The Essential President Bush

From The Anchoress Online a post entitled, The Essential President Bush (page down to post / hat tip to Lucianne):

[…] A much-esteemed, long-neglected friend sent an email this morning, which was delightful to recieve. At one point he mentioned this post from yesterday and wrote: "I think (President Bush) has lost his bearings. but then, so did Moses from time to time, it’s quite understandable."

That made me wonder a little - has President Bush lost his bearings, or have we? Is it President Bush who has broken faith with “his base” or have they?

When I read my friend’s line, I thought of a line from Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennett says in new appreciation of Mr. Darcy, “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely whom he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my NYFD friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised. When the World Series opened in New York City and the President was invited to throw the first pitch, there was no surprise in his throwing (while wearing body armor) a perfect strike.

[…] How you receive a good has a lot to do with whether any more “good” comes your way. The Conservatives got a “good” in 2000 and 2004; they’re receiving it very badly, indeed. I think the throwing-under-the-bus-of-George-W-Bush by “the base” is one of the most shameful things I have ever witnessed in all my years of watching politics, from both sides of the political spectrum. How do you receive a good?

President Bush has never surprised me. He is, in essentials, the man he ever was. It does not surprise me that he is a Christian man living a creed before he is a President, that he is a President before he is a Conservative. It seems to me precisely the right order of things. [My ellipses and emphasis]

Read the rest, including the comments.

And link to the Whitehall Speech.

Rough Language

{{___ Cussing and filthy talk disappeared at the instant of salvation for me to never return along with many other things actually. This is the normal experience of salvation.}}

I believe that you are correct about this.

The loss of the first love is rather universal though.

And in some this entails being conformed to the world in the matter of rough language.

Occupations and sports once thought of as exclusively masculine are particularly likely to have this effect.

The author of "The Caine Mutiny", deliberately censored the normal filthy language of his World War II Navy seamen. It would be distracting to most readers and would add little in the way of meaning.

In such settings the bad language is mostly a sign that one belongs to the club.

Those who abstain from such things (and who also abstain from criticizing others) generally gain in respect, however.

But many of us learn this rather late in life.