High Noon
Remember High Noon?
That old western about a marshal, personally compelled to face a deadly enemy, finds that his own town refuses to help him. It’s a good movie, a true classic. Will Kane (Gary Cooper), the marshal of Hadleyville, has just married pacifist Quaker Amy (Grace Kelly) and plans to resign from his post at the end of the day. Then the whole town hears that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), a man he had arrested and sent to the gallows, has been pardoned. Miller is due to arrive on the noon train and his gang is waiting for him at the station. When he arrives, he and his gang intend to exact revenge.
Everybody wants Kane to leave immediately, to avoid trouble. His wife threatens to leave on the noon train without him if he stays, but he refuses to give in. He spends most of the day trying to get the townspeople to back him up, to no avail. Even his deputy, Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), refuses to help. Only his former mistress, Helen RamÃrez (Katy Jurado), supports him, but there is little she can do to help.
In the end, Kane faces the four gunmen by himself. He shoots down two of Miller’s men. Amy chooses her husband’s life over her religious beliefs and kills the third by shooting him in the back while he reloads his gun in an alley next to Kane’s office, in which she has taken refuge. Miller then takes her hostage. Miller then offers to trade her for Kane. Kane agrees, coming out into the open. Amy, however, struggles with Miller, clawing his face as the two men shoot. Kane’s shot kills Miller. He then contemptuously throws his marshal’s star in the dirt and leaves town with his wife.
This is George W. Bush in a nutshell.
He is doing what he thinks is right, what he knows is right, and everybody wants him to leave town, to avoid trouble. You can say what you want about George W. Bush, but he is a man of his convictions, a man who is willing to do what he knows must be done – even in the extreme face of adversity.
But the deck was stacked against him from the start. The 2000 election was a controversial victory, one which is still argued over even until today. The Democrats, the poor sore losers that they are, can not and will not let go his marginal victory over Al Gore. And then, to add insult to injury, Bush beats Kerry in 2004. Oh, the Democrats were, and still are, pissed off. The Red States, the Blue States, the cultural divide, the on going War in Iraq, the looming shadow of terrorism, Stem Cell research, an over zealous liberal media,….
Poor Old George W. Bush picked one hell of a time to be President of the United States.
And with the 2008 elections on the horizon, a democrat controlled Congress and Senate, and a war that has torn the country to shreds – George Bush has taken so many right hooks to the face that he just might be begging for a left jab to the jaw just to change the pace. But he’s still standing – like a dazed Rocky Balboa, he keeps standing there, trading punches, doing what he thinks is right for the country. It’s coming up on the twelfth round for George…
I have to say that I kind of admire the man.
That’s right, I said it. Those eleven words would never, ever be uttered anywhere else but here. Even the Fox News Network would be hard pressed to show a little admiration for a man who is generally maligned by the media and the public at large. Admiration for a man who is the quintessential underdog, the guy everybody expects to lose, whose character is slandered, criticized, and smeared not just in our own country, but almost every where else in the world. A man blamed for every goddamned thing that has come down the pike – even for things he had no control over and had nothing to do with. And he keeps standing, he keeps fighting, he keeps doing what he thinks and knows to be right.
I cannot help but hope that when this is all over with, when historians look back and cast their attentions on poor old George W. Bush, that they’ll see that he was right, that he did know what he was doing, and that he did do the right thing. And the world was a better place because of it. Then maybe George will see a little vindication.
I’m an underdog supporter – I root for the guy who everyone expects and wants to lose – the football team that no one can believe is in the playoffs, the old over weight boxer trying for a twilight year’s comeback, a man who leaves his family in a snow storm trying to seek help. These are my heroes, men who look courageously into the face of adversity, shrug off their personal discomfort, and march on.
Only time will tell.
George W. Bush marches on. Poor Dumb Bastard.
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