O Captain, My Captain

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Growing up, my mom would tell me it didn't matter who was president.

"This country runs itself," she would say. And, in her defense, that was pretty commonly held belief in the roarin' '80s and '90s. Communism was falling. The economy was growing. America was the last remaining superpower. It seemed like a really hard situation to fuck up, especially when you consider the levels of bureaucracy and advisors surrounding the president.

It seemed like the country ran itself.

So, in going to politico.com this morning and trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the presidential race this time around (Answer: They don't know either, and they work 80-hour weeks and get paid good money to know) I stumbled upon this bit of insight from a Clinton adviser:

[quote] “The bottom line is that it is going to be a long campaign,” the adviser said.

“And George Bush gets the credit: He has done more than anyone to get the people of this country involved again in politics. They now realize it is important who the president is.” [/quote]

And the brilliance and self-evidence of that statement knocked me over. That is totally true. That is totally fucking true. George W. Bush has totally disavowed us of the belief that, no matter who is at the helm, America is still, at its core, America. George W. Bush has totally proven that one person can fuck up America. George W. Bush proved my mom wrong: This country doesn't run itself.

So, for waking this country up and bringing it back to political activism, and for the record-high voter turnout we have seen in the first presidential primary caucus and presidential primary, I thank you Mr. President. Totally unwittingly you have brought this country together to say, "We really gotta pay better attention to this shit." Dubs talked a lot, in his initial run for the presidency in 2000, about being a uniter, not a divider. About "compassionate conservatism." And the irony is that he has accomplished that. He has united us. Damn near 75% of this country is totally united in disapproving of Bush as president. And Mike Huckabee, no matter what else you say about him, is a compassionate conservative, and he's doing well.

There's been a lot of talk about legacy as we enter Dubs' last year on the throne. He's trying to bring Palestine and Israel together for talks to get an international relations feather in his cap. He's trying to keep a lid on Iraq so that when the inevitable meltdown comes that mark gets put on the next guy's tally. But maybe this is his legacy.

Bush scared us straight. He held up a mirror and showed us ourselves at our worst: Frightened, overgrown puppies snapping out at whatever came near us and wreaking havoc on the world as we did it. And we know we can't afford to do that anymore. So you get candidates like Obama with a message of hope or McCain with a message of resolve, candidates who want to inspire rather than appeal to our baser natures.

I admit, the eight years of thesis was pretty bad. And I'm looking forward to the next eight years of antithesis. And, hopefully, when we're having this conversation again in eight years, we can have reached some kind of synthesis we can all live with.

That said, I'm still on New Zealand's immigration mailing list for potential job offers. Part of me hopes that more of my countrymen giving a shit about who makes the decisions in this country is good thing.

And the other part of me has actually met some of these selfsame countrymen.