WFB asks, “Is President Bush Racist?”

Posted on September 13, 2005
Filed Under Politics Leave a Comment

George W. Bush, Hurricane Katrina, and Racism by William F. Buckley — Critics of Mr. Bush may by their excesses be undermining not him, but the weight of sound thought. The most clearly vulnerable line of attack has to do with vacation time — taken as an absolute indicator of fidelity to duty. “George W. Bush, the least hardworking president in history, continued playing at his Texas ranch while his fellow citizens drowned and starved in New Orleans.” This from The Week magazine in London, quoting Philippe Grangereau in Paris’s Libération. Grangereau has just discovered that the reason Rome burned was that Nero fiddled. The critic then weakens his case by describing the particulars of a Bush vacation: “The president had been riding his bike, chopping wood, and fund-raising for five weeks.” People who think that fund-raising is vacation fare have never raised funds. Or chopped wood.

At a more ambitious level of criticism is Howard Jacobson in the London Independent. It was as easy for him as to look at the face of Bush on television. “No light of humanity in the eyes. No gravitas on the face.”

It has been said that amongst the vastness of the blogosphere, there are two types of bloggers: the Linkers and the Thinkers. On this occasion, and out of respect for the completeness of the presented line of reasoning in the article above, I am the “Linker” and Mr. Buckley is definitely the Thinker. Because of the onslaught of criticisms levelled at President Bush and his administration for the performance surround Hurrican Katrina, I’ve forced myself to ask a simple question: Is there anything to the rhetoric? Is President Bush an elite that cannot empathize with the citizenry? Read WFB’s article. Make your own conclusions.

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