While I was volunteering for my AmeriCorps program, Project YES!, I wrote an article for our online newsletter. Someone must have read it at the national Project on Civic Reflection because it was highlighted in their August 2010 newsletter.
Check it out here.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Federal regulation, business efficiency, and the clusterf**k that is Deepwater Horizon
Efforts to increase the government's role in regulating industry is often framed as a struggle between business interests and other social values like public health and the environment.
Not even a week after BP's Deepwater Horizon began leaking millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, politicians -- especially on the right -- were warning us not to use this unprecedented environmental catastrophe as a justification for increased regulation on the oil industry. Why not? Because is would be bad for business and bad for the economy.
That's true, of course. Ending domestic off-shore drilling would be bad for the oil companies and, more importantly, it would be bad for poor and middle class Americans across the country. After all, when we lose a good deal of our domestic oil production, gas becomes more expensive, which raises the price of consumer goods, which hits The Average Joe where it hurts the most: his wallet.
But let's please not forget about those poor and middle class Americans who live along the Gulf Coast. For them, this spill is far, far worse than a spike in the price of gasoline. The Deepwater Horizon disaster has put an enormous ecosystem into peril, and the livelihoods of thousands of Americans are in danger as result. If our regulations and the enforcement of them by the Minerals Management Service would have been more aggressive, it is quite possible that this disaster could have been avoided, and that would have been best for the economy.
But everyone knows the real problem here, and it is neither the tree-hugger regulations of liberal politicians, nor the evil oil companies who want nothing more than to blacken the skies and poison the waters. These are just red herrings. Anyone who looks at issues like this seriously does so with the understanding that economic efficiency is also a high-ranking social value which must be balanced with public heath and the environmental concerns. To pit business against the general welfare is a gross simplification that ends in bad policy-making. No, the real problem here is that, even after that leak gets plugged and the whole disaster fades from public consciousness, America's demand for oil will be exactly the same.
So long as America maintains its insatiable thirst for oil, companies will go to the ends of the Earth -- to the most dangerous, environmentally unsound, and politically compromising sources -- in order to get it for us. Good government regulations can try to make these efforts safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly, but they cannot guarantee that we will not face another Deepwater Horizon or another Exxon Valdez. Good government regulation also will not be able to change the fact that dependence on foreign oil puts us in an unhappy geopolitical position.
So, what is the solution? What needs to change?
The easy answer is to say, "We need to change." This is the refrain of the whole green movement. While I do believe that a broad awakening of American environmental consciousness is an essential part of the solution to the energy crisis (and concomitant environmental crisis), also believe this is only half the story. Americans have become accustomed to a certain standard of living and will do everything possible to maintain it. It's true that there is a segment of the population who is willing to sacrifice some comfort for eco brownie points, but these are -- more often than not -- people who are easily able to afford the local, organic, free-range alternative. Most of us can't do the grocery shopping at Whole Foods. The point is that Americans like being able to eat pineapple in the winter time, and nothing is going to change the fact that, without some revolutionary culture shift, and no matter how important "green" becomes in our decision-making, the price at the pump will still directly determine the public's perception of risky domestic oil production.
The best answer I can come up with is that Americans need new, widely available, affordable technologies that significantly reduce aggregate demand for fossil fuels. I'm not gleefully announcing that "Technology will save the world!" I'm just saying that, as far as I can see, it might be the best chance we've got.
Not even a week after BP's Deepwater Horizon began leaking millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, politicians -- especially on the right -- were warning us not to use this unprecedented environmental catastrophe as a justification for increased regulation on the oil industry. Why not? Because is would be bad for business and bad for the economy.
That's true, of course. Ending domestic off-shore drilling would be bad for the oil companies and, more importantly, it would be bad for poor and middle class Americans across the country. After all, when we lose a good deal of our domestic oil production, gas becomes more expensive, which raises the price of consumer goods, which hits The Average Joe where it hurts the most: his wallet.
But let's please not forget about those poor and middle class Americans who live along the Gulf Coast. For them, this spill is far, far worse than a spike in the price of gasoline. The Deepwater Horizon disaster has put an enormous ecosystem into peril, and the livelihoods of thousands of Americans are in danger as result. If our regulations and the enforcement of them by the Minerals Management Service would have been more aggressive, it is quite possible that this disaster could have been avoided, and that would have been best for the economy.
But everyone knows the real problem here, and it is neither the tree-hugger regulations of liberal politicians, nor the evil oil companies who want nothing more than to blacken the skies and poison the waters. These are just red herrings. Anyone who looks at issues like this seriously does so with the understanding that economic efficiency is also a high-ranking social value which must be balanced with public heath and the environmental concerns. To pit business against the general welfare is a gross simplification that ends in bad policy-making. No, the real problem here is that, even after that leak gets plugged and the whole disaster fades from public consciousness, America's demand for oil will be exactly the same.
So long as America maintains its insatiable thirst for oil, companies will go to the ends of the Earth -- to the most dangerous, environmentally unsound, and politically compromising sources -- in order to get it for us. Good government regulations can try to make these efforts safer, cleaner, and more environmentally friendly, but they cannot guarantee that we will not face another Deepwater Horizon or another Exxon Valdez. Good government regulation also will not be able to change the fact that dependence on foreign oil puts us in an unhappy geopolitical position.
So, what is the solution? What needs to change?
The easy answer is to say, "We need to change." This is the refrain of the whole green movement. While I do believe that a broad awakening of American environmental consciousness is an essential part of the solution to the energy crisis (and concomitant environmental crisis), also believe this is only half the story. Americans have become accustomed to a certain standard of living and will do everything possible to maintain it. It's true that there is a segment of the population who is willing to sacrifice some comfort for eco brownie points, but these are -- more often than not -- people who are easily able to afford the local, organic, free-range alternative. Most of us can't do the grocery shopping at Whole Foods. The point is that Americans like being able to eat pineapple in the winter time, and nothing is going to change the fact that, without some revolutionary culture shift, and no matter how important "green" becomes in our decision-making, the price at the pump will still directly determine the public's perception of risky domestic oil production.
The best answer I can come up with is that Americans need new, widely available, affordable technologies that significantly reduce aggregate demand for fossil fuels. I'm not gleefully announcing that "Technology will save the world!" I'm just saying that, as far as I can see, it might be the best chance we've got.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The more things change....
So I have just started reading The Federalist Papers (you know, for kicks), and I was taken aback by how incredibly pertinent this passage from No.1 is to the ongoing health care debate. It's incredible how little our national character has changed since the 1780's!
"
A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretence and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
"
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Abolishing the welfare state
There are many legitimate and important critiques of the welfare state. It can be paternalistic and rob people of their sense of agency. It can incentivize bad decisions and deincentivize good ones. And, of course, it can give birth to a sprawling and wasteful bureaucracy.
Liberals too often dismiss these contentions out of hand -- and they do so at their own peril. It might make us feel better to know that we've passed a bill that will direct however many billions of dollars to struggling schools or various development programs, but feeling better is not the goal of legislation. We want to see results. We want to know that it works. Liberals must not be content to throw money at a problem and then bask in the glory of our own magnanimity. This would play right into the conservative stereotype of the left. Instead, liberals must take stock of the valid critiques of the welfare state and seek new ways of overcoming the flaws they point out.
However, no reasonable criticism of social welfare programs is ever going to lead to the conclusion that such programs be abolished forthwith and in toto. That proposal is utter nonsense -- an extremist fantasy fueled by half-baked libertarian ideology. No modern capitalist democracy can function in the absence of good social welfare programs. There needn't be any discussion about such a basic, fundamental point.
The exchange between liberals and conservatives, then, should not be the hyper-polarized ideological grudge match we see today: with the "tea-party" set holding up their Ayn Rand posters and calling Obama a socialist because of an incremental increase in the tax rate of top-tier earners.
We all want the same thing for America: jobs, health-care, housing and education for everyone. And we all know that free-market capitalism is unable to fulfill those aspirations. The goals that we all share for America require the kind of large-scare, cooperative social action that only government can coordinate. What we should be hearing in the halls of Congress are nuanced and technical attempts to tweak and revise government programs in order to make them as effective as possible. There is simply no justification for the kind of radical laissez-faire cliches that the right keeps regurgitating. We swallowed that snake-oil with Reagan and Thatcher. It didn't work. We've moved on. The welfare state is here to stay. The call to demolish it is hollow demagoguery and evidence of the ever-fading relevance of the contemporary GOP.
Liberals too often dismiss these contentions out of hand -- and they do so at their own peril. It might make us feel better to know that we've passed a bill that will direct however many billions of dollars to struggling schools or various development programs, but feeling better is not the goal of legislation. We want to see results. We want to know that it works. Liberals must not be content to throw money at a problem and then bask in the glory of our own magnanimity. This would play right into the conservative stereotype of the left. Instead, liberals must take stock of the valid critiques of the welfare state and seek new ways of overcoming the flaws they point out.
However, no reasonable criticism of social welfare programs is ever going to lead to the conclusion that such programs be abolished forthwith and in toto. That proposal is utter nonsense -- an extremist fantasy fueled by half-baked libertarian ideology. No modern capitalist democracy can function in the absence of good social welfare programs. There needn't be any discussion about such a basic, fundamental point.
The exchange between liberals and conservatives, then, should not be the hyper-polarized ideological grudge match we see today: with the "tea-party" set holding up their Ayn Rand posters and calling Obama a socialist because of an incremental increase in the tax rate of top-tier earners.
We all want the same thing for America: jobs, health-care, housing and education for everyone. And we all know that free-market capitalism is unable to fulfill those aspirations. The goals that we all share for America require the kind of large-scare, cooperative social action that only government can coordinate. What we should be hearing in the halls of Congress are nuanced and technical attempts to tweak and revise government programs in order to make them as effective as possible. There is simply no justification for the kind of radical laissez-faire cliches that the right keeps regurgitating. We swallowed that snake-oil with Reagan and Thatcher. It didn't work. We've moved on. The welfare state is here to stay. The call to demolish it is hollow demagoguery and evidence of the ever-fading relevance of the contemporary GOP.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
David Brooks and the "end of philosophy"
I like David Brooks. He’s smart and he writes about interesting things. He even writes about philosophy. The problem is that he is not terribly good at it.
I hesitate to condemn Brooks here. I don't like the fact that, although professional academic philosophers are quick to bemoan the status of philosophy in contemporary culture, they are even more eager to eviscerate anyone who tries to make philosophy available to a broader audience.
The problem is, of course, that philosophy’s pursuit of rigor and clarity has made it so incredibly erudite as to be utterly impenetrable to all but a select in-crowd. This means that whenever someone tries to simplify things for popular consumption he is charged by philosophers with being hopelessly imprecise at best and moronic at worst.
It is a sad state of affairs with no clear solution.
If anything, though, I think the academics should be a bit more forgiving. Popularized – and therefore ‘dumbed-down’ – philosophy is no threat to them. It will not do any significant damage to the field. Sure, a few hacks may end up getting rich and famous peddling sexy but half-baked pabulum, but there’s a good chance popular demand will increase the overall flow of grant money. A rising tide may raise all boats.
So, I’m happy David Brooks is out there thinking and writing about this stuff, but I do believe that someone should call him out when his writing is confused or simplistic. Which is why I want to blow the whistle on his op-ed in today’s New York Times.
First of all, Brooks was just asking for it with his self-consciously provocative title: “The End of Philosophy.”
Second, and more importantly, Brooks has a tendency to get carried away with speculations about the cultural ramifications of cognitive science, as he did in his "Neural Buddhists" article last year.
In this piece, he once again looks to the brain-scanning neuroscientists for answers to all life’s questions. According to the scientists our moral judgments have more to do with affectation than practical reason and our affective reaction to ostensible ‘moral’ phenomena is the result of millennia of evolution, which (lucky us) is driven by group selection as well as individual selection and therefore favors social cooperation as well as cut-throat individualism.
FASCINATING! But how does this in anyway signify “the end of philosophy?”
I'm all for naturalistic explanations in metaethics (and Darwinian hermeneutics of suspicion), but Brooks' half-hearted emotivism is a crock.
Sure, as Brooks writes, "Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not," but the interesting questions are whether such snap judgments are correct and how we could ever go about proving that they are so? Oh, and by the way, what does it even mean for a moral judgment to be correct or incorrect, true or false? These are the philosophical questions, and until neuroscience answers them (which it won't), philosophy is very far from over, pace Brooks.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Sound and Fury of Political Populism
“Ridiculous!” “Insufferable!” “Evil!”
Members of Congress from both parties and political pundits across the spectrum have all reveled in the opportunity to berate AIG for the millions of dollars in bonuses it recently gave out to a number of its employees and executives.
Sadly, all the bombastic populist rhetoric is simply that – rhetoric. It is not backed up with any thoughtful, genuine concern for the American people. It is just a wonderful opportunity for politicos to shake their fists and yawp their loud, angry noises.
It’s true that these bonuses represent the entitled Wall Street Attitude that originally fueled the current financial crisis, but let’s not forget that we are talking about one tenth of one percent of AIG’s total bailout money. It’s not that I’m not angry about the bonuses too. I am. But I am even angrier about our government’s slavish deferral to the private interests of big business, and about the failure of our politicians to recognize the dissonance of this overriding deference to capitalist ideology to the cheap populist rhetoric in which they are presently luxuriating.
For both the party line Democrats and the Republicans, nationalization was never a live option when it came to these failing mega-banks. Even though comparable actions were taken in the market-capitalist nation of Sweden in the early 90’s (I recognize there are big differences between us and them) and – as Paul Krugman has points out – small-scale bank nationalization via the FDIC occurs on a regular basis, the public takeover of failed private banks was never really on the table.
The irony here, of course, is that the same politicians who immediately retreated to the dogma of privatization, who said that government has no place in the bank management, are now actually trying to micromanage a fraction of AIG’s payroll – a fraction which equals only 1/1000th of the funds the American people have invested in the company.
Shouldn’t the government be equally concerned with the rest of our one-hundred-and-forty-four-billion dollars?
And which is it anyway? Should governments be managing the inner-workings of the banking sector or not?
My hope is that this mess will reinvigorate our government’s will to govern. Our politicians still bow sheepishly at the beck and call of big business when they should be using the powers of state to insure that the private sector truly serves the public interest. Reagan’s shadow continues to darken the American political consciousness. But if we shed enough light on our current financial crisis, we may yet break the neo-liberal dogma that has for too long kept us from attaining real institutionalized democratic control over the market forces that determine all of our livelihoods and all of our futures.
Members of Congress from both parties and political pundits across the spectrum have all reveled in the opportunity to berate AIG for the millions of dollars in bonuses it recently gave out to a number of its employees and executives.
Sadly, all the bombastic populist rhetoric is simply that – rhetoric. It is not backed up with any thoughtful, genuine concern for the American people. It is just a wonderful opportunity for politicos to shake their fists and yawp their loud, angry noises.
It’s true that these bonuses represent the entitled Wall Street Attitude that originally fueled the current financial crisis, but let’s not forget that we are talking about one tenth of one percent of AIG’s total bailout money. It’s not that I’m not angry about the bonuses too. I am. But I am even angrier about our government’s slavish deferral to the private interests of big business, and about the failure of our politicians to recognize the dissonance of this overriding deference to capitalist ideology to the cheap populist rhetoric in which they are presently luxuriating.
For both the party line Democrats and the Republicans, nationalization was never a live option when it came to these failing mega-banks. Even though comparable actions were taken in the market-capitalist nation of Sweden in the early 90’s (I recognize there are big differences between us and them) and – as Paul Krugman has points out – small-scale bank nationalization via the FDIC occurs on a regular basis, the public takeover of failed private banks was never really on the table.
The irony here, of course, is that the same politicians who immediately retreated to the dogma of privatization, who said that government has no place in the bank management, are now actually trying to micromanage a fraction of AIG’s payroll – a fraction which equals only 1/1000th of the funds the American people have invested in the company.
Shouldn’t the government be equally concerned with the rest of our one-hundred-and-forty-four-billion dollars?
And which is it anyway? Should governments be managing the inner-workings of the banking sector or not?
My hope is that this mess will reinvigorate our government’s will to govern. Our politicians still bow sheepishly at the beck and call of big business when they should be using the powers of state to insure that the private sector truly serves the public interest. Reagan’s shadow continues to darken the American political consciousness. But if we shed enough light on our current financial crisis, we may yet break the neo-liberal dogma that has for too long kept us from attaining real institutionalized democratic control over the market forces that determine all of our livelihoods and all of our futures.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
The Shoe-Throwing
Three days ago, Muntadher al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw his shoes at then-President Bush during a press conference in Iraq last December, was sentenced to three years in prison. Al-Zaidi’s sensational act (a traditional gesture of repugnance in the Arab and Muslim world) was well documented by the roomful of television cameras and reporters. The story was reported internationally and footage of the incident from AP news has garnered more than 1.3 million views on You Tube. As a result, al-Zaidi has become something of a celebrity among many Iraqis and those opposed to the Bush administration around the world.
There is no doubt that the verdict is correct. Al-Zaidi was charged with assaulting a visiting head of state and anyone who has viewed the footage will tell you that he did exactly that. Al-Zaidi’s 25-member defense team nevertheless says that they will appeal the decision. Their arguments generally focus on their clients “honorable motives:” that he was “only expressing his feelings” and that his goal was to insult rather than to injure. Of course, such a position will not take them very far. All things considered, al-Zaidi is lucky his sentence fell far short of the maximum 15 years of incarceration.
As an aside: there was some debate about whether the charge should have been "insulting" rather than "assaulting" a visiting head of state. If found guilty of that former charge, Al-Zaidi would have faced a maximum of only 5 years in prison. It is interesting to consider the fact that, if Al-Zaidi was a European, he would probably have thrown a rotten tomato instead, given that his aim was more to insult than to injure. Replacing the shoes with vegetables seems to make the act less severe. Still, al-Zaidi surely must have known that, as projectiles, his shoes could harm more than Bush's pride.
Nevertheless, I am not concerned with the legal intricacies of the event. It is, rather, that scene which interests me. Although it is always edited down to less than two minutes of footage, the famous shoe-throwing says so much about the past eight years. It is powerful, telling, and it deserves a permanent place in our historico-political iconography.
Al-Zaidi is not what is mesmerizing about the clip. He is always either out of frame, not facing the camera, or covered by the surrounding journalists who have wrestled him to the ground. The name of al-Zaidi will be forgotten. Indeed, it was never even well known. To the overwhelming majority of the world al-Zaidi is simply the “shoe-thrower,” a mere vehicle for an act.
What is mesmerizing about the clip, rather, is the shoe-thrower’s intended target. In this footage, George W. Bush is astounding. First of all, one has to be impressed by how physically adroit Bush is at dodging the shoes. The second shoe went a bit high, but really both were well-aimed (and powerful) throws. Had the President’s reflexes been a bit slower, he would probably have suffered a broken nose. Secondly, and more important, is the cavalier way Bush responds to the incident, both during and after. Though a bit startled by the first show, Bush appears to smirk slightly as he ducks under the second. After al-Zaidi is wrestled to the ground and removed from the room, Bush urges the assembled journalists to calm down, have a seat and continue the conference.
He does not appear the least bit shaken by the event. Didn’t he consider that he is visiting a country filled with people who hate and despise him, people who would stop at nothing to take his life? How was he able to feel so at ease in Iraq, when even a private press conference he could be violently attacked?
The President’s attitude recalled the scene from the first “Austin Powers” movie, when “Random Task” (the shoe-throwing assassin who spoofs the hat-throwing assassin “Odd Job” from the “Goldfinger” movie) makes an attempt on Austin’s life in his trademark fashion. Austin, after being hit square in the forehead, remarks “That really hurt….who throws a shoe, honestly?” The President responded in a similar way to al-Zaidi, informing reporters that they were a size 10.
Bush’s reaction reduced this last, desperate act of protest to the level of lowbrow comedy. It is in precisely this way that the shoe-throwing highlighted what I think was the most distinguishing and infuriating quality of the Bush administration: the sheer impassibility of the President.
The past administration was infamous for its utter lack of transparency and responsiveness. When hundreds of thousands of people across the world protested the invasion of Iraq, Bush blithely dismissed the marches. When asked about the criticism of the war by past military generals, Bush responded with his now-famous line, “I’m the decider.”
The Bush administration alienated the American people from their government. With their gross misinterpretation of executive powers, they hid accountability behind a veil of secrecy, denying any public access to vital information about the actions carried out in our name, and all in the name of public security.
Did you ever try to talk to someone who was so unresponsive, so indifferent, that you just wanted to smack him upside the head and shout, “Hey, pay attention!” Maybe this person was so infuriatingly detached that you had to fight the desire to just lob, say, a shoe right at his head. Of course, that was not exactly al-Zaidi’s intent. For him (and almost everyone else in the Middle East) the show throwing was not simply a ‘wake-up call’ but rather a sign of deepest repugnance. For those who view the act in this way – many of whom have suffered the worst indignities by this man – Bush’s casual reaction must be even more infuriating than it is for us Westerners.
There is no doubt that the verdict is correct. Al-Zaidi was charged with assaulting a visiting head of state and anyone who has viewed the footage will tell you that he did exactly that. Al-Zaidi’s 25-member defense team nevertheless says that they will appeal the decision. Their arguments generally focus on their clients “honorable motives:” that he was “only expressing his feelings” and that his goal was to insult rather than to injure. Of course, such a position will not take them very far. All things considered, al-Zaidi is lucky his sentence fell far short of the maximum 15 years of incarceration.
As an aside: there was some debate about whether the charge should have been "insulting" rather than "assaulting" a visiting head of state. If found guilty of that former charge, Al-Zaidi would have faced a maximum of only 5 years in prison. It is interesting to consider the fact that, if Al-Zaidi was a European, he would probably have thrown a rotten tomato instead, given that his aim was more to insult than to injure. Replacing the shoes with vegetables seems to make the act less severe. Still, al-Zaidi surely must have known that, as projectiles, his shoes could harm more than Bush's pride.
Nevertheless, I am not concerned with the legal intricacies of the event. It is, rather, that scene which interests me. Although it is always edited down to less than two minutes of footage, the famous shoe-throwing says so much about the past eight years. It is powerful, telling, and it deserves a permanent place in our historico-political iconography.
Al-Zaidi is not what is mesmerizing about the clip. He is always either out of frame, not facing the camera, or covered by the surrounding journalists who have wrestled him to the ground. The name of al-Zaidi will be forgotten. Indeed, it was never even well known. To the overwhelming majority of the world al-Zaidi is simply the “shoe-thrower,” a mere vehicle for an act.
What is mesmerizing about the clip, rather, is the shoe-thrower’s intended target. In this footage, George W. Bush is astounding. First of all, one has to be impressed by how physically adroit Bush is at dodging the shoes. The second shoe went a bit high, but really both were well-aimed (and powerful) throws. Had the President’s reflexes been a bit slower, he would probably have suffered a broken nose. Secondly, and more important, is the cavalier way Bush responds to the incident, both during and after. Though a bit startled by the first show, Bush appears to smirk slightly as he ducks under the second. After al-Zaidi is wrestled to the ground and removed from the room, Bush urges the assembled journalists to calm down, have a seat and continue the conference.
He does not appear the least bit shaken by the event. Didn’t he consider that he is visiting a country filled with people who hate and despise him, people who would stop at nothing to take his life? How was he able to feel so at ease in Iraq, when even a private press conference he could be violently attacked?
The President’s attitude recalled the scene from the first “Austin Powers” movie, when “Random Task” (the shoe-throwing assassin who spoofs the hat-throwing assassin “Odd Job” from the “Goldfinger” movie) makes an attempt on Austin’s life in his trademark fashion. Austin, after being hit square in the forehead, remarks “That really hurt….who throws a shoe, honestly?” The President responded in a similar way to al-Zaidi, informing reporters that they were a size 10.
Bush’s reaction reduced this last, desperate act of protest to the level of lowbrow comedy. It is in precisely this way that the shoe-throwing highlighted what I think was the most distinguishing and infuriating quality of the Bush administration: the sheer impassibility of the President.
The past administration was infamous for its utter lack of transparency and responsiveness. When hundreds of thousands of people across the world protested the invasion of Iraq, Bush blithely dismissed the marches. When asked about the criticism of the war by past military generals, Bush responded with his now-famous line, “I’m the decider.”
The Bush administration alienated the American people from their government. With their gross misinterpretation of executive powers, they hid accountability behind a veil of secrecy, denying any public access to vital information about the actions carried out in our name, and all in the name of public security.
Did you ever try to talk to someone who was so unresponsive, so indifferent, that you just wanted to smack him upside the head and shout, “Hey, pay attention!” Maybe this person was so infuriatingly detached that you had to fight the desire to just lob, say, a shoe right at his head. Of course, that was not exactly al-Zaidi’s intent. For him (and almost everyone else in the Middle East) the show throwing was not simply a ‘wake-up call’ but rather a sign of deepest repugnance. For those who view the act in this way – many of whom have suffered the worst indignities by this man – Bush’s casual reaction must be even more infuriating than it is for us Westerners.
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