Disingenuous, a Presidency Defined
“Not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness” is what my dictionary says, but the Washington Post headline, Bush Meets Dissidents In Campaign For Rights says it far more eloquently.
I know these presidential photo-ops are planned months in advance, but sometimes George just lays a turd in the nation’s lap and smiles as though it was a golden egg.
Meeting with dissidents in select countries is something our president sees as powerfully symbolic but the key, as I tried to point out in yesterday’s column, is that you’re either for or against and select doesn’t work. Isn’t this the president who made famous the phrase ‘you’re either for or against us?’ The same guy who vowed to activists around the world in his inaugural address that ‘we will stand with you’ in battles against repression. That brought a standing ovation last January. Today’s headline is a slap in the face to all the families who lost someone in last month’s Uzbek massacre.
So, Bush’s crowing about…