Column: Our Cynical President
There are times in the course of human events when it's best to lay aside your readings of Spinoza, Kant, Kierkegaard, and other philosophical mediocrities and turn instead to the truly astute--such as Philosopher-Queen Lily Tomlin, who once observed that "no matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." Let the pretentious Wittgensteins of the world futilely pen reams of convoluted thoughts in search of Pure Essence. No one will ever again top Tomlin's Universal Truth.
As proof of the Supreme Being's rather odd sense of humor, He sent unto us the unlikely non-entity of George W. Bush to confirm, finally, that cynicism--not loving your idiot neighbor, or rejecting that nice bosomy one, or any of that other namby-pamby gobbledygook--is the highest virtue. He had once sent unto us other unlikely souls--including, but not limited to, as the priesthood of pettifoggers likes to say, Christ, Buddha, Laotzu, Mohammed, and Eleanor Roosevelt--to sell a more elevated message. But earthly folks mostly opted for the sizzle of it all and not the meat.
Alas, having recognized His numerous marketing ventures as the flops they were, Yahweh has repositioned Himself and The Word. Forget Self-Enlightenment. Bow to Reality--for God's sake if nothing else. Simply accept with as much cynicism as you can possibly summon that an unschooled, disinterested, wholly flummoxed Child of God is in charge of things and that the Lord put him here only to help us hone our own cynical skills.
W's outrage at corporate monkeyshines is truly a thing of inspiration for those who aspire to Divine Cynicism. Form 4s? He's barely heard of 'em. The SEC? When Pop reigned at Versailles Palace he had some friends at an office that went by those funny letters, but those boys never bothered W, for some reason. Insider trading? He's been trading on his insider status since he applied for prep school. So what. Turned in his finance homework 8 months late? Again, for some reason, not even Harvard Business School ever cared about such trivialities. Knowingly shafted fellow Harken investors? No, no, emphatically no. What a goofy partisan thought. W simply had the luck of incredibly good timing.
Now, of course, sundry other corporate directors blessed with innocent good timing or that renowned "big-picture" disdain for detail work are to be crucified on a cross of stern rhetoric. If that doesn't help, they'll be sent to their bedrooms on 6-months probation with no Brie, no laptop streaming quotes, no Best of Guy Lombardo. W has this cynicism thing nailed. He is Moses who can lead us out of darkness, out of Plato's flickering cave, and into the light of cynicism at its brightest. He and wartime Consigliere Karl know their social lessers will mistake politicobabble for leadership. It's all in the slouch. And if by any chance the going should get tough, the tough will get going straight for Iraq.
Yet perhaps we shouldn't blame W or even hold him to all that Fundamentalist "free-will" bunkum he so often trumpets, coming as he does from such a sleazy gene pool. Before you always-objective right wingers reflexively pounce on your keyboards to again denounce this writer for using beyond-the-pale words like "sleazy," I should point out that in relation to the Bush dynasty it was first used back in 1992 by that well-known socialist dog and Dick Nixon strategist, Kevin Phillips. In the Toronto Star (April 6) he mused that "the business ethics of a Bush family ... make Bill and Hillary Clinton look like Ozzie and Harriet." In only 4 years the family had left in its wake the top-water refuse of "sleazy deals, apparent influence-peddling and periodic legal wristslappings." And "Mr. Patrician Probity"--Papa Bush--"let it happen."
"Son Neil" had had his "grubby conflict-of-interest involvement with the failed Silverado savings and loan"; "Son Jeb" accepted "improper political contributions"--naturally that was "unwitting," said J.B.; "Brother Prescott" served as a highly paid consultant to a Tokyo firm "subsequently identified ... as a mob front"; and "Brother Jonathan" violated "securities laws in Massachusetts and Connecticut."
Also, Phillips noted, "Son George Jr." had dumped stock "in possible violation of SEC insider-trading regulations." Just a chip off the old block. But W had his blue-blooded cynicism to keep his head high and proud: only the little people pay for their mistakes. As for his own crowd: honor, schmonor.
Merriam-Webster defines "cynical" as a "sneering disbelief
in sincerity or integrity." The scuttlebutt around lexicographic circles
is that next year's edition will "nuance" that to a "smirking
disbelief" in such trite notions.