Alex Wright

September 21, 2001

king hal redux?


on watching president bush's address to congress last night, i found myself so unexpectedly taken with his message, and with his personal poise and presence - strengths that i never would have ceded him before - that i'm beginning to entertain an unexpected hope that the man may actually be rising to the moment. as ed koch said of rudy giuliani's performance in the crisis, "sometimes in difficult times, deeply flawed men lose their flaws."

while i'm certainly not about to hand in my card-carrying liberal credentials anytime soon, i now find myself more than prepared to cast my lot behind bush right now, and i can't help but want him to succeed. i cannot imagine the pressure he must be feeling - and perhaps it's just enough pressure to wreak a profound transformation in a man i felt sure was destined to be a weak and forgettable president.

i am reminded of shakespeare's bishop of ely in henry v, describing the transformation of the young king - the party-boy son of a previous strong monarch, suddenly thrust into power and faced with personal challenges that brought out capacities hitherto unnoticed:

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;

And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation

Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,

Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,

Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.