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August 19, 2004

Sidney Blumenthal: "Isn't this a democracy?"

Sidney Blumenthal never fails to impress the heck out of me with his ability to succinctly and elegantly present the big picture. He has done it yet again with his latest opinion piece on Salon about the staged "Ask President Bush" events and their role in the current administration's overwhelmingly negative campaign.

Floundering in the polls, without a strategy for Iraq, unwilling to say the name of bin Laden, he is always secure in the knowledge that the cheering multitudes before him have been carefully selected. Strutting and swaggering on the stage as though he has conquered the crowd, he plays to true believers. But a 55-year-old social studies teacher from small-town Michigan who would not bend her knee had her ticket to see her president ripped up. "Ask President Bush" has crystallized the essential underlying question, framed succinctly by the greatest American poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, who wrote, "The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him."

Be sure to read the entire piece here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/08/19/ask_bush/index.html

Note: Non-subscribers to Salon can get a free daily pass by watching a brief ad. It's well worth the minor hassle.

Posted by amahler at August 19, 2004 12:01 AM

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