Friday, May 04, 2007
A Modern Day Sun King in The White House, Nah
"The Commander Guy"
Louix XIV, known as the Sun King, ruled France for 72 years. He was said to be a "great monarch" and responsible for enlarging a former hunting lodge into world-famous Versailles.
Reading the column by Eugene Robinson in the Post about the current occupant of the White House made me wonder how did we ever elect such a person to be the head of this great nation. But the damage is done; he will be there until 2008 when he will ride into the sunset uttering some claptrap. "On Wednesday, speaking to the Associated General Contractors of America, Bush gave himself a new nickname. Responding to a question from the audience, he asked rhetorically whether "the Congress or the commanders" should decide how many U.S. troops are needed in Iraq. "And as you know," he went on, "my position is clear -- I'm the Commander Guy." It would be funny if it were not for the high costs of his actions.
| Washington Post Maybe there were further clues to the president's decision-making style in the rambling talk he gave a couple of weeks ago at Tippecanoe High School in Tipp City, Ohio. He recalled that just before his inauguration in 2001, the head usher at the White House called and asked what color rug he wanted in the Oval Office. He delegated the task of designing a new presidential rug to his wife, Laura. "But I said, I want it to say something -- the president has got to be a strategic thinker and I said to her, make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work.' Because you can't make decisions unless you're optimistic that the decisions you make will lead to a better tomorrow." The result, he said, is "this fantastic rug that looks like the sun. And it just sets the tone for the Oval Office." While discussing the situation in Iraq, Bush told the Tipp City audience that "I happen to think there will be an additional dividend when we succeed -- remember the rug?" |
