Tempests of boredom

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Tempests of boredom				December 8, 2006

You can tell that the elections are over and that the staggering holiday credit card debts people are running up haven’t hit home yet. Most Christmas trees are up, and the Grand Illumination has already taken place, so what’s left to do but get out the teapots and see what silly little tempests we can brew to assuage the boredom.

High on the bellyaching list these days is the removal of a cross from the Wren Chapel. Devil in disguise, jolly William & Mary president Gene Nichol has of a sudden become the whipping boy of assiduous Christians for asserting that the college should defer to diversity and honor its commitment to the inclusion of all its students. Well, coal in your Christmas stocking for that, Gene. As Prime Minister John Howard of Australia told his Muslim population, “If you don’t like Christ and Christianity, you’re free to leave the country,” or words to that effect.

And once again the gap-bridgers over at Lafayette High’s Gay-Straight Alliance are under attack. They’re running a “sex club,” you understand, and are converting innocent heterosexuals to the vile ways of homosexuality. If we allow gay porn rings like this to exist, we shall, as one Last Word contributor informed us, become as morally corrupt as the legions of homosexuals who caused the downfall of Rome. And we all know how true that is. Whom we should be emulating are those Visigoths of high virtue who did Rome in. It was their enlightened emergence that delivered the world from the randy rule of the same-sexers.

Perhaps the introduction of a Straight-Visigoth Alliance would be an appropriate counter to the unholy gay sex club over at Lafayette. Or let’s can that outdated “Virginia is for Lovers” motto and lure tourists here with the more truthful “Virginia is for Visigoths.”

Or maybe your teapot is steaming over the recent antics of Senator-elect Jim Webb. Webb, when asked by President Bush how his son was, had the audacity to imply that his son would be fine if the troops were brought home from Iraq. Bush wanted none of that, however, and again pressed Webb to answer his initial question. At that point, Webb told Bush that his son’s condition was none of his business and to buzz off. He later told someone that he wanted to slug the president with a pop to the patootie.

This has sent all the mavens of civil rectitude on the right into an absolute tizzy. Letters to the editor have come coursing in, claiming that Webb is unfit to serve, that he should apologize and that he should remember that he’s representing all Virginians, including those who didn’t vote for him. You know, just as George Allen represented all those Virginians on the left who didn’t vote for him.

But it was the prince of pomposity, George Will, who really sliced up Webb in a recent column for the Washington Post. Will, the master of columnal clarity, tore apart a piece that Webb wrote for the Wall Street Journal, parsing sentences and commenting on what he considered inappropriate word usages. Will’s conclusion was that writer Webb used “slapdash prose” and was a “boor.” No high school English teacher, twittered Will, would accept such prose.

On the other hand, one wonders if any high school English teacher would accept this sentence written by Will: “But that would require him (Webb) to actually say who he is talking about.” C’mon, George.

But what really bothers Will is Webb’s “patent disrespect for the presidency” and “calculated rudeness toward another human being.”

What utter puffery.

Webb’s refreshing rebuff of Bush had nothing to do with respect for the presidency. Bush tossed away whatever respect the presidency had long ago. If Webb’s reaction seemed boorish, consider the demeanor and ego of his overly insistent interrogator. Bush has bullied his way around America and the world to the point of utter embarrassment. His sense of decorum is nil, his collegiality non-existent and his rudeness toward other human beings well attested. He is without doubt the high priest of hubris.

Nelson Mandela called him “ arrogant,” and Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.) warned that, “The administration is seen as bullying people. You can’t do that to democracies. You can’t do that to partners and allies. The responsibility of leadership is to persuade, not to impugn the motive of those who disagree with you.”

Following Bush’s undiplomatic remarks to Canadian president Jean Chretien in early 2003 relative to the situation in Iraq, the Toronto Star wondered if we should come to the conclusion that “a bully is head of an imperial presidency.”

Despite the blatant hypocrisy of Will and other Republicans who simply can’t abide incivility, the fact is that Webb faced the biggest bully-boor of them all and survived the encounter. We can hope only that, as he enters upon his senatorial career, he causes more entrenched, bureaucratic teapots to steam to the point of tempest.