A Disconnect Between Speech and Action
Re “U.S. Warms to a Cohering Europe,” Feb. 20: After painfully sitting through President Bush’s speech in Brussels, I believe I have reached an insight about the rhetoric of this president and, by extension, the rhetoric of the conservative movement in general. It simply amounts to the realization that there is a complete disconnect between what is said and what is felt or what is done.
To me this is reminiscent of a comment of Bertrand Russell on the meaning of formalist mathematics. To paraphrase, Russell said that the formalist mathematician is like a watchmaker who is so absorbed in making his watches beautiful that he neglects to insert any works. Now a watch that doesn’t work is not such a terrible thing. But a president of the United States who behaves in such a manner is a horse of another color.
Lester Goldfisher
Grover Beach
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