I’m writing to stand up for all of the people in Washington on Inauguration Day who booed Bush when he appeared on the Jumbotrons and later appeared on the Capitol steps.
I’ve heard several journalists decry the boos as bad form and disrespectful. I understand, but reject that argument.
The boos were not bad form — they were faultless form, since they expressed the kind of disapproval and dismay that so many Americans feel towards this Administration. And the boos were deeply respectful — of the office, not the man, and the kind of charge he was given and failed at so dramatically.
But it’s not that the challenges were insurmountable or even exceptional, a line I’ve heard Bush loyalists parrot. Of course, these were exceptional times. The man clearly fell short. But at practically every turn, he made bad into worse, worse into disastrous and disastrous into shameful.
On almost every issue, to boot: disasters (Katrina), global warming (he claimed the science was equivocal when it was all too clear), the economy.
And on my main issue, on human rights, he went beyond shameful. He implemented and defended policies that were and are criminal. He presided over the criminal use of torture and disappearance (or extraordinary rendition, in American parlance). He eviscerated the laws of war. And he sacrificed so many American lives for a mistaken war (OK, that last one isn’t strictly human rights, but as a parent I would be speechless with horror and grief at the waste).
Yes, I booed. And I booed until I was hoarse. I booed like every other person in Purple Standing. We booed and booed and booed. And then we cried and shouted and waved our flags. Because we all knew that the time for booing was brief and quickly exhausted.
The time for work and hope has begun.