A Cynic Has A Change of Heart

“We’re on top of the situation.” President Bush

I have done a great deal of soul-searching of late, and I find that I have been inordinately hard on the Bush administration. I have questioned its abilities in every aspect of government, and I have found them wanting in every case. But as hymnist William Cowper wrote of our Creator, whom he said “moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform”, so, too, President Bush, may have method to what many of us have perceived to be madness, and perhaps his policies are actually working, even though, due to our lack of insight, we have failed to see how they are working.

What has brought about such a wondrous change of heart on my part, you ask? Well, since you have asked, what made me initially question my nagging doubts about L’ll George’s abilities were a series of news stories that seemed to reappear each day, each almost a verbatim copy of the previous stories. These stories, which at one point had me watching the calendar to see if I hadn’t got caught up in a “Groundhog Day” scenario, involved the rising price of oil, which set a record high each day, the value of the U. S. dollar, which set a record low each day against the Euro, and the U. S economy, which seemingly slipped further toward a recession each day. And the more I saw these stories, the more depressed I got. For, the rising price of oil was making itself known, as each time I drove by a gas station (and thanked God that I could drive by), I would see a higher price there. And as for the U. S dollar no longer being the big kid on the block, well, that’s just depressing, too.

But what are the end results of such daily occurrences? And how could this administration stand by and do nothing to try and alleviate the circumstances that caused them to recur? Or have Dick, Dubb, and the Scrubbs actually charted the wisest course by allowing these circumstances to play themselves out without any interference? Take, for instance, the rising price of gasoline, which analysts have estimated could approach $4.00 a gallon by this summer. We are addicted to the stuff, after all, and we cannot seem to break this awful addiction. So, perhaps President Bush, in the manner of a kind parent, has seen us struggling with this awful affliction, and in his wisdom, has seen fit to allow this substance to increase in price so much that we will have no choice but to quit using it so freely. How often, after all, would we take the “scenic route” when going to a far-off destination? And if we got out on a four-lane where we could speed, how many of us did speed? Well, no more! When we must go somewhere now, it is straight there, and straight back, and no dilly-dallying. And, because we all know how speeding decreases our gas mileage, it’s 55 MPH, and no higher.

Then there is that nasty bit of business about the global warming. And many of those of us who have counted ourselves among the President’s detractors have blamed him for not doing anything about it? Or has he been doing something about it? Again, gas costs more, people drive less, people drive less, less carbon fuel burned, less carbon fuel burned, pollution decreases, pollution decreases, and perhaps we buy ourselves a couple more years before all the ice at the poles melt, and we have to live like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.

Of course there is always the problem of the rising cost of oil being the first domino, causing us to have to pay higher prices for other products that we use from day to day. And for those of us who have set foot in a supermarket lately, we already know that the price of food is keeping pace with the price of gasoline. Now this is a bitter pill to have to swallow, because, after all, not getting to drive as fast or as often as you want is one thing, but not getting to eat as much as you want, well, that is something else, entirely. Yet, are we really hurting here? Again, it occurred to me that the President may be allowing these prices to increase out of concern for us. You see, he knows of our struggle with our waste lines, and he has had pity on us. Because we could not push back from the table until we’d had fourths or fifths when the price of food was so low, by allowing food prices to increase, some say dramatically, L’ll George knows that the nation will now begin that painful process of slimming down, and, it is hoped, no doubt, we will regain the slim physics that we once possessed back in the good old Hoover days.

Yes, because of the higher prices of oil, we are becoming better citizens, and we have L’ll George to thank for that. And only a cynic would even think of the windfall profits the oil companies (and many of the Prez’s associates are included here) are reaping because of them.

And as for the dollar constantly losing value against the Euro? Perhaps the President has conquered yet another seemingly insurmountable problem. We have all seen the redesigns of our currency, and we know that the funny money we are spending now is a result of the tricks counterfeiters were constantly playing on the government. The old currency, plain and strong, which bought us as much oil and food as we could want, was easily duplicated, and it got duplicated a lot. But that was because of its strength. Now that the Euro is the cock of the walk, we no longer need fear the counterfeiters. It is not our dollar that they will be Xeroxing. Heck, had we come up with L’ll George’s plan a lot sooner, we might not now be stuck with all this new Monopoly money.

Scary, isn’t it? To actually contemplate that George knew what he was doing all along? That what we have taken for incompetence has actually been brilliance? That everything that George has done, to include the Trillion Dollar war in Iraq, has all been done with a justifiable end in mind? That, as a result of the Bush policies, we, as a nation will emerge stronger than ever? What’s that? You believe me? Good, good! Now, about this bridge that I own in Brooklyn, yes, I can make you a good price on that!