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Bush’s First Days

On the West Coast these days, you write until the lights go out. At $600 a megawatt hour, I’m considering a new career — as a power plant. What do I need? A treadmill?

And yet there’s more material this week than my light bill will allow.

So let’s start with the big news. It’s the Year of the Snake! A political year, if ever there was one! The transition is over and we’re head-first into the Bushes. Followed the campaign the whole year and didn’t make it to the inaugural. Sorry fellow citizens. Kid’s soccer games trump. I figured with George Schlatter of Laugh-in fame producing, it was going to be some kind of joke.

And sure enough, instead of “Sock it to me,” it was “Soak it to me.” There was a bucket of water on the whole pompous affair, or perhaps in keeping with the nation’s Super obsession, it was a celebratory bucket of Gatorade. Whatever your liquid perspective, they were all wet.

My favorite shot among the pool cameras was an Orson-Wellsy, up-the-nose angle of George W., hand raised, taking the oath. The rain droplets on the lens gave it that poignant news blur, that touch of uncertainty. What have the minority of American voters gotten us into?

President Bush talks during a meeting with Democratic leaders who are seated across from him, in the Cabinet Room at the White House, Monday, Jan. 22. Seated at the table on Bush's side are from left, White House counselor Mary Matalin, former Carter Press Secretary Jody Powell, Bush, and former Ambassador to Russia Robert Strauss. Photo by Associated Press.

As the winner of the unpopular vote, Bush went into the weekend with a touch of luck. News of Jessie Jackson’s love child wiped out in a single person, the voice of ethnic America. Jackson didn’t make it to the protest in Florida or Washington. It assured there would be little media coverage of either — especially without the media’s anointed “ethnic” star. Bush’s legitimacy was made by Jackson’s illegitimacy.

Jackson can’t easily bounce back. Clinton had a good economy. What does Jackson have?

When your whole gig is “moral superiority,” well, you’ve got to go away for awhile. You can’t even show up to counsel Clinton on his sex for disbarrment deal. For many years in the Asian American community, people wondered aloud who was our vocal leader of action, our Jessie Jackson. Don’t worry. Latinos don’t have one either.

Whoever it is for Asian Americans, let’s hope he has condoms, if not common sense. We’ll settle for a vasectomy.

As for his inaugural address, as if 1600 Pennsylvania is not enough, it was a great speech for those who believe government should do the absolute minimum.

Said Bush: “What you do is as important as anything government does. Americans are generous and strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.”

Welcome to our new “do it yourself democracy.” Can you hear the conservative inner voice? What are you, some panty-waist weakling? Imagine government aiding the people. Snap out of your dependency. This week, my church took in several homeless families who have fallen through the cracks.

But Bush is crazy to think he can put it all on the citizenry. I guess that’s where you can spend all your would-be tax cuts. Open up your own welfare office. Part-time.

But Bush found my hot buttons from the start. If he was trying hard to be inclusive, he sure made a major gaffe by beginning with the salutation “President Clinton, distinguished guests, and my fellow citizens.” Fellow citizens? What happened to “My fellow Americans.” Good enough for Richard Nixon. The distinction is important. “Citizen,” as all good immigrants know, is a legal term. For all the talk of Founding Fathers, Bush failed to note that the Constitution speaks of “We, the People,” meaning every living soul on American soil. Not we the “citizens.” America wasn’t a club with uniformed bouncers. It was for a place for all. Perhaps it was just poetic license for the umpteen references to “citizen” throughout the speech. But it was a clear divider. An “Us vs. Them.” If you’re an immigrant, you should have felt a chill.

The xenophobia re-emerged again this week with the cut off of funds to international groups that counsel on abortion. Sure it was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But what’s with this “decree by anniversary?” If it were the anniversary of Abner Doubleday’s invention of baseball, would he have cut off funds to Latin American countries taking over the game? (Let their millionaire superstars fund government programs).

The whole abortion issue shows how far Bush will go for the image. The impact of foreign aid is minimal. I’d say the Pentagon probably spends more on expensive toilets. In other words, it was a totally safe procedure. Like abortion, if you want one. He placated the right. Enraged the left. And it didn’t have any impact on policy. He did, however, cut off aid to people in foreign lands, non-citizens. When in doubt, hurt people abroad, irrelevant to your political life.

Who’s he think he is — King George? Where does he think the population overflow ends up? At your part-time welfare office, no doubt.

Speaking of foreigners, Clinton has been no better than Bush. In his last act of Clintonism, he pardoned Patty Hearst, his brother Roger, Henry Cisneros among others. But where was Wen Ho Lee? The man whose judge proclaimed was owed an apology by America got nothing. Meanwhile, John Deutch, the former CIA chief, caught downloading classified information and pornography in his home computer, was of course, pardoned. And if he were Chinese?

Finally, while the protests against the Bush legitimacy fizzled in America, leave it to the Philippines to show how People Power works. In the paternal talk of America: Little Brown Brother knows how! Estrada out, Macapagal-Arroyo in. But here’s the grating question of PP2. Will it matter? Or will it be more of the same — rich people, in power. Done. No rolling blackout. Where do we think we live? A third world country?