Epic Failure

The Greeks had Odysseus. The Romans had Aeneas. The Anglo-Saxons had Beowulf. All these characters from ancient Western epic poetry could be considered heroes or sociopaths depending on your perspective. The same cannot be said about the first President of the United States of the 21th century, according to Elizabeth Gerteiny. To this poet from Connecticut, President George W. Bush was an epic failure of an American man who embarrassed not only his family but also haphazardly threw the rest of his countrymen collectively under the bus.

WESTPORT, Conn. — The Greeks had Odysseus. The Romans had Aeneas. The Anglo-Saxons had Beowulf.

All these characters from ancient Western epic poetry could be considered heroes or sociopaths depending on your perspective.

The same cannot be said about the first President of the United States of the 21th century, according to Elizabeth Gerteiny.

To this poet from Connecticut, President George W. Bush was an epic failure of an American man who embarrassed not only his family but also haphazardly threw the rest of his countrymen collectively under the bus.

Gerteiny captured these failures in her new 169-page book of poems, “The President of War, and the Cowards, Villians, and Fools behind Him: An Unfolding Record of the George W. Bush Administration 2001-2009 In Verse” (Xlibris.com).

The poet told The Lone Star Iconoclast that her inspiration for writing poems about Bush came once he stood on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of the banner that read “Mission Accomplished.”

The event signaled the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003; however, Gerteiny was impressed that Bush’s fellow Republican Dick Lugar immediately struck down the PR image of this warrior president.

“[Lugar] really lit into him for that. I thought it was wonderful, and I just had to write something about it. That’s really the first one in the book,” she said.

Gerteiny’s book is not an “epic poem” in the academic sense. However, it does tell of Bush’s journey as president with prose introductions of the events she described below in rhymed verse.

Her style fits with her nature: creative editorializing of historic events happening around her. Gerteiny explained: ”I’ve always written letters to the editor about various things, especially local things about historic preservation. It just naturally led into the Bush letters. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.”

Her daughters in fact encouraged her to keep going by giving her a website as a present on Christmas.

Her style reminded this reporter of political songs sung around Irish/English pubs. Take, for example, the refrain from her “Tony, Tony, What a Phoney” poem about White House spokesperson Tony Snow: “Tony, Tony, What a phoney / All you spout is pure baloney.”

When asked about the stylistic resemblance, she replied that it was a coinicidence, although she admitted that she does “love” the ’60s Irish folk group The Clancy Brothers.

“I like poets who rhyme and have rhythym and alitteration. It’s not terribly popular these days. It’s blank verse and obtuse. I don’t think anybody can understand it except the guy who writes it,” she explained. “I think Dylan Thomas is wonderful, and he did use a lot of rhyme.”

Gerteiny crafted her works in her volume modestly like most poets.

“I have paper by the bed, and I jot it down so I won’t forget  and if I fall asleep I wake up and there it will be. I have plenty of material to work with,” she said.

Gerteiny does indeed draw on Bush’s personality. Case in point is Bush’s use of nicknames such as “Pooty Putin” to describe the (supposedly) former leader of Russia.

“[Bush] has nicknames for everybody he likes. He calls (former Vice President Dick) Cheney ‘Vice,’” she noted.

Gerteiny failed to include certain events in her volume, one of which was the move by the United Arab Emerate to operate a U.S. port.

“I never did write any verse about it. I sort of wished I had,” she said.

Among her favorite poems are those about Bush’s brother, Jeb, the one the whole family expected to run for president.

“I think Jeb would have done a better job. Jeb isn’t a saint either. He helped his brother fix the election in 2000. He was among those getting names off the voter list, people who were going to vote for Democrats,” she said, adding that she didn’t want another Bush in the White House.

Of the most aggregious moments in the Bush record, Gerteiny points to “the war, of course,” though the environment takes her center stage.

“The thing that bothers me more than the war is the way Bush treats wildlife and the environment and the way he is willing to let all these animals die because of all the things big business wants to do. The mining. The drilling. The bulldozing. It’s horrible,” she said.

She added, “And trying to mess up Eisenhower’s little piece of Alaska because that would be such a small amount of oil. It would be useless. He’s so stupid and absolutely brutal.”

Gerteiny noted the public stewardship of evironment as the contrast between President Barack Obama and President Bush.

“[Obama] took care of so much of protecting the wildlife that Bush had done before he left office. There is more he should have done. But he has done a lot. Thank God,” she said.

So far, there hasn’t been a “Mission Accomplished” for Gerteiny in regards to Obama’s record; she said she preferred to wait for his actions to “bear fruit,” although she has realisitic expections.

“[Obama is] going to make mistakes. I think this Afghanistan thing might be a mistake, but I think overall he’s going to do the right thing. He has the right intentions. This makes so much difference. He has goodwill. This is something I don’t think Bush has,” she said.

However, Bush did surprise her at the end of his adminisation.

“I was waiting until the very last day to hear about a pardon of [former Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff I. Scooter] Libby. And it never came. Instead of that, he pardoned those two border agents that I thought he would never pardon,” she said.

Still, Gerteiny finds herself writing about Bush and his minions – much to her frustration – because they refuse to go away. She noted that Cheney and Libby both received awards by a neoconservative think tank in October: Cheney, the Keeper of the Flame award, and Libby, the Service Before Self award.

Gerteiny said of Cheney’s award, “They always avoid the fact that we had our terrorist attack while they were in office.” She added, “Presumably [Libby’s award] was because he took the rap for Cheney’s role in it. It showed them all dressed up in their tuxedos. They stood up there brazenly.”

So who knows when Gerteiny will return to translating French love poetry, a job she has put off since starting her Bush poems?

“I thought that as soon as I finished the Bush book, I’ll get back to that, but it seems like I’m still writing about Bush. I thought I could stop, but if he would just go and stay in his ranch and keep quiet, maybe I can do it. But so far I can’t,” she said.