Thou Doth Protest Too Much

I keep looking for my cheque for blogging services rendered, but just can't seem to find it. It must be in the mail, right? Sigh. Until it gets here, actual work that I get paid for sometimes pulls me away for longer periods than I'd like, hence the sluggish start to June. Not to worry, though - I've found some timely and some out-of-date news to comment on, so here goes.

I can understand why Cindy Sheehan continues to mount protests against ex-president George W. Bush. She did, after all, lose a son in a the Iraq war, a military initiative that a majority of people feel was either misguided from the beginning, managed with woeful negligence, or some combination of the two. And I'm hardly going to begrudge a grieving mother for venting her anger at the people she feels are responsible - although I'm skeptical that her efforts will produce any satisfying result, and I do wonder if her obsessive focus on Dubya could be unhealthily prolonging and intensifying her grief.

As for the (fairly meagre) band of protesters who gathered in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back to voice their displeasure at a joint speaking event co-starring Bush and fellow ex-prez Bill Clinton, I don't wonder at all. I'm quite certain that their Bush obsession (no giggling) is unhealthy and counterproductive. 

I'll grant the point that, if you're a Canadian who believes president No. 43 is a war criminal, you probably believe Canada should refuse him entry into the country. But Bush hasn't been arrested on any such charge, and at any rate I doubt that most of the folks who showed up care much about the legal distinction. As one young anti-Bushie told the CBC in the article linked above, "I'm here to protest everything Bush has done. He's a symbol of everything that has gone wrong in the world." I have this funny feeling that this sign-carrier might be a little foggy on the specific details of Bush's misdeeds, but hey, who cares about the details when you can blame one man for "everything" that's gone wrong?

Without question, Bush's presidency was filled with enough arrogance, secrecy, lies, mistakes, stupidity and moral failure (masked as moral superiority) to warrant his piss-poor reputation. But the fact is that he is no longer president and no longer makes the decisions that affect his country and the world. Rather than continue to spit venom at him, it would be much more productive to encourage Obama and other world leaders to find the best solutions to the problems Bush created. 

For eight years, Dubya indeed made for a fine symbol, but that symbol has outlived its usefulness. Dubya is yesterday's news. I wish we could say the same about obsessive Bush-bashing.