I'm a liberal. I have all kinds of philosophical and theological problems with the term, but when I began subscribing to the New York Review of Books a month or two I gained official access to the club. So far the only membership advantage has been getting to read Norman Mailer's "The White Man Unburdened" a week before it was posted online.
Taking Bush's landing on the U.S. Abraham Lincoln as his cue, Mailer argues that, when all is said and done, the main legacy of the Iraq war might be its reminder to the world that white men can still kick ass when they need to.
As a matter of collective ego, the good average white American male had had very little to nourish his morale since the job market had gone bad, nothing, in fact, unless he happened to be a member of the armed forces. There, it was certainly different. The armed forces had become the paradigmatic equal of a great young athlete looking to test his true size. Could it be that there was a bozo out in the boondocks who was made to order, and his name was Iraq? Iraq had a tough rep, but not much was left to him inside. A dream opponent. A desert war is designed for an air force whose state-of-the-art is comparable in perfection to a top-flight fashion model on a runway. Yes, we would liberate the Iraqis.
The irony, of course — if irony is the right word, and it probably isn't — is that we were led into battle by a politician whose movie star persona rivals that of his ideological predecessor, Reagan. Bush is a pilot like John Wayne was a green beret, always emanating the appearance of bravery, the appearance of earnestness. Granted, appearance matters, particularly on the diplomatic stage. But when appearance replaces fact, democracy suffers.
Democracy, more than any other political system, depends on a modicum of honesty. Ultimately, it is much at the mercy of a leader who has never been embarrassed by himself. What is to be said of a man who spent two years in the Air Force of the National Guard (as a way of not having to go to Vietnam) and proceeded—like many another spoiled and wealthy father's son—not to bother to show up for duty in his second year of service? Most of us have episodes in our youth that can cause us shame on reflection. It is a mark of maturation that we do not try to profit from our early lacks and vices but do our best to learn from them. Bush proceeded, however, to turn his declaration of the Iraqi campaign's end into a mighty fashion show. He chose—this overnight clone of Honest Abe—to arrive on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on an S-3B Viking jet that came in with a dramatic tail-hook landing. The carrier was easily within helicopter range of San Diego but G.W. would not have been able to show himself in flight regalia, and so would not have been able to demonstrate how well he wore the uniform he had not honored.
Mailer reminds us that Kennedy and Eisenhower, two real war heroes, always wore civvies while commander-in-chief. But not Bush. The photo-op was just too good to pass up.
Wantonly, shamelessly, proudly, exuberantly, at least one half of our prodigiously divided America could hardly wait for the new war. We understood that our television was going to be terrific. And it was. Sanitized but terrific — which is, after all, exactly what network and good cable television are supposed to be.
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