When he saw me I wasn't clapping

Bush Accuses Islamic Militants of Trying to Intimidate World

A transcript:

Freedom! Democracy! Evil terrorists! Communism! Freedom! September 11th! Nucular weapons! Evil enemies! Freedom! Al-Qaeda! Victory! Iraq! Elections! Constitution! Freedom! Democracy! September 11th! Weapons of Mass Destruction! Murderers! Terror! Evil! Progress! Freedom!

The biggest problem with Bushie's speech wasn't so much the repetitive rhetoric that he's always spewing, but the fact that this speech, which addressed the National Endowment for Democracy and its core institutions, did not once mention how critical institution building is to a stable democracy. We can even speculate that the whole reason for the mass chaos in the aftermath of Bushie's Iraq debacle is that there was no emphasis put on building the institutions vital to democracy. If we would spend half as much money on building these institutions as we do dropping bombs, the whole world would be a much more stable place.

When Condi and Rummy entered the room before he came out, they looked so small, so frail, so normal, like they weren't partly responsible for the mayhem that blankets the planet. They certainly were surprise guests, but they didn't bother to show up on time to hear Vin Weber, Dick Gephardt, and Chris Cox speak about the work the NED does.

I was sitting in the last row- there were 13 in front of me- and I was directly in the middle, the focal point for a speaker. It was nothing we haven't heard before, nothing we haven't played the Bush drinking game to. I stood when he took the stage, respecting the Office of the President of the United States, not the guy personally, but I wouldn't clap. He had to see me not clapping- he looked directly at me several times. How could he not? I was in his direct line of sight. Oh, I took such joy in not clapping when everyone else was patting their hands together. It was such pleasure to feel the high of revolt!

A Russian colleague of mine, who grew up in the Soviet Union, put it best when he said, "When they were all clapping, it was like Communism."