Democrats & Liberals Archives

George is No Friend of Bill

This is a set of observations that calls on some of the accumulated wisdom of AA and its powerful programs for recovery that save so many live each year. AA is a nonpolitical organization and is neither an advocate for, nor a source of, any of the opinions contained herein. In this article I speak for no one except myself and all errors and misstatements are mine alone.

Recovery from alcoholism is a constant battle. No one is finally victorious until they have died and gone on to whatever better place awaits them. Those who work to make their life on earth better after having failed are the recipients of a lot of accumulated wisdom contained in the literature surrounding AA. Much of that wisdom is shared at meetings and more of it is shared in the actions of the older members of AA called sponsorship. Several of my friends and some family members have participated in those programs much to their and my benefit. In our society one whole year of high school could be vastly improved by teaching the twelve steps of AA to our children. It would cost far less than our war on drugs and provide a better basis for survival for our children. Of course no one ever recovered from alcoholism in advance of practicing the disease until they got it perfect.

There are lots of kinds of recovery from addiction; none so far seem to be guaranteed to be permanent. The major point of this article is that while George W Bush no longer drinks, he has no apparent conviction that any other change is needed in his behavior. People drink for a lot of reasons. When they recognize that they are addicted they stop for one common reason, their addiction is destroying their life. Most people who try to quit drinking fail unless they have some type of support structure for change available to them. Changing more than just an alcoholic’s dependence on alcohol is vital to their full recovery from alcoholism. That is why programs like AA have developed and become a vital part of our society.

George W Bush is one of the most talked and written about people on earth. That is one of the aspects of his office, not due to everyone’s fascination with his well developed personality and character. There are a couple of articles available on the internet examining the nature of Bush’s relationship to his avowed elimination of alcohol from his life. Specifically, "Dry Drunk Syndrome and George W Bush” by Katherine van Wormer and “Dry Drunk" by Alan Bisbort In these articles the idea of “Dry Drunk” behavior is well examined and Bush comes off looking much like most dry drunks, underdeveloped and undisciplined. Those traits are more frightening than almost anything else an examination of a powerful person could expose. Yet we hear how decisive and competent this “moral” man is on a regular basis and many choose to believe those descriptions of him.

It is easier to appear moral by providing an absolute dividing line between good and evil for those who are content to follow. It is profoundly easy to appear moral by going to church every week and carefully sprinkling your speeches with phrases that appear to leave yourself in God’s hands. It is amazingly simple to appear moral when promoting prejudice based on biblical references. Ignorant people in all parts of this nation demonstrated that by their behavior toward people of other races and religions many times in our past. If the appellation moral is to mean anything then it must be founded in some solid structure of behavior reflecting an appreciation for the good of all mankind in the long term; not just the social or economic or political group to which we belong.

God is only the source of morality in the sense that his interpreted words have led us toward certain beliefs about morality. Ten Commandments are part of the western basis for morality as are other principles that led to the founding of this nation. Included among them are human rights based in the principle that all men and women are created free and equal. The morality that we display in dealing with the other, those who are outsiders or different from us in many ways, displays the true nature of our national morals for the whole world to see. Abu Gharib among other displays of a new moral compass such as our treatment of “Terrorism” prisoners in Cuba and here at home provide us with examples of this Administration’s true morality. Distrust, disgust and disintegration face our international leadership role if we continue on this path. We must reject Bush’s leadership if we wish to regain our true moral compass. We are more than compassionate in this nation we are passionate about human rights and the idea that government is empowered by the people here and elsewhere. We must reject any leadership that denies those human rights and depends on “response to an enemy” to justify that act’s morality.

Dry Drunk or not Bush defies our nation’s moral basis for existence and betrays our revolution that gave us the real soul of this nation. It is in our nation’s defining and unprecedented power to control our own destiny both as individuals and as a country that our true character is revealed. Bush is one of the sources of the problem we have today with our national character. Our national character is reeling from lamppost to lamppost in an unending search for lost honor, misplaced integrity and the substance that is lacking in our national and international policies. God bless you all and keep you safe from the dry drunkards walk we are being asked to follow.