My Name is Pat and I'm Hate-y and Venom-y

I’ve been accused in recent days of being hate-y and venom-y.

Eleanor Roosevelt

This conservative, patronizing, passive/aggressive guy from Denver who requested my friendship in Facebook and then made it his mission in life, apparently, to refute every position I share while insulting me in the process felt it necessary to use Eleanor Roosevelt’s words against me (the ones about how great minds discuss ideas and average minds discuss events but small minds discuss people) and chastise me incessantly for being a venom-filled hater because I dare to post irreverent comments about certain right-wing politicians and uninformed, GOP-supporting celebrities.

Yes, I write about people. That’s because people inhabit my world. Congress is comprised of people and my blog readers and Facebook friends are people and my children – who deserve a better future than the one I fear they’re facing – are people and women who have the right to control their own bodies are people and even those who support Robotron Romney and think Obama is Kenyan are people (I assume). The 100,000+ Iraqi civilians who lost their lives as a result of our flawed foreign policy were people. The thousands of Israelis and Palestinians who’ve died since 1948 because of that conflict were people. Barack Obama is a person; no one seems to refrain from talking about him. And the 2,996 human beings who died on September 11 were people.

I watched “George W. Bush: the 9/11 Interview” on the National Geographic channel yesterday and found myself yelling frequently at our television and wondering out loud if it would be a stroke or a heart attack that would put me out of my misery. This is because nearly every utterance by our 43rd president struck me as arrogant, insincere or patently untrue. I wondered why National Geographic, which I’ve always assumed was a nonpartisan and credible operation, would air such a one-sided infomercial that seemed more like a Christmas present to Dubya than an objective depiction of the events that transpired on that world-changing day.

Indeed, Dubya came across as measured, strong and resolute. Viewers were treated to a depiction of the Buffoon in Chief as an overwhelmingly capable leader who was unexpectedly, even unfairly, thrust into his role as a “wartime president” (a term he used to describe himself more times than I could count) but rose to the challenge with wisdom and conviction. This is when I started to feel nauseous.

When he insisted that no one had any idea what was to come to pass, my mood deteriorated even further. I guess the daily brief that the Central Intelligence Agency prepared for him on August 6, 2001 – the one entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” that was given to him no less than 36 days before September 11 – slipped his mind.

When he assured us that the reason he stayed in the second-grade classroom in Sarasota, Florida for at least seven full minutes, a puzzled look on his face, after being told that the country was under attack instead of excusing himself and taking care o’ business was because he wanted to reassure everyone by being calm, cool and collected, I became downright angry. My understanding is that he earned the title of “Dawdler in Chief,” as a Washington Times writer called him, because he had no frikkin’ idea what to do and was waiting for someone, anyone, to give him a clue.

Later, flying over the smoldering Pentagon in Marine One on the way back to Washington after hanging out at Barksdale Air Force base near Shreveport, Louisiana and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, he recalled not that he felt sad for the families of those who lost their lives or felt an urgent need to ensure that justice was served for the victims of this tragedy. Rather, he thought about how he was now a wartime president and every decision he faced would need to be viewed within that context. What a selfless dude.

As I explained to my twelve-year-old, who was watching TV with me, I wanted to give Dubya the benefit of the doubt at the time. I wanted to give him slack because I knew there was no manual prescribing how he should behave, what decisions he should make and what reassuring phrases he should include in his public comments. But I remember the days and weeks after that tragedy, I told her, and I recall how he squandered the good feelings the world had for us and told Americans to just go shopping.

I remember his insistence that anybody who questioned his subsequent decisions was on the side of the terrorists. I remember him repeatedly promising to track down those responsible for 9/11 and bring them to justice – then disclosing on March 13, 2002 that he was “truly not that concerned about” Osama bin Laden. (Although I’m a little creeped out by the Democrats’ gleeful pride at having sent the mastermind of September 11 to his grave on May 2, 2011, it was the Obama Administration that eventually brought the evil-doer to justice, not the Bush Administration.)

So Dubya’s decision to portray himself to National Geographic as a confident chief executive who never wavered from doing what was best – to try to rewrite history and hide the fact that he took his marching orders from others that day and in the days that followed – made me so angry that I let my ice cream melt and my blood pressure rise.

At the risk of sounding like I’m full of hate and venom, I hate what Dubya did in my name in the weeks, months and years after September 11. I feel downright venomous about the fact that he lied about Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mass destruction in order to justify bombing Iraq – a country that had nothing to do with the attack on the Twin Towers. I hate that so many people are ignorant enough to believe that today’s politicians are all solely committed to representing the interests of the American people. And I hate how Republican politicians think they can say whatever they want and facts be damned. (Believe it or not, Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said publicly on August 28, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”)

I also hate the fact that millions of Americans think the Fox network is a “fair and balanced,” legitimate news source. (My condescending connection from Colorado insists that Fox “leans to the right” and MSNBC “leans to the left” as if the two networks adhere to the same standards rather than Fox pulling crap out of its propaganda-spreading ass.)

I guess I am a hater.

I wish I could communicate with people who think differently than I do, who see the world in other ways, who can enlighten me and point out what I miss. But if maintaining a line of communication with people on the right means I have to accept their illogical premises, bald-faced lies and convoluted justifications, then call me hateful and small-minded until the cows come home. It won’t change the truth any more than a misleading program on NatGeo.

Ms. Roosevelt was wrong to disparage discussions about people. Most of us can relate more to other people than to policies, politics and history. As a wise political consultant/facilitator named Joel Bradshaw once told me, you need to go where the people are when plotting your strategies and crafting your messages.

I may be hate-y and venom-y but at least I’m not namby-pamby, mealy-mouthed or wishy-washy.


Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Center for Research on Globalization, CBS News.