I Blame President Bush

Once again, our President has let us down. We look to our elected officials for leadership, and when they make morally abhorrent choices it affects all of us. I'm talking here about President Bush and his doctrine of preemptive strikes.

Yesterday, Elise and I walked to the mailbox to check the mail, and encountered our neighbors and their two-year-old twins Cole and Chloe. As the grown-ups talked to one another, Cole approached Elise. She leaned over with sufficient force to knock him to the ground. Boom. Just like that. Elise apologized, Cole got up and wandered off to play in traffic (his parents chased him down before the cars did, happily), and we came home.

"Elise, WHY did you push Cole down? You know that's not a nice thing to do."

"I didn't want him to take my pinwheel, Mommy."

"He looked to me like he just wanted to see you. You could have used your words, you know. That would have been more gentle, and better around a little kid."

"I know, Mommy. I'm mostly sorry. But I didn't let him take my pinwheel."

AAAAAUGH!!!!! I don't care if the kid was looking like he wanted to steal your new Dora underpants, you don't push him down just because you think he might do something you wouldn't like.

It's hard to know if it's just that the Bush administration never had a mother to tell them these things, or if they're deliberately eroding the moral fiber of America's youth. Just in case, I'm not letting anyone so much as whisper "Alberto Gonzales" near Elise in case it leads to lying. No Karl Rove in case he brings on cheating. And absolutely no Dick Cheney in case he influences her to shoot friends in the face and refuse to take responsibility for her actions.

...Oh-wait. I'm the mother of the kid who preemptively pushed a littler kid. I'm responsible for teaching my kid about her moral compass and how to use it to navigate in the world. Good parenting is hard. I guess that I can take some comfort that if I fail miserably, my progeny may well take over the world.