In a piece entitled, Bush as Bad Theatre, acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Sherman Yellen does a superb job of pinning the tail on Bushie as the comedic fool in charge of our national tragedy.
Yellen finishes with some sober thoughts on our dreaded three more years with Bushie.
The full article is at Huffington Post.
I doubt that there will ever be a great play called "The Tragedy of George Bush." As a playwright, I find a problem with Bush as a dramatic character in a serious drama. Although he is perfectly suited for satire, he is now caught up in a tragic national drama, the Iraq war, and it is as if Shakespeare's Bottom had stumbled into Hamlet by mistake and taken over the stage.
Comedy is filled with amusing hypocrites, the snobs, fools, and pretenders who get their comeuppance before the curtain falls, men and women who cannot learn from experience, flat characters notable for their foolish single-minded response to all circumstances. Bush is our own Tartuffe, Molière's insufferable pseudo-religious comedic character who uses his so called piety to gain power over the lives of others. Although Tartuffe takes place in seventeenth-century France, it is Bush's voice we hear as Tartuffe pronounces, "How dare you even hinder or annoy when I've the means to ruin and destroy. You should have thought before my toes you trod. Attacking me, you set yourself 'gainst God." (Timothy Mooney adaptation.)
Bush, alas, is not a knowing hypocrite like Tartuffe. Hypocrites are easy to expose while true believers like Bush stand fast as reality implodes around them. He appears to believe what he says even as he plays the leading role in our national drama. He would serve nicely as a foolish father in a sit-com, or a ridiculous boss in an office comedy, but he is the Commander-in-Chief who can and does send young men and women to their deaths. Sadly, he does not even have the true villain's consciousness of when he has done wrong. This is why apology and admission of error is so difficult for him. He believes in his God-given rectitude in all situations.
. . . Nobody can accuse George Bush of eloquence or locate his courage and love of country as he labors to strip it of its natural wonders, and sell his power to its worst exploiters. What he shares with Henry V is a ruthless ambition wed to a sense of royal entitlement. As Henry exploited his soldier's patriotism, Bush exploits his nation's fears. Our unwatched borders, unguarded ports, and unarmed Humvees tell their own story about this President as our protector. . . .
We have three more years of Bush as the main player in our national drama, three more years of platitudes, certainties, grinning, winking, cajoling, but never owning the consequences of his own actions. Since he cannot change his act, we will continue to get what we see -- an empty man propped up with a foolish sense of his own worth, taking us from one new disaster to another -- that is, unless the other players in our national drama, the stumbling Democrats and few surviving decent Republicans effectively oppose a leader who cannot lead. We don't need a hero for our national play, just some strong supporting actors with enough courage and sense to stand up against this comedian in our tragedy. More important is an enlightened electorate who must ultimately take center stage and restore the values upon which this country was founded.
Read the whole thing..
Bush Iraq War Empire George W. Bush Sherman Yellen
