THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE ©
AN IRREVERENT VIEW
Time Line: January 20, 2007
Date Line: Flemington New Jersey
Maureen Dowd’s Op Ed piece in today’s NY Times is worth reading if you are not familiar with Sir Harry Flashman, VC;OBE, ETC. the creation of George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman is the antithesis of Tom Brown the model schoolboy and love him or hate him, his is a portrait to be known and remembered.
Flashman epitomizes Robert Morley’s comment, “Show me a man who liked his time at Public School and I’ll show you a snob, a bully and a coward.” Indeed, he is all of those things with the ability to fool kings and peasants into believing him to be a hero intent on advancing his country’s freedom and prosperity by the force of his military prowess. (A prowess that is non-existent save for the ability to run fast when in danger.)
Dowd draws a parallel between Flashman and Mr. Bush. While she analogizes the stupidity of the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839 to our own adventures in the region, she compares the circumstances only to Mr. Bush’s lack of acumen. That is not the salient issue. More important for the future of our country is the question of how so many Americans were lulled and gulled into electing such a person to the Presidency and how to avoid a repetition of the event.
In Flashman’s world, your family and its financial and social standing dictated whether you would lead armies or become a Minister. While it is still true to some extent that money makes the mare go, we are given the opportunity to choose our course, albeit at infrequent intervals. The fact that we elected Bush twice does not have a parallel in the Flashman series. For that coverage you need to read a treatise on abnormal psychology.
There is a better comparison to Mr. Bush than Harry Flashman: Theodore, Emperor of Ethiopia, is described in one of the Flashman volumes. Theodore believed he was the direct voice of God and to thwart him was a sacrilegious act. He took hostages, tortured and enslaved his captives; his people independent and fierce believed in the invincibility of Theodore until losses led them to see reality, at which point Theodore committed suicide. Sound familiar (except for the suicide part)?
It is not the George Bushes of the world that need education; it is Jane and John Citizen who have to be taught and reminded that the leaders they choose must meet qualifications more stringent than those imposed by a society that is more concerned with how they look than how they think; with demographics rather than a candidate’s experience; with whether Madison Avenue’s ideas of political correctness are met than whether the candidate is tough minded, forthright and balanced.
There are able candidates in both parties but to hear the pundits the only choice is between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama as Democrats and Senator McCain or Mr. Giuliani for the Republicans.
All are untested in positions of power.
While Clinton and Obama are bright and able, neither has administered any enterprise larger than a law firm (in Clinton’s case) or a Neighborhood Action Committee (in Obama’s case). McCain is similarly untried, a hawk (and do we want another) and has taken a new “political” position on social issues. No one who wants the job so much that he will forgo his principles deserves our vote. As for Giuliani, New Yorkers had a bellyful of his highhanded tactics before 9/11. Doing what he was paid to do on 9/11 is no more valid a reason to elect him than it was to elect George W. Bush.
Those comments are by way of saying that we must demand more of the political parties and people that are supposed to represent us. Perhaps one of the candidates mentioned is the white knight we need but by all that is Holy, he or she has to prove it. In Flashman’s England the Queen appointed generals and Ministers which led to the invasion of Afghanistan and the charge of the Light Brigade. In America, we can demand excellence. If we fail to do so we will live with the fact of failure not the amusement of fiction.\
H.S.
No comments:
Post a Comment