"River City"

"We've got trouble, folks, right here in River City"

I am so prepared to dislike anything the President says or does that it was difficult for me to be open to the speech he made to the United Nations. Even the picture of our President climbing down the few steps of his Marine helicopter after it lands at the White House and throwing a snappy salute to the Marine guard just reinforces my concept of him, a President who is not comfortable inside his own skin. While I realize that every President has virtually every speech written for him, I get the feeling that if the teleprompter went out Bush would be unable to come close to ad-libbing even the general nature of his prepared remarks. Is this a fair criticism? Probably not, but it is what I think.

The President's remarks were cogent, consistent, and had Bill Clinton made them, I would have been jumping up and down joyously. As to the conciliatory tone with the United Nations, I was begrudgingly pleased in that all prior statements by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice had been along the lines of "we better go to war by Monday, because it might be too late on Tuesday".

It is probably less than sophomoric to take metaphors from the American musical theatre, but it's hard not to think back to The Music Man and Robert Preston's performance as Professor Harold Hill:

"Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for 'pool'"

Without benefit of music, the President and his "staff" have been in recent weeks, selling us band instruments and uniforms to solve the "trouble" we are having in "River City", and instead of a pool table, it's Sadaam's possessing "weapons of mass destruction".

In the late 60's I lived in the bedroom community of Ardsley, NY with my then wife, two children, and a dog. It was the Saturday of a July 4th weekend, the temperature was in the upper 90's and the air conditioning went out. The A/C repair guy came to the house. He messed with the unit for few minutes and told me he had bad news, the compressor was shot, the fan was shot, and everything but the walls of my house needed to be replaced. He explained that it couldn't be done until Tuesday and it would cost about $800. I was shocked, but he came to the rescue and said, "Let me try again to fix it", which he did in about five minutes. I was thrilled when he presented me with a bill for parts and labor totaling about $300. I was so happy not to have to pay $800 and spend the weekend in the sweltering heat that I probably kissed him on the lips, thanked him profusely, and offered him a cold beer. It wasn't until an hour after he left that I realized what had gone on. I assume the $800 quote and "We can't fix it until Tuesday" set me up to gleefully pay the $300.

I wonder if the Bush administration's drums of "war" and the "we must take out Sadaam" rhetoric were the same as the "We must replace the whole A/C unit"? Do you think that from the beginning there was an intention to go to the United Nations with the issue, anticipating how happy Americans and the world community would be, by this much more moderate Bush position? Most of the world looks at the President as a reasonable and compelling world leader, and most Americans are apparently thrilled by his "moderate" position with the U.N.

I also wonder in my 71st year if comparing air conditioners with the invasion of Iraq, or comparing our President to Professor Harold Hill, is reasonable, fair, or appropriate? Do I believe the President and senior staff could be that duplicitous? Yes, I do. Even my former heroes Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton misled the American public, so why not think about George Walker Bush?

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