Dan De Rosa: Bush's arrogance wrong for America

Political arrogance can be masked so easily. The boastful are often the easiest to notice amidst the crowd, making both their arrogance and their ignorance clear to the world. Yet, sometimes arrogance can be hidden from the masses by excess claims of humility. However, the swagger of one's walk can betray the humility of one's words. As such, when a politician's hidden arrogance defines a nation's leadership, it can have disastrous results.

This is readily seen in President Bush's entire leadership strategy: question the patriotism of others, while arrogantly denying the effect of his own actions. Take for example the most recent Bush re-election advertisements. They end with the tagline: "John Kerry. Playing Politics with National Security."

First, on its face this claim is hypocritical. How can a president justify such a message if he uses the images of flag-draped coffins from September 11th in campaign commercials? How dare he accuse someone of playing politics with policy issues when he cheapens the deaths of hundreds by using empathy as a campaign tactic? The president claims to humble himself before the deaths of thousands, yet he is fully willing to use their sacrifice as simply a tool for re-election. However, even more disturbing than such glaring hypocrisy is the implication the president is the sole patriot in this election.

The Bush campaign team consistently questions Senator Kerry's devotion to his country. In this, the president's actions are morally reprehensible. Even if one ignores Senator Kerry's three purple hearts, bronze star, and silver star, this issue goes beyond the question of who served in Vietnam. Rather, at issue is Bush's belief that to question his leadership is to undermine the will of the nation and spurn the destiny of a people.

They have said that to question the invasion of Iraq was to be wholly unpatriotic, as Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction could have fallen into the hands of the amorphous "enemy." According to President Bush, you were either with him, or with the terrorists. There was no in-between.

As Saddam's weapons of mass destruction turned into Bush's weapons of mass distraction, the White House message shifted, now insisting we "stay the course" under Bush's leadership. The new message implies that to advocate any change in course is to be unpatriotic and to fail to support our troops. Basically, to disagree with the president on any issue regarding the war in Iraq is to renounce one's patriotism. This is the most supreme form of arrogance -- believing oneself to be so unerring as to be unquestionable.

The president not only feels himself unquestionable, but also unaccountable. He has refused culpability in the Abu Ghraib scandal, even when it is becoming apparent that his administration's decisions on the treatment of prisoners led to this tragedy. His "Healthy Forests" and "Clear Skies" initiatives and the No Child Left Behind Act demonstrate a willingness to use names to hide intentions. How can you question the purity of an act with such a seemingly beneficent title? As a result, the president avoids accountability for the children left behind, smoggy skies, and forests being turned to stumps by excessive logging. While it is true that the president is occasionally willing to be accountable for the economy, that is only if the numbers are in his favor. The president, however, would have you believe that any such questioning is unpatriotic.

Implicit in true patriotism is a duty to question one's leaders, and not simply follow blindly in whatever course the government leads. Government is born of the civil will of the people, but the Bush administration treats its actions as if they were the tenets of a religious order. In the entirely gray-shaded world of foreign policy, the president assumes black and white absolutes, his worldview operating in a completely Manichean way. Either you are with him in the light of good, or against him, shrouded by evil.

According to Bush confidant Richard Land, Governor George W. Bush actually believed God had chosen him to be the next president. In James Madison's words, "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Bush, seeing himself as a herald of the Almighty, sees attempts to question his presidency as an inappropriate abridgement of his executive power and even against an higher order. President Bush does not even have internal doubt, remarking to Bob Woodward that he never doubts his actions in Iraq and never feels a tinge of regret.

Senator J. William Fulbright, a foreign policy genius, once remarked, "The attitude above all others which I feel sure is no longer valid is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major responsibilities with a universal mission." Yes, at times the president has humbled himself in words before God and nation. However, at every turn, President Bush's actions have sacrificed our nation's great democratic virtues for the benefit of his own power. This arrogance has been demonstrated both in his campaign and in his presidency, and no words of humility can prove different.

Dan De Rosa is a junior political science and history major from Merrick, N.Y., and Political Outreach Chair for the Penn Democrats.

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