CITIZEN DOCTOROW

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Citizen Doctorow
Weinberger—and a former staff member of the National
Security Council. He lies about what he did in the past and
about why he is doing what he is doing in the present. He
speaks for civil rights, but blocks legislation that would relieve
racial inequities. He speaks for the environment but
opposes measures to slow its despoliation.
You and I can lie about our actions, and misrepresent
the actions of others; we can piously pretend to principles
we don’t believe in; we can whine and blame others for
the wrong that we do. We can think only of ourselves and
our own and be brutally indifferent to the needs of everyone
else. We can manipulate people, call them names, con
them and rob them blind. Our virtuosity is inexhaustible, as
would be expected of a race of Original Sinners, and without
doubt, we will all have our Maker to answer to. But
as to a calculus of damage then done, the devastation left
behind, the person who holds the most powerful political
office in the world and does these things and acts in these
ways is multiplied in his moral failure to a number beyond
the imagining of the rest of us.
Nevertheless, there is something hopeful to be discerned
in all of this. Mr. Bush is a candidate on the defensive.
His term in office has been disastrous. This presidential
heir to the conservative legacy of Mr. Nixon and Mr.
Reagan has about him the ambience of the weak dauphin.