http://www.greatchange.org/ov-duncan,when_compassion_becomes_dissent.html

"Another bone I must pick with Bush's aim to "rid the world of evil" is with its authorship. As a novelist, I daily concoct speeches destined to emerge from the mouths of fictitious characters. This practice compels me to point out that, every time he speaks formally (which is to say, reads), the president is less himself than a fictitious construct pretending to think thoughts placed in his mouth by others. Thus we see, for example, Bush confusing the words "region" and "regime" as he stands before the U.N. pretending to think thoughts that necessitate war. I'm not making fun of these stumbles. It must be hard to enunciate or understand a daily stream of words you have not written, creatively struggled with, or reflected upon prior to pretending, with all the world watching, to think them. The good thing about this lack of authenticity is that Bush may not be such as fool as to believe he can "rid the world of evil"; the horrific thing about it is that our military might and foreign policy are being deployed as if he can. This massive pretense does not imply that Bush is a liar. It implies, far more seriously, that the U.S. presidency itself has become a pretense, hence a lie".
David James Duncan in an article bemoaning the current lack of
imagination and writing/speaking skills of our current government.

Interesting to think about in relation to Emerson's idea of reading. If we as students are not to dwell on books because they force us to think somone else's thoughts, Emerson would have disagreed with the idea of our governmental speech writing. Bush is not reading God's truth to a country of individualist speakers...and if we believed as Emerson did about the sacred act of "talking" to God we as Americans would ignore Bush's commands. The creativity present in the speech Duncan refered to stops after the first draft. Then it becomes someone else's work and the original emphasis on the imagination of man is lost.
These excerpts raise an interesting point concerning fiction too. I would be interested to find out what Emerson believes in regard to fiction. I understand that J.F. Cooper wrote of the "noble savage" and upheld many trascendental truths but Emerson as a poet and critic is who I want to fully understand (in regards to fiction). As he says in "The American Scholar"-only history and the sciences should be read as monotonous facts. So, in the realm of creative learning, where does the art of "making up" (essentially) fit into the idea that truth is conceived of and from God to an individual and therefore is truth. If it's truth-why do we call it "fiction"? If everything is truth, why would there even need to be that category?
In another direction, if Eliot got his hands on Bush's speech, not simply poetry, would he be able to construct an "emotionless" form of communication between a leader and the masses? It seems that much of what our government says is emotion charged hype.
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"This brings me back to the impossibility of teaching creative writing under the pretentious new National Security Strategy without seeming dissident. As a voluntary professional fiction writer and involuntary amateur liar, I'm here to tell you that fiction-making and lying are two different things. To write War and Peace required imaginative effort. To embezzle money from a bank does, too. It should not be necessary to explain even to Jesse Helms that this does not make Tolstoy a bank robber. War and Peace is an imaginative invention but also, from beginning to end, a truth-telling and a gift-giving. We know before reading a sentence that Tolstoy "made it all up," but this making is as altruistic and disciplined as the engineering of a cathedral. It uses mastery of language, spectacular acts of empathy, and meticulous insight into a web of individuals and a world to present a man's vast, haunted love for his Russian people. And we as readers get to recreate this love in ourselves. We get to reenter the cathedral.
A lie is also an imaginative invention, but only on the part of the liar. In hearing a lie we can't share in its creativity. Only the liar knows he's lying. The only "gift" a lie therefore gives anyone is belief in something that doesn't exist. This is the cruelty of all lies. There is no corresponding cruelty in fiction. To lie is to place upon the tongue, page, or television screen words designed to suppress or distort the truth, usually for the sake of some self-serving agenda."
-David James Duncan

When the class discussed the difference between a serial killer and an artist, we mentioned the narcissistic attitude behind the "art" of a kill or victim. I found this quote from Duncan interesting as he parallels the art of fiction and lying. One could argue the idea behind, "well it is expressing what his/her beliefs/emotions/interpretations are and therefore is a form of art", but as Duncan and our class emphasized-poetry/art is not meant to be cruel or to self-serve. Emerson and Duncan agree on this topic (writing to help the greater good, to give people words and expression).