My First Ever

[The President's recent speech has promted me to attempt a re-creation of my very first ever blogpost, posted on 09/10/03 @ Brief Intelligence, a weblog by Kimberley Fox. The site has since been taken down, so I have re-created it from memory. It is not verbatim but the essence is there.]


THE CEAUCESCU MOMENT

December 21, 1989.
I remember it well.
It was right there.
On TV.

Nicolai Ceaucescu came out to calm the crowd. Events were spinning out of control after the latest outrage. But Nicolai woud spin them back into conrol. He was tough. You had to be to run a country. And Nicolai ran it with an iron fist, with the usual brutality and bromides, the show trials and the no trials, the occasional round-up. But Nicolai would remind them of all the things he had done for the greater glory of Romania (and himself). All those concrete slab block buildings separated by tree-lined, empty boulevards. He would remind them of all the things he had done for them.

As he began to speak it happened. They hurled it all back in his face full force. Just a few at first but then more and more. He was hit with a palpable wave of anger and disgust for all the outrages over all the years. All of it. All at once.

He stepped back, shaken, eyes glazed, mouth open. How could this be? Didn't they understand?

All the things he had done for them.


They did understand.

All the things he had done for them were the things they did not want.

They gave him his clue. He was ushered off the stage.


There's a reason for this acid flashback.

I want George W. Bush to have his own "Ceaucescu moment".

I want him to appear before a real crowd, not one of those Rove-picked ones. And when he begins to give that same speech that he's always given before, I want them to hurl it all back in his face, full force. All of it. All at once.

I want him to be hit with that palpable wave of anger and disgust for all the outrages over all the years.

For all the dead and the dying. For all the lives lost and the lost lives. For all those left behind. For the WMDs that don't exist and the RPGs that do. For the wounds that have not healed and the wounds that may never heal in our lifetime.

I want him to realize all the things that he has done to them.

I want him to realize that all the things he has done to them are the things they do not want,

I want them to give him his clue. I want him to be ushered off the stage.

I would like to be there to see it all, but if I can't be there I still want to see it all.

Right there.

On TV.