies were every bit as mean spirited as those of Bush, was, according to Tip O”Neill in his book Man of the House, capable of responding compassionately when faced with an individual hard-luck story. Bush’s personal sense of compassion is perhaps best reflected by his “Please don’t kill me” mockery of Karla Faye Tucker’s televised plea for life. Compassionate enough for you? Since moving into the White House, Bush’s compassion has largely been directed toward his wealthy campaign contributors, recipients of a multi billion-dollar tax break. Industries are also thrilled about weakened environmental and worker regulations and a “fox guarding the henhouse” regulatory style. No doubt about it, if God is a corporate fat cat, George W. Bush’s place in heaven is secure. What most disturbs me about the carefully scripted myth of compassionate conservatism is the disrespect it shows for true compassion, compassion that can be found in so many places, from homeless shelters and hospitals to schools and offices and everywhere else people gather. Few things in this world deserve to be called sacred — compassion is one of them. But it is not Bush’s forte. Bush “is most articulate when speaking cruelly…,” Miller said, adding, “It’s when he tries to sound a higher note — idealistically, or out of magnanimity, or on his trademark theme of “compassion” — that Bush starts to speak broken English, because, like most of us, his tongue will not cooperate when he is being insincere.” As Bush continues to make the rounds of Republican fundraisers, he may want to tone down his compassionate rhetoric. Actions, after all, speak louder than words. P o p F o r u m Steven C. Day is an attorney practicing in Wichita, Kansas. His previous columns can be found here. Related Sites
|
