November 15, 2005

Dear Colleague,

         Christians believe they are sinners, always subject to error. They confess, "...We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us" (Book of Common Prayer, 1549). So imagine my astonishment when George W. Bush, ostensibly a Christian, said in 2003 that he couldn't think of having made a single mistake! No mistake, no trespassing, hence nothing to confess, hence no salvation. That other born-again president, Jimmy Carter, was humble enough to confess his human frailty--that, for example, he thought lustfully of women. Can you imagine George W. saying that, or admitting openly to having any human weakness at all?

         Can a president be humble and forceful and great? The answer must be yes, for we have the outstanding example of Abraham Lincoln who, by common consent, is one of the truly great presidents of the United States. In Caleb Crain's review essay on two recent biographies of Lincoln, he says: "Equally hard for us to grasp is his radical humility. We don't expect a President to say that he is a man 'without a name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name,' or to 'confess plainly that events have controlled me' rather than the other way round" (The New Yorker, November 7, 2005, p. 133). It takes someone of enormous self-confidence and of confidence in his country to say that. George W. clearly has neither. How sadly we have fallen--and fallen so low just at a time when we are supposed to be the most powerful nation on earth.

         Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic until 2003, is another example of a humble man who rose to supreme power in his country. Six months into his presidency, he had this to say about himself to an audience at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "I am the kind of person who would not be in the least surprised if, in the very middle of my presidency, I were to be summoned and led off to stand trial before a shadowy tribunal, or taken straight to the quarry to break rocks. Nor would I be surprised if I were suddenly to hear the reveille and wake up in my prison cell, and then, with great amusement, proceed to tell my fellow-prisoners everything that had happened to me in the past six months. The lower I am, the more proper my place seems; and the higher I am the stronger my suspicion in that there has been a mistake" (The New Yorker, February 17 & 24, 2003). Can you imagine Bush having sleepless nights, worrying that his presidency might be a mistake, the result of election by a people who, once so proud and brave, are become abjectly fearful as the result of one ghastly event?

         As you can see, I am bitter. But there is a silver lining, and it is this. One of the great myths of this country is the rags-to-riches or log cabin-to-presidency myth. But maybe it isn't just a myth. Maybe history backs it up. The latest demonstration that it can happen is the meteoric rise of George W. Bush: a man handicapped by not only a lack of natural gifts but also by poor education now occupies the Oval Office. That should give hope to all of us badly taught mediocrities, shouldn't it?

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu