Nick Jimenez

Sunday, January 21, 2001

Remember, Bush is our president

In this cynicism-infected age, it is difficult to suspend at any point the lingering sense that someone is pulling something over our eyes or something out from under our feet at any given moment. And that's especially true when it comes to politics and government.
   It is one of the great disappointments of our times that political campaigns now are endless. And it's not enough just not to have voted for the other guy, now it's virtually required that we scorch the earth and salt the ground in his defeat. When did the bumper stickers "Not My President" begin to appear? That's about the time that respect for office went down the drain.
   But I willingly suspend my skepticism during those quadrennial events when a new presidential administration takes office, the national party called the inauguration. For all the faults of our system, for all the propensity of our politicians to shrink in stature before our eyes, for all the eagerness by self-serving opportunists to take advantage, our political system works and the inaugurals are a triumphant celebration of that fact.
   Like many of my generation, I remember when John F. Kennedy, on a chilly January day, challenged the nation to "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." It doesn't matter who the president being inaugurated is: each one of them tried to reach out across the nation, to establish some kind of connection with each and every American, for one day at least to stand united as a democratic people.
   It all sounds a bit naïve now. We're all much too knowledgeable about the angles to be played and the special interests to be curried. Do we even have such a thing as "citizens" any more? All we hear about is "interests."
   I'm old enough to remember when presidents used to get a "honeymoon," a period when they were given the benefit of the doubt by political opponents and the pundits before the criticism and pot-shots started in earnest. Kind of like giving the game a sporting chance. Yes, and men used to give their seats to ladies, too.
   I acknowledge that Bush takes office with a big question over his head: the manner of his election. I reject the assertion of some that the election was stolen. If the best Bush could do to abscond with Florida's electoral votes was to have all those hanging and dimpled chads, more than a score of court suits that wound up before the U.S. Supreme Court, all this while his brother was governor and his party held virtually every major state post, well, he's not much of a mastermind. That it was a massive screw-up, I will accept. That it isn't a mandate is clearly apparent.
   It's not necessary that you agree with President George W. Bush on every position he holds, or any position for that matter, in order to wish him well in his new office. Certainly I and my colleagues on the Editorial Board, though we agree with him on many issues, disagree on many others. And we'll be commenting on those issues over the next four years.
   But we've had enough of personal destruction and demonization of those who hold opposite political views. Politics is not for the squeamish and it's for keeps. But must we put our opponents' patriotism in doubt with every disagreement? Our country is divided along too many lines - class, race, ethnicity, income.
   I envy the Moody High School students who were in Washington, D.C., this week for the inaugural. They were witnesses to one of the signal events of our democracy and the living history that is our capital. I, like them, see the transition as one of the great testaments to our system. I hope that Bush succeeds in office. Not in the sense that he passes every bill he proposes or advances every issue he initiates, but in the sense that our nation's democracy prospers under his leadership.
   (Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.)
  
  

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