Under the Sun
Knowns and unknowns
about two George W’sI'VE got Georges on my mind, oddly both with the same middle initial. One is George W. Steele, a colleague, who died last week. The other is the president.
Outside of the office, I knew little about George Steele, and what I've learned about George W. Bush is as much as anyone who reads and listens to news accounts.
My take on the office George decants solely from the 20 years when we both inhabited the newsroom. For most of that time I was his boss, a situation that doesn't lend itself to friendship. Still, when you spend so much time with a person, you grasp some of their sensibilities. Talk slides from idle chatter to deeper matters and back again, bits and pieces gathered slowly from daily encounters fill in the complexity of a person's nature.
George was depicted fondly as befits a tribute in the Star-Bulletin. It was accurate, if slim in dimension. He was a good newsman, a politically incorrect tag in modern journalism but one that squares well. He did tell lots of jokes, some bawdy, others downright sexist, some sprung because he knew they'd draw moans and swats on the arm, some were really funny.
My guess is that there was more to George than his newsroom persona. As amusing as he could be, George had an equal aptitude to aim barbs, incisive ones crafted to hurt. He could be the most god-awful SOB, then turn around to share his delight in a plateful of fried rice. He, like all of us, had his demons.
I can't rightly say I knew him well, but I understood him enough to recognize his boundaries and to accept his perspectives and a countenance of his footing.
I wish I could say I understand George Bush. This George is due the respect of the office he holds as president of the United States of America -- no less. The tough part of being president is having to earn that respect every hour of the day. I don't doubt that George Bush has the fortitude for the job. Few could sustain the will to insinuate the nation on a treacherous course of war. If such single-minded resolve is to be admired, then Bush is deserving of it.
But I still don't get it, and I would really like to. If I can see matters from his point of view, if he could explain his whys more definitively than through his speechwriters' rhetoric, I might be able to concur with his decision to shove aside people who were our allies and buy the conditional loyalty of others in this crusade. I might be able to agree that instead of using American military and economic strength to persuade, there is an overriding need to compel and coerce. I'm not clear on why we should trade respect for America with fear for America.
Should the conflict with Iraq end quickly and with minimal casualties and "collateral damage" -- as if we would count the loss of any human life as minimal -- other nations could expect that America is reloading to take aim at them. Reason has given way to a sustained anger sparked by 9/11. The attack on America first focused that outrage on a terrorist network, refocused later on a host of "evil-doers" and refocused again on a one-time ally turned dictator who needs killing now -- not next month, but now. The machines of combat will moil on whether or not I understand the motives.
I am sad about office George being gone because all of him -- his attempts at pidgin colored with a West Virginia accent, his mercurial temper countered by Zen philosophies, his striving for professional excellence sometimes defeated by laziness, his human frailties -- spiced the world. I am sad about president George because he has spiced the world in a way that will alter America's position and glory. The degrees differ, but both contain a fullness of regret.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin for 25 years.
She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.