Above the bush-line

The similarities between Sir Edmund Hillary and George W. Bush are obvious.

Both were driven by a need to hang in there when the going got tough; Sir Edmund’s need was personal passion—George’s a righteous fear of getting spanked by a collective of Daddy, a myriad of shadowy Texas investors and God, in that order. Sir Edmund was a bee-keeper; B was the grade George aspired to much of his school life and was the best he ever attained as President. Sir Edmund scaled great heights; George plunged unprecedented depths. Sir Edmund was a man of few words; George knows only a few. Both were courted by world leaders—Sir Edmund for who he was; George for what he was. Both got mentioned in the same Fryday; the only time in history both men would be mentioned in the same breath.

I met Sir Edmund several times; many of us of an age in this small country did. Tomorrow I shall attend a commemoration service in his honour. I do so from a sense of duty and pride and in the desire, shared with many, that this man’s legacy and memory lives on. In a few months’ time the George W. Bush presidency will end and again there will be a shared desire (and world-wide relief) that this man’s legacy and memory do not.

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