Empty Glass

Yesterday, I watched the president of our country raise an imaginary glass to toast his foreign counterpart. Everyone in the press had a good laugh over this, and in the coming weeks we will hear pundits on the left and the right either lampooning, decrying, or praising this gesture in their typical fashions, doing what they need to do in order to sell those ever more valuable 30 second spots on radio and tv, or quarter page ads in the paper. In any event, when the the public's imagination has moved on to the next spectacle, it will be true that no wars were fought over, treaties signed because of, bridges built in spite of, scandals caused by, or marriages ruined because of this small, literally empty gesture which, absent the presence of an actual glass, managed to make room for a little humor in addition to the ordinary platitudes of diplomacy.

This would have been an unremarkable, daily presidential news clip if not for one wholly remarkabe thing. This is the very first time, since I first heard of George W. Bush in 2000, that I ever saw him do something that I would have done. Exactly what I would have done, hands down. (or perhaps bottoms up) Of course, I would not have uttered the words "good will" or "great nations". I would have just raised my imaginary glass and said "up yours mate", and pretended to drain the vessel of its imaginary Macallen 18. However, the contents of the cup or the nature of the sentiment is not the central issue. I am still a bit disturbed by the fact that I now have a singular, if somewhat tenuous, similarity to G.W. I will now be haunted by the one event that has caused the Armand circle to intersect with the G.W. circle, linked only by a single degree, but linked none the less. I believe, perhaps hope, that this one event will be the only manifestation of the alignment of our sensiblilities, the remainder being too oblique to touch without violating the laws of physics. I do not say this because I have strong political convictions which are antithetical to the views of our president, for I have no such convictions. Rather, I feel that I just don't understand him, or can't relate to him, with the exception of this one instance in which the substance of something imagined is more profound than the substance of the real thing.