My Person of the Year? Not "You"

Originally I was going to write a blog today about its being the 200th anniversary of Robert E. Lee's birth on January 19, 1807. As a fellow Virginian, and as a deep admirer of the Confederate general, I thought it would be proper. But seeing as how I've already spent a lot of the day thinking about his legacy, and even posting a birthday tribute on a Facebook group dedicated to R.E. Lee, I think I'll write about another topic I've been wanting to address since New Year's. Oh, and for those of you self-righteous liberals who think I'm a fascist for liking Robert E. Lee, get a life, for two reasons: 1) I'm also a near-idolater when it comes to Abraham Lincoln; and 2) Lee personally opposed slavery and even freed his own slaves. Yes, he did fight for the Confederacy, but he even allowed black troops to fight near the end of the war in exchange for freedom. Moving on...

Instead of blogging about Lee, I'd like to fulfill my procrastinated intentions and name my own 2006 Human Being of the Year. Not "You"...sorry. I don't play politically correct, cowardly, supposedly "avant-garde" games like Time Magazine. Nor do I choose non-human entities...therefore "Human Being of the Year" is the moniker here. In the interest of being progressive--no, conservative and progressive are not mutually exclusive--I will make my first ever HBOTY a woman. A young one at that--and one from southern California. (Is the sky falling?)

Her name? Christine Zoldos, and you may have heard of her. On Wednesday, November 8, she--an attractive, modest, patriotic, 18-year-old woman--made a name for herself by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a student trustees meeting on the campus of Orange Coast College, a two-year school near Los Angeles. Yes, by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance! "So what?" you ask? Well, her student council had spitefully prohibited the sacred Pledge from being recited at the beginning of its meetings, to supposedly save time and because of the "under God" phrase which infuriated their childish over-sensitivity. Despite the fact that the college is attended by more than 28,000 L.A. area students, and the fact that more than 85 percent of Americans do believe in God, three of the council's members took it upon themselves to turn an American public college's student council into a soapbox for anti-American, Communist viewpoints. After all, the leader of those three, Jason Bell, proudly declared his atheistic, socialistic beliefs and wore a revolutionary beret and militaristic garb(age) at these public-funded gatherings. (He excused his acts by accusing the Pledge writers of adding "under God" as a simple McCarthyistic attack...perhaps, but it's 50 years later. Just skip those two words if you're so freaking offended.) I'm not surprised, given that we're talking about Los Angeles...but the last I checked, California is still on American soil. It isn't a Chinese or Mexican province--not right now, at any rate. We must defend every last remnant of our soil against such ideological attacks.

Anyway, Zoldos was so upset by the actions of Bell and his comrades that she decided to make her own statement. At the beginning of the group's meeting on Wednesday, November 8, she recited the Pledge aloud before the committee could commence its evening business. According to a November 9 article on Reuters' website, she told a reporter, "America is the one thing I'm passionate about and I can't let them take that away from me." I hear you, Christine, and so do millions of other angry Americans. Her action was short, simple, and clear--the best political statements always are, something two-dimensional thinker Cindy Sheehan and one-sided filmmaker Michael Moore should learn--but she made headlines almost instantly. She even got a three-minute interview a day or two later on the conservative comic and commentator Glenn Beck's CNN program, which is where I first heard the story in detail. She struck me as very modest, very plainspoken, and yet very intelligent and passionate, as she had said.

Sadly, it will take hundreds, indeed thousands, more like Zoldos to take back our right to exercise patriotism in our own country. Ridiculous, isn't it? Apparently, the Supreme Court thinks the First Amendment applies only to the radical, God-denying minority and not the average, hard-working, God-fearing American majority that has built this country on sweat, blood, toil, and tears, since 1607. Don't get me wrong...I firmly believe that we should protect the right of an American Communist, indeed an American Nazi, to practice freedom of speech. That, after all, is the true test of a legitimate Bill of Rights--but the security and rights of the historic, overwhelming majority must be considered first. We built this country on majority rule as well, not just minority rights. We have forgotten that as a country and a culture. It takes the acts of people like Christine Zoldos to remind us. And so, in a year that has been particularly ugly for conservatives, she is a shining exception. (She's even promised to keep attending the council, which she serves on, in order to continue her salute of the American flag. Most impressive.) As for you, Time Magazine, let me say this: "You" suck. Next year, have some guts and pick a real person. Just a thought.

Quote of the Day: "The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued traditions in America is just horrible." - Christine Zoldos, 11/09/07. The only way to take that power away from such extremist bully oligarchs is to use their own weapon against them, i.e. that good old freedom of speech, and freedom of the assembly, which they constantly flaunt. We patriots, whether Democrat or Republican, need to stop retreating on this issue...defensive warfare usually fails. Ask Robert E. Lee.

Magnum Opus: Bush 43

I have been thinking a great deal about Presidential legacies lately, largely because of Gerald Ford's December 26 death and the Bush-related "thumping" of the GOP on November 7. That, and I had a very strange dream last night, as I so often do. I dreamt that I had to write a very important research paper about President Franklin Pierce, but could only find two very short, unhelpful sources...not a good thing, if you're a history major like me. I was frantic, running here and there, all over town, from one place to the next, looking for a freaking biography of the New Hampshire man who lived in the White House from 1853 until 1857. No such luck.

Upon awaking, I realized that my "nightmare" had been quite realistic. There are certain poor souls who go down in history as either mediocre or worthless, despite being placed in glorious positions at pivotal moments. Franklin Pierce and his successor, James Buchanan, may be the epitome of such individuals, at least in our nation's history. It took someone like rail-splitting Illinois country boy Abraham Lincoln to finally use the Presidency to accomplish something--namely, the dismantling of slavery and re-establishment of the Union--the first executive to really wield power (aside from James K. Polk, 1845-1849) since Jackson in 1837, twenty-four unbearably long years earlier.

And so I begin to wonder if we are in a similar period right now. Our last President who deeply exhibited those qualities so vital to a good or great President--integrity, honesty, intellect, strength, political tact, and conviction--was Ronald Reagan, who left office in 1989...has it already been 18 years? Since then we've had George Herbert Walker Bush, shrewd and upright in his handling of the Persian Gulf War and the final collapse of Gorbachev's Soviet regime, but equally indifferent to the economic plight of middle-class Americans and not real passionate about the prospect of another term, as evidenced by the infamous watch-checking incident during his final debate with Clinton in Richmond. (I lived there at the time.)

Next was William Jefferson Clinton, perhaps our country's most "morally bankrupt" President of all time (at least sexually)--and that's saying a lot, considering Nixon and all his tendencies. Cheating on his wife with numerous women, having sex in the Oval Office where Lincoln freed the slaves, lying directly to 250 million anxious American citizens, passing on a 1996 offer by the government of Sudan to extradite a rising star in the radical Muslim world named Osama bin Laden... Not to mention the Whitewater scandal and allegedly making off with White House furniture in January 2001.

That brings us to George Walker Bush. Let this be my magnum opus on the eventual legacy of Chief Executive #43. For those of you who don't know, a magnum opus is the classic, quintessential work of a certain author or artist, particularly on a subject of great importance to that person. In addition, it generally contains those things a person is absolutely sure of about a given subject, in spite of other possible enigmas and uncertainties. I seriously doubt this blog will ever be of such historic importance, but I will do my best to write those feelings about, and impressions of, George W. Bush that are never likely to change for me.

First of all, I believe there are two major distinctions that Bush will hold, even if historians one day declare him our worst President (considering those like Buchanan and Clinton, I doubt that will happen). The first distinction is that of controversy...I believe Bush 43 ranks in the top five regarding that designation--first-to-be-impeached (but not convicted) Andrew Johnson, failed Vietnam War architect Lyndon Johnson, nymphomaniac and liar Bill Clinton, and paranoid power-craver Richard Nixon being the other four. Lincoln, Jackson, and others were very controversial during their years in office, but history has proven them to be morally upright, iconic heroes. Secondly, I believe Bush will forever be remembered as one of our most powerful Presidents--a man not afraid to make unpopular decisions and flesh out the very limits of his constitutional authority. In this regard he is rivaled only by FDR, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, and again...Lincoln. Lincoln briefly suspended habeus corpus at the beginning of the Civil War, instituted our first draft, and issued the boldest Presidential declaration in history, the Emancipation Proclamation. Bush, meanwhile, has launched two major military campaigns overseas, deposed two dictators, mostly ignored the UN and EU (sometimes rightfully), carried out a domestic surveillance and wiretapping program (as did Democrat FDR), created massive new bureaucracies despite being a "conservative," and continued his policies unblinkingly in the face of a 30-percent approval rating. That takes stubbornness, and that takes power. Much of his assertive decision-making has been shored up by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, firm believers in Presidential license.

As this blog is already much longer than I had intended, I will "attempt" to close. Had Bush been a one-term President, he might have gone down as one of our best execs to serve just four years. He strongly boosted our morale after 9/11, successfully liberated Afghanistan, employed new terrorist surveillance strategies, led the charge against partial-birth abortion, began campaign finance reform, made effective tax cuts, supported faith-based programs to help the poor, and even filled the spare moments with a good sense of humor and a little self-deprecation. So what happened, you ask? He didn't just serve one term, and now his legacy will almost certainly be hitched to one miserable word that has symbolized his second term (and part of his first): Iraq. As fair or unfair as it may be, I have made peace with that reality. Bush and Iraq will forever be inextricably tied, whether it miraculously turns around or concludes as an astounding failure (in spite of Saddam's deserved defeat). In closing this quintessential "magnum opus" regarding Bush, I will restate what I know beyond a doubt: he will go down as one of our most controversial, yet powerful (or at least aggressive), commanders-in-chief, and will be shown in textbooks centuries from now with Iraq around his neck, either as a glowing laurel or a ponderous millstone. I hope and pray it is the former.