LISTEN!….Everybody’s having fun with Jeffrey Smith’s piece in the Washington Post today about the ballooning numbers of things that George Bush finds “unacceptable,” and you can count me among them. But who can blame Bush, really? Six years into his presidency, there are a lot more things I find unacceptable about the world too. The only difference between Bush and me is that I recognize the correlation and he doesn’t.
But it was the final paragraph that hit home for me:
Bush’s proclamations are not the only rhetorical evidence of his mounting frustrations. One of his favorite verbal tics has long been to instruct audiences bluntly to “listen” to what he is about to say, as in “Listen, America is respected” (Aug. 30) or “Listen, this economy is good” (May 24). This year, he made that request more often than he did in a comparable portion of 2005, a sign that he hasn’t given up hope it might work.
This is a symptom of what I find so mysterious about Bush’s popularity: his speaking style always strikes me as irritated and angry, as if he’s nearly ready to jump out of his skin in frustration that his audience just doesn’t get it. Even though he keeps explaining it! And explaining it again! And again! What’s wrong with you people?!?
This feeling is almost palpable, and it’s the reason I don’t understand why his supporters continue to find him attractive. Especially over the past couple of years, he seems increasingly angry, defensive, frustrated, and completely unable to understand why he can’t control events around him. Conservatives recognize how feeble and embarrassing this looks when Bush pulls this schtick over something that even they understand is dumb (Kathryn Jean Lopez on the Harriet Miers nomination: “I hate this groaning-when-the-president speaks reflex I’ve had all week on this issue”) but they don’t seem to understand that to growing numbers of people he sounds this way all the time.
Listen, George: Being hectored just isn’t a good way to people’s hearts, and repeating the same words over and over isn’t a good way to influence actual events in the world. Is it any wonder your approval ratings are stuck in the 30s?
