The President and Mr. Miller

Bode Miller was the perfect candidate for the packaged American Hero, a good-lucking lad who played the rebel to perfection for the image-makers, and ran with the hype and the credit card ads to the 2006 Olympics. Miller was a portable symbol of American lone rangers, the guy who did it his way and reached for the gold. Except he didn't reach. He turned up hollow and empty and unwilling to sacrifice. He skiied off the course, and he skiied off the story-line.

Just as the Bridge to Nowhere is the perfect metaphor for rudderless national leader of the Republican Party, so the ski bum Bode Miller and his devil-may-care attitude toward spectacular failure on the world stage makes a fine stand-in for the President of the United States.

Compare the scorecards. Downhill, Combined, Super-G, Giant Slalom, Slalom ... 5th, Disqualified, Did Not Finish, 6th, Did Not Finish. Spygate, Iraq, Katrina, Torture, Port Security. Or pick your own issues, any issues. No medals, folks - just ignominy and embarrassment before the world. What Bode Miller is to Olympic triumph, George Bush is to Presidential history, flopping off the slick course of national politics like James Buchanan in Team USA spandex.

Of course, it's one thing to be an over-hyped, overweight slalom slacker hanging out till all hours in the bars of Turin, letting down your sponsors, your teammates, and your fans. To me, athletes never really let their countries down - that nationalistic stuff is just for T-shirt sales. The Olympic movement is about as idealistic as the Nike advertising budget. In the end, Bode Miller really disgraced no one but himself. His stupid little episode will fade, and his moment on the public stage is nearly at an end. George Bush's incredible failure will be with us for many, many years. Increasingly isolated (if that's possible) and with his dream team riddled by buckshot and scandal, our national ski bum has the country on the icy, dangerous downhill towards disaster.

George Bush in the flight suit on that carrier was Bode Miller in the Nike ads before the Olympics, all image and promise. No substance and sacrifice, no guts and inner fire. Here's what Mr. Miller told the (obviously angry) team at NBC Sports:

"The expectations were other people's.  I'm comfortable with what I've accomplished, including at the Olympics ... I wanted to have fun here, to enjoy the Olympic experience, not be holed up in a closet and not ever leave your room. I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level ... I just did it my way. I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here."

Replace Olympics and Olympic with Presidency and Presidential, and how far are you really from the life and times of George W. Bush - who, after all, can always say he got to party and socialize on the Presidential level after a life partying and socializing on the silver spoon circuit.

Bode Miller is right. He is not a martyr. And he has absolutely nothing in common with the American men and women who are dying in our name in the streets of Iraqi cities as the Bush-triggered civil war rages. He has nothing in common with the 2,500 killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is nothing like the young Americans in military hospitals in Germany and Maryland and Texas and elsewhere, kids missing limbs and suffering paralysis and blindness, young people who time and time again tell the politicians and reporters who come around their beds: "I just want to get back to my unit."

Bode Miller is just another selfish American, another potent symbol of our self-satisfied society, but at least he doesn't ask more from others than he is willing to contribute himself. His failure is his own.

George Bush's failure is ours.

UPDATE: I have apparently offended Mr. Miller's "Bodelicious" fans by comparing him (favorably) to the President of the U.S. Here's a sample of the mail I'm getting: "I wanted to remind you - George W. Bush did not achieve anything, while Bode Miller has achieved a lot." I love this medium! (Oh, and for all you Bode defenders - nice how he treated his hometown newspaper columnist).

Comments

[synykyl]

I feel a little funny defending Bode Miller, but I think your criticism was a bit unfair.

I think Miller's devil-may-care attitude about his performance in some overblown sporting event is entirely appropriate. He's not the first guy who failed to live up to the expectations of his sponsors or fans, and he won't be the last. As professional athletes go, he's not the biggest jerk either.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I enjoy your writing very much. Keep up the good work.

[Tom W.]

Decent point - comparing him to the President may have been a low blow.

[bigezbear]

This is good. Clever and succinct. It says a lot. Thanks.

[Kaya]

Do you even KNOW anything about skiing? What makes you qualified enough to compare the best skier the USA has had in 20 years to the worst president the USA had in 500 years?

[Tom W.]

"500 years" - good one, Kaya...

[Tom K]

*Do you even KNOW anything about skiing . . .*

I can tell you for sure, Tom W knows that certain types of it are performed on snow, and that these are the kinds that are featured in the Winter Games.

[kaya]

So, I added a year or 2 to the period the USA actually gets to have a president. Boo-hoo. Do you know anything about countries that are not your own?

And I applaude you skiing knowledge. Apparently, you know just about as much about it as Dubya&co know about ... well, anything really, except hunting quails perhaps.

One question, though, why do you hate Bode Miller so much? Because he didn't medal? A lot of the Americans didn't medal, but they could have or/and should have. Apparently, all of you are upset because the USA didn't come 1st in the medals table. And somehow that's one man's fault. Aren't you supposed to be a leftist? A voice of reason? The anti-capitalist? Your hunger for medals and some sort of confirmation of your country's supperiority can be matched only by Bush' hunger for foreign oil. Ironic, ha?

[Tom W.]

Kaya - you might check out some of the other posts on this blog.

[floopmeister]

Bode who?

[Boing!!!!]

Clearly the segment of the skiing populace that finds its economic experience limited to asking mom and dad for money and selling adulterated pot to each other has come to defend Miller against charges of being exactly like a president who merely resembled such a person.
A year or 2 or 270 or whatever, man. You are bumming me out in an egregious fashion, man. Dude, not cool, man, not cool.
Thank the flying spaghetti monster for Rosie Fletcher, Alaskan snowboarding babe extraordinaire!

[paul]

Bode Miller is a chump, Kaya. He skied well enough to be chosen to compete against the best skiers, and he decided to blow it off, to party and hang out, rather than train and compete.

I don't care about the medal standings or what country got how many of what. But it is an insult to those who show up and do their best, as well as to those who aren't chosen, for someone to take an opportunity and wipe their butt with it.

Look up the story of Eugenio Monti and see how Mr Miller compares.

The Olympics are just about all that's left of amateur athletics, where people compete for the love of their sport. Someone who takes an Olympic berth as a ticket to party isn't deserving of the opportunity.

[oscar]

"but at least he doesn't ask more from others than he is willing to contribute himself. His failure is his own."

If he had won a medal on just his own contribution would his win have been ours? Everyone seems to think so. Or at least I think thats why everyone is so mad at him.

Who started this comparing a guy that skis for a living to a guy that causes wars for a living? You aren't the only genious to come up with that. It's all over the place. It sort of makes light of an administration that has caused the deaths of over a hundred thousand people.

[jillbryant]

I understand what you are trying to say but...I do think a 20-something(?) skiier in the Olympics who has always been exactly as he represented himself (he said he didn't care about medals before he went in, he did things his coaches didn't like before he went in - like finishing a run on one ski, he said he liked to party, etc.) It also isn't exactly a team sport -I suppose someone else could've had his space and, from what I could tell in how his coaches' reaction to him - they would've put someone else in if they had been close but he did win something big - World Cup? I think he is just the usual kid who thinks he will have opportunity after opportunity - perhaps goofs off in college because that's how he wants to spend those years. Now - if he hasn't grown up and we elect him President in 30 years...we're the fools, aren't we

What I think is very valid about your point is what America falls in love with is more about appearance than substance and are often part of the American mythology. Bode grew up very poor - child of rebels - and is a great skiier in spite of (or because of) breaking the European form. He has made more money than I'm sure he ever dreamt of and he did it on his own. That is very American. George Bush is the rich son of a powerful established American family who has been picked up and supported through all his many failures. But, he does give off this same appearance of son of America does well to the people that should despise him. He learned no sense of noblesse oblige - in fact the exact opposite. He is being used as a front by a group of self-interested corporate individuals and doesn't have to do one thing for himself. And, yet, this is the guy middle America wants to have a beer with.

[Tom K]

The only one he owed a better effort was himself. He'll regret it some day, I suspect, but who knows? It's his issue, and his alone.

[chuck]

Kaya and Oscar -- It ain't that Miller equals Bush ... it's that the packaging for both is the same: shiny, empty, bogus. Miller's failure is a metaphor, not a moral equivalent. Get it???

[Tom W.]

>>>>The only one he owed a better effort was himself.

I agree, basically. I'd possibly add his teammates and the sponsors who paid him a million bucks. But that's probably too business-oriented for the Olympics. Still, they did pay him the mil.

[Tom W.]

Chuck - thanks for the translation! Sorry to all for having been so obtuse....

[chuck]

Tom, I thought you were very clear. You used words like "metaphor" and "symbol". All due respect, twasn't you being obtuse!

[Steve Paradis]

Miller was just using David Chappelet as a role model, except for that part where he actually won races.

[hack]

Bode, Zell, Judy, Dennis...what is it about the name Miller that attracts such human detritus.

[Luther]

If Mr. Miller wasn't interested in medals how the hell did he get on the olympic team? Past performance? This entire olympic season has been a public relations disaster for the Untied states. We come accross to the world as a bunch of arrogant obnoxious drunks who are too full of ourselves to actually do the hard work it takes to win.

Given the limited self control Mr. Miller has, I don't expect he will have his money very long.

[Jesse]

One more distinction: while Miller's smug insouciance might have cost him at the Olympics, it's also what got him to the Olympics to begin with, and the two merely differ in degree, not kind; in both cases, you are basically going down a hill on sticks real fast, and acting like a goofball could help one keep the right frame of mind for what is in the end a delightfully trivial affair.

The bogglingly varied effectiveness of Bush's smug insouciance, on the other hand, is Exhibit A in how the skills required for campaigning are, at this point in history, not merely orthogonal to those required for governing; they're actively opposed. In elections, you really do get to create your own reality, if you're skilled enough, and I'm not even talking about Diebold. In governing, though, reality is its own final judgment upon itself. It's enough to make a smug man quail.

[cedichou]

That is silly. Bode Miller did perform reasonably well during the Olympics. 5th in the downhill is nothing to be ashamed off. Missing a gate in a slalom (disqualified or DNF) is a consequence of taking risks, sometime it pays off, sometime is does not. It seems you are disappointed he did not get a medal, but except for a Killy, Tomba, Aamodt or Zurbriggen, it's pretty hard to predict who's gonna win. One of the best ever, Marc Girardelli, never won a gold. This is downhill skiing, it is not the basket-ball, where the US dream team wins no matter what.

[Jonothan8]

"Bode, Zell, Judy, Dennis...what is it about the name Miller that attracts such human detritus."

Hack, you're a genius!

[Phoenix Woman]

If Bode Miller were black, he'd be accused of being dangerously "angry" and it would be implied that his actions showed that he was a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment.

Go check out how a far better-behaved black speed skater, whose sole crime was not obeying his Texan leader and racing in a race for which he wasn't trained (and daring to speak up about it), has been treated.