Final random thoughts on my alter ego George W. Bush

Its the night before the inauguration of Barack Obama and I am ready. I am ready to turn the page on the Bush presidency. A president that I helped elect in 2000 and a president I fought vehemently against in 2004. I am ready to see things clearly and see the way my attitudes have changed over the past eight years. I am ready to see the errors of our nation and move on. If our country was a drug addict I would say that last November we reached our moment of clarity and decided enough was enough. Like an addict who one day wakes up in the gutter, in prison, or alone so too our nation now finds itself isolated, desperate, and in need of help. So desperate that not only did millions organize the largest political movement in our nation’s history but millions of others forgot about their own racial or political hang ups, held their nose, and voted for a change. A change they really knew nothing about. To quote the great rock band The Replacements we decided “Anywhere is better than here!”

I remember seeing our president elect on TV in 2004 and thinking “this is the guy I want to be president…but there is NO way it will happen.” Not because of his race. But because of the way the country was at that time and also because of my past luck in voting. Its pretty much a kiss of death if I support you to be president. Dukakis. Bradley. Kerry. These are a few of my past “sure things.” Hell, even when I pick horse races its a disaster. This past year in the Kentucky Derby I picked two horses. One finished last. The other DIED on the track. So my fatalistic sense was “No way will this guy I’m backing actually win.” Son of a gun my horse came in. I feel now like I did when the sox won the series in 2004. Even better. Like Bob Marley says I “feel like a sweepstakes winner.” Yes, even better. Because one was mere sport. The other would be just money. But this Obama thing is not some selfish thing for me. Its not about “my candidate won.” Its not about politics…For me at least. Its about my daughter. Its about her future. Its about the kind of country that she will live in 5-10-20 years from now. I get a little choked up thinking about it. I have so many feelings as I look back and look ahead at this moment.

I’m thinking about W. I’m thinking about me. I’m thinking we are not so different.
Many people mocked him. I was one. Many people called him stupid. I was one.
Many people blamed him for all the worlds problems. I, indeed, was one. However, if I am honest I have to look at him and myself and see a ton of similarities. I mean I would like to believe that if presented with the same decisions he had to make that I would be different. I would like to think that I would be smarter, speak better, and not have done the damage he did. But if I am honest I think I may have reacted just like him to the circumstances of the last eight years. I feel a little bit of a kinship with him in recent days as I have been doing some hard self examination. You see, I come from a family where there was addiction. There was chronic neglect when I was a child. And, lucky me, as an adult I get to inherit all that fun stuff. ( waaa waaa waaa) A lot of it I have overcome and worked through. A lot of it though bubbles up from time to time and I realize what an addictive personality I have and what silly coping mechanisms I employ. I also realize that despite all my books and philosophy I am the type that tends to react more emotionally to stress than with the stoic reasoning that I so envy in others. So in those respects I am not that much different than George W. Bush. The Dry Drunk.

Go ahead google the phrase “dry drunk.” Bush comes up in the top ten. I remember a lot of my liberal friends saying “Bush is a dry drunk.” There are books written about this topic. To clarify, a dry drunk is basically someone who is an alcoholic or addict who has stopped using the drugs but is still the same person emotionally and spiritually as he was when he was using. Because of this self imposed restraint from drugs to cope with their problems, the dry drunk then finds a more “legal” or covert obsession to take its place and fix his problems. People said this about W because of his single minded approach to being right, his fixation on good vs. evil, and especially his feeling of a divine mandate to bring “freedom” to the world whether the world likes it or not. But would I have done the same as W? Maybe. I know how I can withdraw into myself like W. I know how I can make dumb jokes to try and cover up my insecurity and awkwardness. I know how I can try and be so different than my parents to try and prove to myself that I am not them. I know how I can misspeak. I know that I can be single minded in my missions. I know I have choked on a pretzel. (Forgot about that one didn’t you) And I know how I would react if anyone ever tried to come after me or my family. Pity the person that would ever dream of harming my daughter. So it was with Bush. Bush reacted to 9-11 the way I might react if the country was my family. Again, I would LIKE to think I would be different. But I don’t know. If I heard the security reports everyday that thousands were trying to kill us…I just might have signed off on torture. If I heard that nuclear weapons were in Iraq I might have plowed into Baghdad like he did. If I was stressed out and sick of work I would take a vacation. If I thought that I could help people and save the world I would try to do it the best I could with the intensity and passion of W. Which of course begs the question that has plagued me for years with this fellow. With all of his flaws…Was he well-meaning and ignorant? Or was he cold and uncaring in his cocksure texas strut. Was he listening to his better angels or fighting his inner demons. Its eight years and 200 hundred Maureen Down columns later and I STILL don’t know. Probably because I don’t know about my own angels and demons.

What DO I know? I know that George Bush may be a lot like me …and a lot of times I hate myself for my behaviors and mistakes. Perhaps this is why I, and I would posit many others, hate the man. In a way we are hating ourselves. In him we see someone who would make the same mistakes as us. And we wish that he, we, would be someone different. Every November,after the exit polls, the media likes to tell us that when we elect a president we choose someone “like us.” I never bought that and I especially question that now. I think when it comes to casting our vote for president, we do not choose ourselves, but rather our mate. Ya know, opposites attract?

Think of the last party where you were out with couples. Think of how each couple is usually made up of two very different personality types.. If one is shy the other is the life of the party. If one is anxious the other is calm and collected. We do this, subconsciously or not, when we choose a partner. We choose that person who is different than us to compliment us. Think of all the relationships where people say “ We broke up because actually we were too MUCH alike!” I know a ton of people who have said that. So it is with our president. For a healthy presidential relationship we should choose someone who would be different, and yes, better than us.

This is precisely why I feel so good about Obama. I chose him because he is NOTHING like me. Some accused him of being elitist? My thought was “He better be! He better be “elite.” He is applying for the hardest job in the world…Please tell me he is a million times more “elite” and better suited for it than me!” I am emotional. He is calm. I can be quick to attack when attacked. He will be deliberate and measured. I’m like Bush man. I can fixate on one task or project for days to the exclusion of all around me. He seems the type that would multitask, delegate, and include all around in the process. I can crack dumb jokes. Obama is pretty serious. I like to lighten situations. Obama brings a gravitas to any meeting. I often believe that people cannot be trusted. Obama seems to think that we are all basically good and desirous of the same things.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am not some misanthropic irrational ignoramus. I think I have a certain amount of intelligence and patience and some great virtues. But I do notice that also within my personality lies the potential for the many negative things that I mentioned. Like a lot of us who are constantly working on ourselves, I am aware of my many shortcomings and sins but I have faith that I can overcome them. In other words I have a choice. I can see my ugly side and live in fear or I can see my potential and live in hope. It is that personal journey which is a microcosm for our country at this time January 20, 2008. At this time we have seen all the ugly things we can be. We have seen our financial mistakes with the housing bubble. We have seen the result of our self centered myopic ways with the Hurricane Katrina response. And yes we have seen our most basic needs for safety and love turned upside down as we sought insane isolation and revenge in Iraq and Abu Ghraib. We have seen our ugly side… and decided, step one, we have a problem and we need to change. We were offered two very distinct directions. One offered us more of the same. More fear. More clinging to our old dysfunctional past. The other offered us not fear…but hope. Not distrust of our fellow man…But faith in him. Not the past but a future. Not hatred but love. We chose faith, hope, and love that day in November. As a nation we chose to get better. We chose to enter rehab. We chose to move forward step by step. And for many of us who were living in fear of a president who did not share our skin color, we chose to ignore our fears and choose hope.
And it is this hope that I cling too when I do something simple today like shut off my TV news and shut down all those thoughts that remind me of all the problems…And I instead sit quietly as the snow falls and read a book with my daughter.

Time to go to sleep now.
I fade off thinking this strange thought.
George Bush and Me. We are two of a kind.

And thats why I voted for Obama.

By the way, I never did choke on a pretzel.