Harold Meyerson has a thought-provoking (and butt-kicking)
piece over at the American Prospect about Bush's use of the word "opportunity." This caught my eye because I once worked at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, and we were trained to use the word "opportunity" in place of "problem." For example, "We have a real opportunity up in Room 810."
Of course, the idea there was that all problems are opportunities to get something right in the customer service biz.
Meyerson says that what Bush means by opportunity is something a little different: risk.
Think of the word, as the president must, as meaning the chance to do well, or poorly, or to crash and burn altogether. Think of it as a synonym for "risk," and the president's entire program falls into place.
Once you comprehend that the president is peddling increased risk rather than opportunity as the term is commonly understood, Bushonomics becomes crystal clear. It explains the administration's assault on governmental programs offering security. Viewed in this light, the administration's decision to raise seniors' monthly Medicare premiums by 17.5 percent the day after the president's acceptance speech isn't hypocritical in the slightest. It's just a way to prod seniors to stop lolling around and to take more responsibility for their care and feeding.
Okay! Now I get it! But the best part of the analysis is where Meyerson asserts that Bush is all for risk precisely because he's never taken a risk in his life. He's always had someone to bail him out.
But if there's one enduring motif in the life of George W. Bush, it is that he's always been sheltered from the consequences of risk -- that is, of failure. Exposed to the draft, he had business and political associates of his father get him a slot in a National Guard unit far from Vietnam. As an oil bidness entrepreneur, he would have gone belly-up on several occasions but for the intervention of more such associates, for whom the notion of helping out the vice president's boy had a certain je ne sais quoi. And when he was a presidential candidate, even a defeat at the polls could be reversed by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court.
No wonder risk and opportunity are all jumbled up in the mind of George W. Bush. Privilege has trumped risk at every turn in his life.
It's too bad we don't have a true populist running against Junior, but I think Kerry's life of service to others despite his background of relative privilege is a great theme. Think JFK and FDR. There's no shame in being "born on third base." What is outrageous is thinking you hit a triple, and that everyone could do the same if they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Meyerson goes a long way toward explaining why Dubya thinks this way.