Pink and the Indigo Girls have written a letter to GWB in the form of a song -- click below if you have not heard it. It's an achingly beautiful country melody that is guaranteed to tug at the old heartstrings. It tries to burrow through the Big Rock Candy Mountain of political rhetoric to reach Mr. President as a fallible human -- a father and a man who has known a thing or two about drinking and cocaine. The song tells us W does not know what "hard work" means, however. As much as I like the music, the underlying message -- that Bush is personally responsible for every problem America faces today -- rings false. It panders to some unspoken nostalgic ideal that does not require anything from us -- except our moral indignation. We're just "good, honest, decent folks", right?
Of course Bush has it all wrong. It's the environment, stupid (not you Gentle Reader!) Air. Water. Soil. Food. All poisoned or stressed to the point where repair may not be possible. Fixing it will require "hard work" -- and energy. Bush's crime is that he has essentially bankrupted the U.S. by looking for energy in the wrong places. Our crime is that we have been willing co-conspirators. And that is the message that is missing from this Pink/Indigo Girls song.
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