Missin' Bubba

A. Stout Babbitt


A warm-blooded American friend strolled into my office the other day, slumped down into the chair beside my desk and without a word of introduction said, "I miss Bubba."

Heck, I'm no journalist, no pundit, I don't work in Washington, don't even live there - I work in an office and an industry far from the maddening crowd of politics and the animals that feed it, but I had to ask him why and he then proceeded to speak of the Clinton era in a warm glow.

He described the achievements and the pitfalls, the promises made and the hope that ultimately faded into the kaleidoscopic bowties of Tucker Carlson and the crazed NeoCon circus; framed it all like dust hanging in the air of a sticky Washington summer. I was lost in his descriptions of an era that seems so long ago now, troubled by how different America feels today. Clinton was a man of frailties and emotion, a popular president that could gain the adoration of any man, a leader with that most uncommon of attributes - sensitivity, and the ability to close ranks with the dispossessed.

The Clinton era - my college told me - was like a frat party and by comparison the Bush years seem all too much like work. I was struck by this analogy, not because I necessarily disagreed, and had to admit that in a sense it was all too appropriate, but because I felt the analogy somewhat twisted.

Now, I am a Babbitt, and for years the Babbitts' have elected to take a stalwart position directly in the middle of the road, and occasionally relent to the sidelines of issues, leaving the "dogs to bark" as my grandfather was oft to comment. We vote and write the occasional letter, and generally protest under protest. I remember as a young boy standing in front of the Ford White House, I don't remember why, but I remember well that when the police came driving into the crowds with handcuffs and nightsticks, being told to drop my sign and act like a tourist. That was the last protest the Babbitt family attended for a long while. We are not social activists, butterflies, darlings, or some other nonsense, we are thoughtful people who listen intently and speak when it makes good sense.

Why am I telling you all of this you may ask? Well the Babbitts have never been members of any fraternal order, save my father's Phi Beta Kappa membership, but that doesn't really count in this instance. Saving money, doing your homework, and living cleanly at home are not values most often associated with collegiate fraternities these days. We're not Masons or Knights of Columbus, and no Babbitt ever made it past the doorstep of a VFW post.

So, not really having any experience with fraternities, college or otherwise, I asked him why he felt like the Clinton era was so much like a fraternity party, and the Bush years, work? He responded that during the Clinton years the country floated on a perceptible cushion of hope, the solutions to national issues and societal problems seemed close at hand - or at least just around the bend. There was a good direction to things, and we were moving well along in them. The Bush years he responded "…started with a bad dream that's only getting worse." Idiotic comments, petrified European relations, and a foreign policy that could only be observed as irresponsible. I couldn't disagree, and while I support the war, and any stab at solidifying peace in that war torn region - hook or by crook - I feel the peace poorly planned, and on the heels of it mostly bearish on the prospect of a democratic Iraq.

To me, the Bush years can be described the same way my friend so eloquently described the Clinton era: as the frat party years - a time when only the select, the privileged few get to have fun and run the show. What fun is to this fraternity, however, may be very different. Men with reputations and connections, and vast hoards of wealth, that trounce indiscriminately about, serving platitudes to the working class. My three hundred dollar tax "relief" was a joke, and one that I intend to continue by donating to the Clinton library.

Consider this remark made by Bush in Trenton NJ, in September '02: "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."

When I first heard it, I thought it was just another gaffe - one of the many that plague our political lions - after all, public people are merely people in the public eye, and people say some very stupid things sometimes. But, this remark smacks of something a bit more sinister, a thought lurking just under the surface of what may be simply a benign malaprop. Big business feeds government and government responds in kind - and on and on the cycle of nations unwinds.

I understand this; I don't like it necessarily, but see the value nonetheless; yet when big business feeds the executive branch I take notice - yes even a Babbitt has his limits. Lets face it, I work for these people and I know they don't have my goodwill at heart; if they did I'd be getting a raise about now and a fat bonus check at the end of the quarter. These people have profit in mind, and my work represents a way to cash in. I don't take kindly, though, to a government that puts the bottom line of companies before my 401k. Call me selfish, but business doesn't need the money as much as my family does.

Clinton spoke to me in the same way the philosopher Charles Pierce spoke to me the first time I read his ideas and considered them, it felt as if he were addressing me personally. I admired him for bringing the party to the people, for including all the Babbitts out there. For a while there I felt like I belonged; no longer on the outskirts, it was a time during which Washington DC stretched beyond its physical limits into the hearts of men and women and children who might otherwise never have taken a seat at the impassioned folly of American politics. The thing my friend missed, the idea he skirted but could not contain exactly, was that good work done well is far more satisfying than any party could ever hope to entertain, and Bubba did good work.