Big Daddy Bush

The Boston Globe quotes Bush aide Andy Card on the president's attitude to his subjects:

''It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," Card said. ''I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children."

Comments

[Sparky]

Boy, this approaches the Kerry campaign in terms of "stupid things said by an aid."

[dragoon]

What juicy things have come from the lips of Kerry aids? I seem to have missed them.

[thoreau]

He thinks we're a bunch of 10 year-olds? That would explain a lot.

[mac]

Surely this is no surprise? My parents were reading me Just So Stories when I was ten years old, too.

[Art Thomas]

YES, we're the 10 year olds who bring home the bacon to our Big Daddy who doesn't do a lick of productive work but spends it on his favorite "pastimes". Mr. Card has it backwards: rather it's the "children" who are taking care of Big Daddy.

The article in quoting Kerry suggests that aside from the fact that Kerry thinks Bush a derlict father, there's nothing substantially different in their view of we Americans.

[RandyAyn]

Actually, Card meant that he sees America as a 10-year-old would see it.

Twin Towers getting bombed by terrorists? I'm gonna keep reading "My Pet Goat"

[Ruthless]

Even though Tommy Jefferson could play a mean fiddle at a hoe-down, he saw himself as the Great White Father.
Must be a Southern Thing.

(I'm southern, but prodigal son southern.)

[Gary Gunnels]

*puke*

[peachy]

Actually, I'm not sure what Card was saying, though either way it was foolish - and revealing... I fear he's almost as inarticulate as the head of our nucular family.

[Andrew]

Obviously, Card sees Bush as a bear sow defending her cubs.

Certainly the American people, as they go about their peaceful pursuits, are as vunerable to the psychos as the children and parents at that Russian school. That is why we have a military, and a President to command it.

[Pavel]

Nice to know that when politicians speak of having Done It For The Children, they're really talking about all of us.

[TWC]

Frankly it comes as no surprise that any polician would think of Americans as anything other than children.

You act like adults and stop whining to Uncle Sugar every time something doesn't go your way and maybe you might get treated as one.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

Daddy doesn't seem to be watching his flanks: Al-Qaida meets with Central American gang, lawmaker says

[Rick Barton]

Well, that attitude does seem to be consistent with the Bush administration's actions-10 year old children apt to get out of line-in need of watching and restrain as part of the care.

Also, I'm reminded of of one of Han's lines in Star Wars: "Luke rescue us? Luke can't even take care of himself"

[Kevin Carson]

I guess we should all start going to Al-Anon.

[Gary Gunnels]

This sort of paternalistic worldview is typical of the religious - especially the devoutly variety.

[Rick Barton]

Andrew at 09:11 PM,

True, defense is a constitutional role for government, but leading up to 9/11 our government's actions were not defensive. They needlessly and even wrongfully provoked the psychos, making us more, not less vulnerable.

[Mark S.]

Democrats want to be our nagging, over-protective mothers. Republicans want to be our bigoted, abusive fathers.

We are not children. We are adults. We need to be a nation of adults, for adults, and by adults. Let's keep the child-rearing reseverd to actual children.

[Rick Barton]

The first paragraph has too harsh a caricature of Republicans and lets the Dems off too easy. But as to the second paragraph; What Mark S. said!

[raymond_m]

Maybe Bush is French. They tend to see Americans as children, too.

Bouche.

I have one serious question. Considering what the administration is doing to this 10 year old, shouldn't they all be put on a sex-offenders list?

[Christopher W.]

Gee, now No Child Left Behind can cover us all!

[crimethink]

Phil,

Yeah, as I said, I don't believe what he's saying, but he's not saying what everyone seems to think he's saying. If that makes any sense.

[Phil]

. . . he means to say that Bush is ready to sacrifice everything for the American people . . .

But he's sacrificed so much already! And by "so much," I mean "nothing!" Not only is he not prepared to sacrifice anything -- except, you know, our military and our budget and our fiscal structural integrity -- he's not even prepared to ask us to sacrifice anything in wartime, instead telling us we can have it all, and more.

[eponymous]

the new Reason editorial view is to see you folks as 10-year-olds

i never thought i'd see this kind of manipulation here

[crimethink]

Ah, the daily H&R pile-on-Bush thread. I'll pull a Gunnels and split grammatical hairs for y'all. 😉

Card clarifies what he meant in the first sentence with the second; he means to say that Bush is ready to sacrifice everything for the American people, just as a parent is ready to do so for a 10-year-old. Analogies are not identities.

Now, whether you think that's true or not (I don't for a second), he wasn't saying that Bush sees Americans as 10-year-olds in every way.

[Kevin Carson]

Phil,

But, see, it's *virtual* sacrifice. Kind of like Janet Reno's virtual assumption of responsibility after Waco that didn't entail any actual, you know, NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES.

"I've worked, and slaved, and sacrificed for you, Junior, and this is all the thanks I get. [snaps fingers] Maria! Go work and slave and sacrifice for Junior! I'll be taking my mint julep on the veranda."

[TWC]

"This sort of paternalistic worldview is typical of the religious - especially the devoutly variety."

And of nearly every lefty I have ever met.

[Bill]

TWC,

You are so right. I live in San Francisco, but originally came from a conservative Christian family. The lefties of SF are a bunch of control-freak nut cases. I've had many more constructive and rational discussions with conservative Christians than left wingers. I think the lefties are bigger control freaks, and are by far the bigger assholes. Most people think that conservative Christians are the bigger threat to liberty--they are so very wrong. The main-stream media puts forward this view because...

They're a bunch of atheist left-wingers, duh!

(By the way, I'm neither Christian nor left wing, but I'd trust a Christian with my life way before I'd trust a left-winger.)

[Geophile]

On-target, Bill. I look now at how left-wing anti-capitalist and anti-american thinking dominates academia and perhaps all creative culture, and I yearn to revisit my teen years when I attented Baptist bible camp in Maine, as a youthful closet atheist.