On Monday, President George W. Bush delivered his final press conference – barring him declaring marshal law in the next week. It was another stunning performance from our dear departing commander in chief, a man who in so many ways has defined this generation. While not always on the flavorful cusp of the nation’s best-and-brightest idiocies, let us give the man credit: he does his best.

When offered a chance to demonstrate some – hell, any or whatever – humility and admit any mistakes, Bush offered a stirring treatise slamming the criticism he’s received for his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. In some ways, this small nugget of wisdom encapsulates the entire Bush presidency:

“I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina — you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and — is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?”

Where to begin… So the other alternative on the table for him and his staff, other than ignoring a drowning city for five days, allowing people to die of dehydration, was landing his own personal plane in the heart of New Orleans? While I considered looking back into the press coverage, I’m going to go out a limb stead: nobody suggested he do that. No one. Not a single biased liberal journalist.

To Bush’s credit, it’s a compelling narrative. Imagine the video footage, grainy and handheld, as journalists follow the president off of his plane, down the gangplank, and through the ruined streets of New Orleans. He comes to the body of a fallen child; he picks the little boy up, only to have the child sputter back to life in his arms. Bush holds him close, and the cameras would pull in. He would carry women and children back to the plane, pulling them to safety and putting them in the hands of medical professionals. Others would rise up around him, following his lead. He would walk the streets as the city’s savior, endangering his own life to bring hope to the hearts of these people.

Like with the Iraqi people, Bush could always capture our hearts but he never bothered with our minds.

This sort of mythic imagery, big and bloated, as melodramatic as the latest Dan Brown novel, is old hat for Bush. He loves it. He positively revels in it, even when it’s necessary. Remember his speech at Ground Zero? The Axis of Evil? Calling out Saddam Hussein on national TV? Mission Accomplished on an aircraft carrier? His political capital after the 2004 election? This pattern is the administration’s approach to everything: go big, go dramatic, go meaning over substance, symbolism over competence.

In the end, it’s a fitting goodbye to this nation’s 43rd President. Instead of offering a heartfelt apology to the people he has failed, Bush gives them one more dramatic flourish that, like a ill-formed concluding sentence at the end of a piss-poor editorial, is full of sound and fury, signifying not much at all.

Cross-posted on Huffington Post.

At this point, to be shocked and appalled by this administration is a rare thing, one we should cherish, or at least allow ourselves to be shocked and appalled in good order.

Today, they did it to me, not because what they did was so clearly wrong, but because of the sheer elegance of their response to the revelations involved. The simple story is that the previous Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona, testified under oath today, saying that the administration had placed pressure on him to weaken or suppress certain public health reports because of political considerations. While it is important to note that previous administrations, namely Reagan and Clinton, did similar things, Carmona claims the actions taken by the current White House are far beyond what was done in the past.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/washington/11surgeon.html?hp

The article is one more in a long series of articles we have all seen and gawked at, indicating (as any good journalist will do, without bias, without forethought, just a little bit of steering in the right direction) that this administration cares more about staying in power than it does about the American people. Those are stupid words I just wrote, because they don’t mean anything. They are exactly the same thing as the White House response to this story:

Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said the surgeon general “is the leading voice for the health of all Americans.”

“It’s disappointing to us,” Ms. Lawrimore said, “if he failed to use this position to the fullest extent in advocating for policies he thought were in the best interests of the nation.”

This response is stunning in its beauty, simplicity, and demeanor – even if it is their standard response to this sort of story. It means nothing, carries no weight, bypasses all accusations, assassinates the character of the man involved – a two-time purple heart recipient – and shows us the Bush administration cares deeply about the best interests of the nation. It is rhetoric, and I love it. Words have no loyalty; they serve their master as well as he or she knows how to use them.

The question on my mind: is it possible to be a leader in this country without resorting to this? Does anyone know a political leader out there who understands the power of words? I’m still looking.