 | Back to The Bush Presidency index |
Many Americans, myself included, view the president’s urgent demands to wage war on Iraq as irrational, immoral, dangerous and contrary to the best interests of the U.S., the Middle East and the world.
I've been baffled why anyone supports Mr. Bush's ambitions. His proposals do not make rational sense.
It finally dawned on me that his story follows precisely after the model of Don Quixote. George, like the Don, has an imagination filled with heroic conquests and noble causes. He apparently can't conceive of reality as it actually is. Nor is his imagination able to grasp the notions of cause and effect.
He plays the romantic hero, absolutely free from the bonds of reason. It is the idealized, archetypal image of a hero going forth resolutely, and with untainted intentions, to which people are drawn.
The idea and appearance of a virtuous cause are everything; the probable consequences don’t matter. Seen from the knight's vantage, a crusade doesn't need to make sense.
Reason has no role in George's wars. Passion, romance and idealism carry the
knight-errant forward, on his fantastic, misguided sallies, borne on the back of America
his obedient Rocinante.
John Day
Santa Barbara
Sept. 23, 2002
|
| Back to The Bush Presidency index |