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Letter: Missing civility, empty cannons and GW Bush?
Op-Ed · October 27, 2016
A story about the peaceful transfer of power: It was 9 a.m. in California, on Jan. 20, 2001, and the inauguration was about to begin.
I hadn’t voted for George W. Bush, but you might have thought I was his biggest fan from the way I kept repeating: “We’re getting a new President! We’re getting a new President!” I was attempting to convince a just-turned-4-year-old that the swearing-in was going to be more fun than “Scooby-Doo.”
Pajama-clad and not fully awake, Jake climbed onto my lap. “Look, there’s George W. Bush,” I said. He’s going to be our new president. Look, there’s Bill Clinton. He’s going to be our old president. Look there’s George H.W. Bush. He’s an old president. And there’s Jimmy Carter. He’s an old president!” I jollied him along as Mitch McConnell spoke, and I bowed my head over his to still the squirming as Reverend Graham said a prayer. I hummed “America the Beautiful” directly into his ear as he laughed because it tickled. Finally, Justice Rehnquist administered the oath of office. “Yay! We have a new President, Jake!” I said as the camera panned to a brace of cannons. Jake went rigid in my arms as “Hail to the Chief” was shot through with a simultaneous 21-gun salute. “And now what are they doing?” he asked. “Are they shooting the old presidents?”
I was once very proud to explain the peaceful transition of power to a 4-year-old, assuring him that, in this country, we don’t shoot the old presidents — that we empty the guns and the cannons into the air to signal disarmament and peaceful intentions.
The third and final Presidential Debate of this election season ended a few minutes ago. Tonight Donald Trump refused to say if he will accept the results of next month’s election if he loses to Hillary Clinton. “I will keep you in suspense,” he said.
Bush and Gore competed in the most hotly contested election in our nation’s history and yet, on the day of the inauguration, the man who won the popular vote sat only a few feet away from the man who won the electoral vote, and after taking the oath, Bush praised Gore for ‘’a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace’’ in a speech redolent with the words “civil” and “civility.”
As a life-long Democrat, I never thought I’d be up at night missing George W. Bush. Or maybe I’m just missing civility and empty cannons.
Jane Purcell
West Branch
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