George W. Bush: Fugitive Liberal

Not that the writing wasn’t on the wall: From my May 2000 archives, eight months before Bush took the oath of office. 

If one’s works do not within reason match one’s faith, the Good Book says, then that man’s faith is vain. After all, one can take a masquerade only so far, and no further.

Eventually, the face makeup is smeared by the heat of the day, uncovered by poor acting, unmasked by a perfect judge, or washed away by that rare individual who recognizes that the time for self-cleansing is now, and so forthwith gets about the business of surrendering selfish-self to higher duty.

In Melville’s “Moby Dick,” the chapter “The Sermon” recounts an adaptation to the Biblical story of one Jonah – a prophet of God, who after being called to preach to a hard-hearted people balked at that opportunity, disobeyed the command of his Maker, fled Nineva and bordered a boat bound for Tarshish, thinking “that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reign but only the Captains of this earth.”

But from the moment Jonah applied for passage on the ship, all the crew that eyed him sensed that Jonah bore some dark and loathsome secret.

Jonah’s transparency aided them. Melville records: “So disordered, self-condemning [is] his look, that had there been a policeman in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive!”

The captain, who decides who boards and who does not, perceived that Jonah was a marked passenger; however, we read: “Now Jonah’s Captain . . . was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world . . . sin that pays its way can travel free and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”

The captain convinced the wayward soul to pay three times the regular fare, which Jonah willingly did, and that was that! Money, not the safety of crew, passengers and cargo, was the bottom line for this captain.

Such disregard for the higher duties to which captains are bound, wrecked havoc on the captain’s winnings.

God found Jonah, and “the sea rebelled” and refused “to bear the wicked burden.” The ship was caught in a tumultuous storm. All lives were imperiled. Jonah, sensing he had brought this calamity upon his shipmates, confessed the connection between he and the tempest, and begged they throw him overboard to save their lives.

Even so, the captain and shipmates pridefully decided to stand by their great error and keep the man (who did not belong) on board, thinking their paltry efforts could safely deliver the ship from the storm.

Man would bare the sin. Nature would not. All attempts to mask the truth failed. At last, the storm unlashed its full fury and Jonah was enthusiastically cast into the billowing deep and swallowed by the whale God had prepared.

In the end, a fugitive prophet, a greedy captain and a prideful crew all learned severe lessons.

Foreshadowing Ahab

“The Sermon” foreshadowed, by way of contrast, the more modern and far more wicked Ahab; that is, a false prophet who unlike Jonah failed to confess and repent as the signs of danger mounted, and by way of contrast again, a crew, which seeing a man foreign and antagonistic to the assigned task of the whalers, failed to cast him overboard, where he truly belonged.

Instead, they fell into a frenzy of emotion, delirium and false prophecy which persuaded them that abandonment of duty, family and God, in favor of murderous revenge upon a dumb beast, was just. This blind confidence cost all who engaged in it their lives, and the ship went down with them.

Fugitive Liberal

Now, George W. Bush, mind you, is certainly no great but temporarily squeamish Jonah. Agreed. Nor does he, or any other Bush family member, offer the dramatic flare of an evil Ahab. Agreed again. The Bushes are soft-spoken enough. But there are strong similarities to the sermon, and to the evil contrast Ahab provides, nonetheless, and we had better beware.

George W. Bush was plainly marked FUGITIVE LIBERAL from the moment he applied for passage to the White House. The man’s liberalism is transparent. He, like Jonah, can not hide who he is. He also, like Ahab, provides leadership, which if blindly obeyed will bring woe upon the Republican ship.

Being the third-generation member of a family entrenched in the pro New World Order, Council of Foreign Relations; in Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones; in Compassionate Conservatism; in Third Way public/private partnerships; and in fascist national service schemes; it should have been known from the start by Republican captains and shipmates that George W. Bush, whatever his virtues in comparison to the blasphemous beast Bill Clinton, was no prophet of conservatism.

So marked was he that even the liberal Washington Post branded Bush “The New Democrat,” someone every bit as liberal as an Al Gore or a Bill Clinton.

The electronic scanner at the dock should have sounded alarm! The talk radio watchmen should have raised a rebellion! The Republican National Committee should have insisted, “Cast the traitor overboard!”

But Bush’s fund-raising ability and his establishment credentials (which may be one and the same) spoke louder than his works, and the Republican captains decided that “sin that pays its way travels free” and overrules the imperative for a passport stamped “conservative.” They even promoted him to captain elect.

Party faithfuls, such as Bauer, Buchanan and Keyes, who were certainly more virtuous to conservative ideals, but paupers in comparison, earned for their good behavior a “STOP” and a “DO NOT GO.”

Unhappy Signs of the Truth

Since that fateful mistake, more signs of who George W. Bush really is emerge everywhere, but prideful men ignore the signs of the coming demise of freedom under such a captain as this. They had rather, like Ahab’s followers, stick to the emotion-filled argument that “We must slay Bill Clinton and Al Gore, at any cost!”

But the captain is unworthy and uncredentialed for such a high call.

Here is a captain who in one breath speaks of charter schools and educational choice, but in the next breath demands more federal education money and stricter federal educational standards.

Here is a captain who in one breath defends gun manufacturers from lawsuits, but who in the next breath demands federal gun standards for schools (state rights be damned), the outlaw of automatic weapons (the Second Amendment be damned), mandatory gun locks on all weapons (safety from criminals be damned), and who rebukes those who wonder if an above-the-law-Clinton precipitates more crime than any neutral weapon (free speech, common sense, and open political debate be damned).

Here is a captain who in one breath says he opposes abortion, but in the next breath owns up that there will be “no litmus test” in his appointment of federal judges, because he is “not a lawyer,” and “fidelity to the law” is all that matters. Apparently, the greatest crime, “shedding innocent blood,” has no place in his law.

Here is a captain who in one breath says he’s pro-religion, but who in his next breath condemns the “Slouching Toward Gomorrah” wing of the Republican Party for its pessimism. He boasts he will solve what “few” problems do exist with MORE GOVERNMENT! An $8 billion first-year budget expenditure dedicated to a merge of church and state in joint public service ventures. A fools’ lure, destined to first addict and then enslave every church in the nation.

Here is a captain who promises “no U.S. troops under foreign command,” in one breath; but who in the next breath calls for a “New American Internationalism,” whose only criticism of Clinton’s unconstitutional and unjust war in Kosovo was Clinton’s failure to send in ground troops, and whose only limit upon future global cop duties is that he will better define what America’s vital interests are; which definition he fails to provide, and which sales pitch we’ve heard before.

Here is a captain, who in one breath questions Janet Reno’s and President Clinton’s tyrannical and illegal display of power in their handling of the Elian Gonzalez affair, and who in the next breath asked the Republican Party to withdraw its investigation because it would cost him the female vote.

Here is a captain who in one breath brags that he will restore dignity to the White House, but in the next breath condemns those few members of the Republican Party who have valiantly fought to preserve that dignity from the king, as “relentlessly partisan” and guilty of perpetuating “a cycle of bitterness, an arms race of anger, a legacy of cynicism, and a generic distrust.”

Here is a captain who in one breath speaks of privatizing Social Security, and who in the next breath states “only trusted investments” (i.e. whoever plays by the governments ‘rules’) will be permitted, and who, when addressing a Republican proposed change to a forced wealth redistribution plan (earned income credit), accuses his fellow Republicans, Ted Kennedy-like, of “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.”

Here is a captain who in one breath is so devoutly a free trader that he daringly states: “Never will food be used as a diplomatic weapon again” (tying human rights to China MFN), and who in his next breath declares that much harsher economic sanctions imposed by Daddy upon Iraq, sanctions that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, will not be removed.

Here is a captain who ranks the bestowal of economic advantages to a fixed and diabolic enemy as no risk at all, for “time is on our side,” but who in the next breath fails to consider the flip side to his blind boast, that time is on the side of the Communists too. That it is they who claim the advantage in a game of waiting, because they are not subject to frequent fluctuations of public opinion, as we are.

Here is a captain who in one breath blames the American farmers plight on failure of the government to open up the “free” market to China, but who in the next breath calls on Clinton to increase the amount of emergency aid to farmers (a socialist input that distorts market realities and encourages farmers to prepare inadequately for future disasters), and who hid from these same farmers the real cause of their troubles, that socialist-inspired “free” trade has equated to government price supports which close out foreign markets, and unfairly low import taxes which dry up domestic markets. Nor that this is part and parcel to a domestic program that used government loans, grants, advertising, money for not farming, and anti-hoarding laws to undermine fiercely independent farmers and ranchers. No mention of that!

Finally, here is a captain who said of his fellow Republicans: “too often they confuse the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself.”

Yes, indeed! The hallmark of George W. Bush’s message and future administration is this aim of making it socially and legally unacceptable to criticize one’s government. It is part of a Third Way agenda that throws to the wind the founders’ belief that government is but a necessary evil to be jealously guarded, and prefers the Communist-perpetuated belief that government is the greatest of all goods.

Abandon Ship or Perish!

Such a captain is George W. Bush! Look and see! How plainly he is a fugitive! Had there been honest policemen guarding the Republican Party, ere they would arrest him, and cast him overboard into the mouth of a demonic Democratic Party whale!

But there are no such honest watchmen, no noble captains and shipmates bound to higher duty. Rather, with “sin that pays its way” they sacrifice their souls, their party and their country for the spoils of victory!

Who should be surprised, then, that common sense leads others, in the face of an established pattern, to no longer play the fool to blind calls for victory, at any price, over “four more years of Clinton and Gore.” They know the price will be great. Nature will not bear the sin.

They look elsewhere for the salvation of this country.