The President Isn’t Your Boss
[Despite] his doubts about the “intelligence” he had been provided, despite the fact that he spent days “trimming the garbage” from Vice President Cheney’s “evidence” of Iraq’s weapons programs and its ties to Al Qaeda, Powell went ahead and shilled for the liars anyway. Why did he not threaten to expose the whole thing publicly? Because, as he has said, to do so would have betrayed the ethic of the loyal soldier he believed himself to be.
What kind of culture defines “maturity” as the time when young men and women sacrifice principle to prudence, when they pledge allegiance to the boss in the name of self-promotion and “realism”? What kind of culture defines adulthood as the moment when the self goes underground? One answer might be a military one. The problem is that while unthinking loyalty to one’s commanding officer may be necessary in war, it is disastrous outside of it. Why? Because loyalty, by definition, qualifies individualism, discouraging the expression of individual opinion, recasting honesty as a type of betrayal. Because loyalty to power, rather than to what one believes to be true or right, is fatally undemocratic, and can lead to the most horrendous abuses. Powell’s excuse—that he did not want to betray the ethic of the loyal soldier—was precisely the one used by the defendants at Nuremberg, and if you say that the analogy is a reckless one, that Colin Powell is no Rudolf Hess but a generally decent man—an A student, a team player, a loyal employee, a good soldier—I’ll agree, and say only this: God save us from men and women like him, for they will do almost anything in the name of “loyalty.” Something to consider, perhaps, as the nation contemplates electing to the presidency John McCain, a member of our warrior class for whom loyalty constitutes the highest possible virtue.
That’s Mark Slouka in an outstanding essay in this month’s Harper’s, “Democracy and deference.” You can read the whole thing online.
At a White House reception a couple of years ago, President George Bush asked Senator-elect Jim Webb how things were going for his son, a Marine serving in Iraq. “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb replied. “I didn’t ask you that,” the president shot back. “I asked you how your boy was doing.”
Webb, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, had not only risked his own life in the service of his country but now had a child in harm’s way, serving in an ill-conceived and criminally mismanaged war sold to the nation under false pretenses by the man standing in front of him. One might expect this second man to be nice. To show a modicum of respect. Should he fall short of this, one could at least take comfort in the certainty that the American people would hold him accountable for his rudeness and presumption.
Which is precisely what many of them did—they held Jim Webb accountable. “I’m surprised and offended by Jim Webb,” declared Stephen Hess, a professor at George Washington University, in a New York Times article entitled “A Breach of Manners Sets a Tough Town Atwitter.” … Letitia Baldrige, the “doyenne of Washington manners,” termed the whole thing “a sad exchange.” Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, made the point that “even discussions of war and life and death did not justify suspending the rules,” then declined to comment on l’affaire Webb-Bush, saying, “It would be rude of me to declare an individual rude.”
But it was left to Kate Zernike, the author of the Times article, to place the cherry atop this shameful confection in the form of a seemingly offhand parenthetical: “(On criticizing the president in his own house, Ms. Baldrige quotes the French: ça ne se fait pas—‘it is not done.’)”
To which one might reply, in the parlance of my native town: Why the fuck not? Répétez après moi: It ain’t the man’s house. We’re letting him borrow it for a time. And he should behave accordingly—that is, as one cognizant of the honor bestowed upon him—or risk being evicted by the people in favor of a more suitable tenant.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The outrage over the Webb-Bush exchange was not really about decorum. It was about daring to stand up to the boss. Rudeness? Stop. This is America. We’re rude to one another more or less continually. We make mincemeat of one another on television, fiberoptically flame one another to a crisp, blog ourselves bloody. No, rudeness, as deplorable as it is, is not the point here, particularly as Webb, judged by any reasonable standard, wasn’t rude at all.
Our president?
Slouka blames America’s “boss culture.” On every office TV program there’s a humorless boss, who “will scowl or humiliate you…because he can, because he’s the boss. And you’ll keep your mouth shut and look contrite, even if you’ve done nothing wrong . . . because, well, because he’s the boss. Because he’s above you. Because he makes more money than you. Because—admit it—he’s more than you.”
Gene Healy’s new book The Cult of the Presidency examines imperial presidency as something that goes against our Constitution. And Jerry Brito, writing about Barack Obama made an interesting point: we don’t have a head of state. While the UK has a Queen to serve as the face of the nation, and the Prime Minister to do the dirty work, our President serves both roles. “I think one reason why some of us who are ideologically opposed to Barak Obama are nevertheless drawn to him is because we’d like to see him in the role of head of state,” he writes.
Slouka concurs. During the Prime Minister’s Questions, every Prime Minister sweats under pressure, answering tough questions from the audience. And think about it, 10 Downing Street is just a row house, not some massive estate. Souka explains, “My wife, whose family hails in part from England, has a theory: unlike us, the Brits don’t confuse their royalty with their civil servants, because they have both, clearly labeled.”
An audience member — Maria Hutchings, a homemaker –once demanded Prime Minister Blair apologize for going to war. She responded to his answer with “That’s rubbish, Tony.” Slouka writes, “Now recall that steel tycoon who, upon accidentally addressing the president as ‘Mr. Truman’ rather than ‘Mr. President,’ was never able to forgive himself for the breach of etiquette. Which one is the citizen, and which the subject?”
Previously: Boris Johnson Isn’t London’s New Bicycle
Boris Johnson isn’t London’s New Bicycle
“Have you seen this guy Mitt Romney,” David Letterman would joke when the gorgeous ex-Gov was still in the race. “He looks like an American president in a Canadian movie.” (”He looks like a lawyer who advertises on the back of the bus” and “He looks like the guy who’s still doing the lambada,” were some other good zings.)
Only in politics (or a used car lot) might someone like Romney or John Edwards be taken seriously, let alone venerated. What’s remarkable about the two remaining democratic candidates is neither are, like most of our politicians, caricature exaggerations of American naivete. While one candidate seems more “authentic” than the other, there’s no doubt that both pass the Turning test.
If it is hard to picture Hillary Clinton as the fearless young woman she once was, it’s near impossible to conceive of Bill in his twenties. Did he restrain his Machiavellian Southern Simpleton persona at Oxford and Yale? Does his accent recede at home when he’s frustrated or distracted — like Madonna’s?
America being the great “melting pot”, we even elect parodies of other national stereotypes. And the California governor is not the first actor to enter politics. The phrase “Hollywood for ugly people” could very well be “Broadway for the tone-deaf,” no sufferer of stage fright has ever run for office.
I wonder if theatrical nationalism is true of candidates abroad. Had Steve Irwin lived longer, might he one day have been elected Prime Minister of Oz? Does the duma have a vodka happy hour? Might this explain Nicolas Sarkozys romantic life?
Knowing little about foreign politics or more importantly, the subtle nuances that would contribute to the foreign equivalency of Mitt Romney’s strangeness, I can’t say for certain that this happens from Sweden to Thailand to Panama. But anyone who’s watched just five minutes of the House of Commons Prime Minister’s Questions on television, knows the UK is home to some the world’s finest political theater performers. Even Saturday Night Live doesn’t much parody their meetings as play it straight on.
London’s freshly elected mayor Boris Johnson is one of the finest of these actors. Nearly every mention of his name is followed with the word “bumbling.” Where else does the mayor overshadow the prime minister?
His comments in the press seem straight out of Are You Being Served?
Buying a meat pie, he was asked whether he wanted it wrapped in a bag. “Yes, some kind of bag!” he responded, before remembering the party line, that plastic bags are bad for the environment. “No, we’re antibag,” he said. “We’re going to hold it.”
He glanced at his entourage, already laden with various Boris-accrued items, and edited himself again. “We’re going to find a team of porters to hold it.”
The website Boris Johnson Facts (via) explains “Every time you say you don’t believe in fairies, Boris Johnson kills a little bit of Kylie Minogue,” “Boris Johnson invented the theory of intelligent design for a laugh,” and “Network Rail is actually run by the 10% spare capacity in Boris Johnson’s brain.” There’s also the Boris Johnson Generator. It is “just like Boris’ own speeches, a pastiche of humorous nonsense that occasionally reveals a pearl of wisdom or vicious prejudice.” (Sample outcome: “My transport policy is deeply unattractive psyche. I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis. being reincarnated as an olive.”)
When someone from pop culture says they stand in allegience with George W. Bush, it is either taken as a meta-joke (Vincent Gallo) or proof of idiocy (Heidi Montag.) But while the Tories aren’t Evangelical or even pro-Iraq war (Johnson’s called Bush “cross-eyed texan warmonger,”) they are jingos, and Johnson’s nationalism has come across as racist.
From Infinite Thought, “Reared on warmed-over irony, children’s cartoons, cynicism and celebrity medja, those puffed up bastards who work in the city and offices all over London are exactly the kind of person who’d think: ‘wouldn’t it be hilarious if Boris Johnson was mayor, huh huh huh’.”
The last zany British politician to come to our attention, Tony Blair, arrived on the scene with splashes of the Union Jack on everything and the Blur and Oasis bickering. Self-mocking or not, it all seemed cool to most American hipsters. Comparisons to Barack Obama are wrong, Blair was more like Al Gore — never quite in on the joke. Anyway, his popularity plummeted even before the Iraq war and those Britpop stars were mostly one-hit wonders.
Johnson’s election comes as London is losing its cultural influence. All we really hear from the city now are Keira Knightley sightings and Banksy taggings. English friends of mine complain that clubs they’ve gone to since they were teenagers, are all of a sudden sending them away at the door for wearing sneakers and jeans. And beloved neighborhoods now accompany the (mostly international) newly wealthy. It’s no wonder so many have moved abroad.
Several years ago, Brooklyn unseated London as the cool mecca, and now the telecommuting creative class favors bicycle-friendly, medium-sized, (cheaper!) cities like Berlin, Melbourne, Portland, Austin, Buenos Aires, Montreal, etc. All that being said I’d move there in a heartbeat for a job (and, out of necessity, about twice the salary I demand here.)
Related links:
- Boris Watch
- Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle
- Hillary is Mom Jeans
- I didn’t vote for Boris!
- “If Boris Johnson wins next week….” The Guardian
- Number One, Mr Speaker, Metafiler
- Boris Johnson in Quotes, The Telegraph
- Britpop -Where are they Now? BBC
- Take Them Back to Dear Old Blighty, Reason
- “Faces Decide Elections”, NYT
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