Flashing back to when I was still living with my parents, I could remember having to deal with my Dad's presentation of men like Abraham Lincoln in the light of true democrats. I would often jab him with a reminder that Lincoln waged a war against the south when they decided to exercise their fundamental right of self determination. Then he attacks, dismissing my opinion as mere bombast and braggadocio. This attack paves way for the litany that follows. I would always end up boxed to a corner.
Though the brainstorming session was more or less like ME AGAINST MY DAD as against ME AND MY DAD, I've found myself relying more and more on his arguments as a way of understanding some of the things happening around me. So permit me here to use the following postulate as a prelude to starting this writeup on the Bush bellicosity.
"In the folklore of American politics, the Democrats are known to be a party of depression while the Republicans are known to be a party of war. Lincoln was a war President and to that extent he was bellicose. But there is a clear difference between defensive bellicosity and aggressive pugnacity; President Lincoln was however was being defensively bellicose."
Similarly, like my father's portrait of Lincoln, bellicose leaders in the United States of America had at different points in the history of mankind, played this card of Defensive bellicosity for all it's worth; only a little differently. From Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan to George Bush "the father", Bill "I did not have sexual intercourse with that woman" Clinton to George "the misunderestimated" Bush and maybe, just maybe, Hillary "I voted for it before I voted against it" Clinton, we've all heard and may continue to hear subtle war songs chanted all in the name of reasserting our superiority or responding to a provocation, as the case may be.
Georgy the kid 'twas who, on March 20, 2003, rabidly took to fanning the amber that ignited an insurgence that has made Vietnam look like a child's Lego game. Through his Iraqi raid, that is. Surprisingly, more than three years on, Georgy the kid is still screaming blood - "everybody être prêt pour troop escalation"- even with the execution of most (if not all) of Uncle Sam's real and conjured bogey men (Saddam et al)........
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