Signs of Our Times

After 9/11, bumper stickers on cars across the country read: “Thank God for President Bush.” This weekend, coffee mugs for sale in Crawford, Texas are inscribed (defiantly, wistfully or both?) “W: Still Our President.”

Cindy Sheehan is leading war protestors near the Bush ranch and flashing peace signs at elderly women tourists, some of whom reportedly are using a finger to respond with “half a peace sign.”

If you Google “anti-bush t-shirts,” choices on 55,900 web sites start with pictures of the President labeled “Born Again Moron” and “Like a Rock, Only Dumber” down to new levels of creative obscenity.

In Washington, where politicians rely on words rather than symbols, the talk is heating up on both sides.

Rage is in the air over an Administration that refuses to budge and Democrats who, in their frustration, are leaving themselves open to charges of trying to conduct their own foreign policy and “micromanage” the war.

The danger for those appalled by Bush, Cheney, Rove and their dwindling but defiant supporters is letting ourselves be infected by their certitude and self-righteousness. From now to November ’08, the challenge will be to find ways to rebuild an American consensus based on the decency and civility they have taken away from us.

Can we find symbols for that? If we don’t, we may win an election without getting back what we value most.

If any of this sounds smug or self-righteous, it isn’t meant to be. I don’t exclude myself. When those “Thank God for President Bush” signs appeared, I was tempted to scrawl on them, “Amen, Cheney Would Be So Much Worse.”

I barely resisted.