Doubters 3, Evil 2

One thing Reagan Week highlighted is how profoundly dark and pessimistic Bush is. Compared to Reagan–who was terminally optimistic and hopeful in his allusions–Bush’s speech stands out as consistently apocalyptic and paranoid.

Take Bush’s eulogy for Reagan. Bush completely missed the nostalgic, celebratory tone of the ceremony. Even with the intention to be positive, he could only do so in the context of oppressiveness. The paragraph that got the most airplay, for example, is filled with allusions to torture and conniving. (Perhaps that Abu Ghraib thing is still rattling around in his consciousness?)

Anyway, in that single paragraph, I counted three “doubters,” two “evil’s” and one “hated.”