Worthy Of His Steel

[poliphilo]

The symbiosis of Bush and bin-Laden.

Bin Laden helped to get Bush re-elected by weighing in with a broadcast that seemed to be urging support for Kerry. Of course it had the effect of bolstering support for Bush. CIA operatives have concluded that this was entirely what bin-Laden wanted.

Read all about it

bin-Laden needs Bush's blundering War on Terror. It recruits jihadis for him. It anoints him as the Commander of the Faithful. And Bush needs bin-Laden. He was a one term president in the making until bin-Laden handed him his war.

Both men are boosted by aggrandising their enemy. Every superhero needs a super villain. You're only as heroic as your opponent is fearsome. Holmes needs Moriarty and Moriarty needs Holmes.

Comments

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

Is that a little like Hitler
needs Churchill?
not much of a riposte but in this
sort of politcial writing does one not
see how everything
bent to a purpose, take the "one poll" showing
a sudden swing of 6 points whih is related to
the release of ben Laden's tape...perhaps one
poll showed that sort of swing though I dont
remember it , but another might have showed
a Kerry gain. I do think that in the last days
the polls showed on average a movement to the
President but if you were to look at a
graph of the poll averages over the whole
campaign ,not an exceptional one as the thing
had fluctuated back and forth a number of times.
Nor was this tape perhaps the principal factor
in the final swing(if there was one)...etc

[jenny_evergreen]

It's more like Hitler needed the Jews. :(

Jews?

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

eh? oh well...go to it guys...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I did think of writing "like Churchill needed Hitler". Churchill would have been one of history's also-rans if Hitler hadn't given him his big chance.

bin-Laden wants Holy War and he did what he could to get Bush re-elected because Bush wants Holy War too.

Whether his intervention had a measurable effect on the election is another matter.

Bush+Lord Sandwich speaks on another matter

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well you know I think the demonization
of President Bush is mistaken. If this
makes me "a Bush worshipper" an expression
I saw on someone's post today in another
(but similarly contemtuous) context then I
would say the perception is symptom of
a very schematic view of the world with
each thing assignes a punch and judy type
of meaning.
But enough on this, people think of current
affairs in various ways...
anyway there should be not much trouble more
from over here as I see the First Lord of
the Admiralty assures His Majesty that
though the colonials are numerous "they
are raw, undisciplined and cowardley men."

Re: Bush+Lord Sandwich speaks on another matter

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The two Georges were obviously both misled by poor intelligence.

I think Bush is an incompetent and blinkered politician and that most of his foreign policy decisions have been disastrously wrong. I don't think that's demonization.

query at end

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well I would like to move off of any
direct disagreement since first for what
end? if for any end it would be because
it is a rainy day and I am allowing myself
to have started up a discussion for what
purpose?
no good answer to that so... sorry.
I think perhaps I could say that it may be
more that I do not easily see things as being
assessable as 'right' or 'wrong' so maybe
have a broader sense of ilegitimate 'demonizing'
than those who more easily determine what
was right or wrong...? this resistance on
my part to that could be a limitation for
a clergyman... perhaps ,if it be any excuse,
it has been reinforced by listening to
a good many confessions and thinking what can
one say about this? who knows etc what is the
person really trying to say etc where does
this come from etc

in my case it comes from being at desk of an
empty library with ,I started to say effin'-A,
but I mean to say with little to do. it is
raining. I could write a live journal entry.
about what? brain empty ...

hope things are happier over there?

Re: query at end

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's very hot here, but we're promised rain later. I'm looking forward to it.

We disagree about Bush. That's fine. I've found that profound disagreement needn't preclude friendship. In fact it sometimes acts as a spice.

My old mentor G.K. Chesterton, for example, remained all his life on very good terms with ideological adversaries like Wells and Shaw.

tapping the foot

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

in this sort of pairing it becomes
a little like quixote and sancho doesnt
it? friendship completing what is only
partial in each... or more subtley
perhaps in a frinedship like that of
Waite and Machen (in a sense sparring on
some things, but not apparant
opposites)...
sometimes opposites are more apparant
than actual arent they and the one finds
license in the other to be a side of himself
(or maybe it was so for wells and chesterton
too) I am thinking of General Thomas Jackson
(Stonewall) and J.E,B.Stuart the cavalry man
with the black plume in his slouched hat
and the red cape... a cavalier and a puritan
one might say but Jackson was observed to tap
his foot as the young officers danced with their
belles and his bright blue eyes to close and
head to nod during sermons at his Presbyterian
church.