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from: Martin Peretz

Bush's Inner Fright

Posted Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001, at 12:21 PM ET

Dear Margo,

What caught my eye was exactly what caught yours. Now, ordinarily, this would please Jesse Jackson. He always wants everybody's eyes to be on him. Now he has them, and he surely is not happy. Neither are his followers. Frankly, I don't care about his personal life. It's between him and his family. The people whom Jesse has betrayed are the people he purports to lead and for whom he purports, moreover, to be a moral light. One of the searing issues among poor minorities is children born out of wedlock. Blessedly, it is a number that is in slight decline. But the problem still exists, and it is a problem that the official black culture has been trying to address. In fact, the statistics are still desolating. All of Jesse Jackson's talk about "personal responsibility" always had more than a ring of hokum to it. Now he will be silenced on this, and maybe that's a good thing since his departure from the stage of responsible parenthood may leave the matter to honest men and women.

Actually, almost the first words he used when the National Enquirer broke the story was that he had "assumed responsibility" for what he had done. Assuming responsibility is one of those formulaic phrases that lets people off the hook quite easily. I suppose Bill Clinton has also taken responsibility for ... whatever. But public people, even after they "take responsibility" for deeds they wish had remained private, always leave the public in the lurch, depressed, depleted, and, in some deep way, also disgraced.

Jesse has announced that he "will be taking some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family before I return to my public ministry." But notice that this invigorating spiritual journey did not come with the birth of his daughter. It came when the National Enquirer forced it on him.

George W. is not the first president to promise us Cabinet government. A very smart article by Ryan Lizza in the next issue of the New Republic--you can already see it this morning on the TNR Web site--explains why we won't have one. Dwight Eisenhower was the last president who presided over something remotely akin to Cabinet government, and even his dissipated over time. The phrase itself connotes a gravity that it cannot have here in America, and that is because it is a concept that has intrinsic functions in the parliamentary system where Cabinets are in a way extensions of majorities (or coalitions) in legislatures, like in Great Britain and (to take an extreme case) Israel. In the United States, it used to be a matter of presidential style: A relaxed president who truly wanted strong structures around him would defer to other personalities strong in character and in opinion. But that meant they had to be strong in those areas themselves.

This is not the case with poor Dubya, whose presidency--which does not begin until Saturday--is already being defended as if it had been under siege for years. But this is pre-emptive defense since no one has even touched him yet. This also speaks of the man's fright. And George W. won't have a genuine Cabinet because he is such a frightened man that he will need to have the decision-makers real close, like in the next room.

My guess is that he also has a terror of press conferences. Can you imagine Bush fielding the highly complicated queries with consequences for life-and-death policy, which, unlike those during a campaign, will be put to him?

His supporters know of his inner fright. No one who struts like he does, no one who smirks like he does is truly secure. I think there must be moments when he wishes that he'd been made baseball commissioner in a straightforward deal rather than been forced on the country as president in a brazen robbery.

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Martin Peretz

Bush's Inner Fright

Posted Thursday, Jan. 18, 2001, at 12:21 PM ET
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Margo Howard writes Slate's "Dear Prudence" column. Martin Peretz is a lecturer in social studies at Harvard and editor in chief and chairman of the New Republic.
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