Here's an excercise for you. The next time President Bush is on the tube watch him with the sound off. Check out his body language, his eye contact, facial expressions. Notice that the smirk seems to be gone and he seems tired and worried. As if he feels he is in over his head and nothing is quite working right. I'll bet you will be as disturbed as I was when I performed this little experiment.
Armchair psychoanalysis never appealed to me. A few years ago a shrink wrote a book called "Bush on the Couch" that suggested all kinds of deep psychological problems. Frankly I found it a cheap shot. On the order of Dr. Frist's diagnosis of Terry Schaivo by TV. But you don't have to be a Freudian to wonder if something is wrong here.
A few months ago I was sure that Bush would grab on to the lifeline being sent his way by James Baker and Lee Hamilton thru the agency of "The Iraq Study Group". It provided him with a way out that could be construed as "Peace with Honor" (Or "Victory" as George Aiken once described the best end to Vietnam). I was sure this offer would be taken. It was moderate, it was sensible, it was bipartisan. And he rejected it out of hand for the neocon-job of a "Surge". It was as if Dubya was purposely rejecting any help from one of Dad's retainers. "I'll do it myself", you could almost hear him say. He'll show them - show father he can do it by himself this time.
Look let's not get too Oedipal here but I really think that there's something to the notion that George wants to prove to dad that he can do it because he's a big boy now.. Everyone knows the story of Bush's wild youth and how daddy was always there to rescue him. Vietnam? Dad pulled strings and, voila! Welcome to the Texas Air National Guard and its "Champagne Flight. Did you ever wonder if some money (excuse me, donations) passed hands to get Shrub into Yale (where dad was an All-American in Baseball and a Phi Beta Kappa) or into Harvard Business School? And of course Dad was a genuine war hero in "The Big One" as Archie Bunker used to call it. And then there's business. Dad forswore the family business on Wall Street to make his fortune in West Texas. Did OK too with a firm that eventually became part of Pennzoil. Junior tried and tried but always came up short. And if it wasn't for daddy its quite possible that his insider dealings at Harkon Energy might have led to a SEC Civil Suit or worse. Certainly at least as bad as the troubles of his brother Neil. Yes, he made some money as President of the Texas Rangers (after trading away a guy named Sammy Sosa) but his father's connections made it possible with help in greasing the skids for a publically funded stadium that allowed him to cash out a millionaire.
(We'll leave aside the dark rumors of suppressed cocaine charges and other infractions. But lost documents do seem to run in his resume, don't they?)
Then, in his forties, Dubya found Jesus. And as he told Bob Woodward, he looked to his
"Higher Father" for advice on Iraq. His real father had written as memoir that predicted the mess there that would have occured if Bush the Elder had marched on Baghdad. But Bush 43 didn't or wouldn't listen. He had Cheney and Perle and Wolfowitz telling him it was his destiny to be the savior of the West. The Henry V to the former Prince Hal. Heady stuff for a guy with a record as thin as his. Now he would show everyone just how "misunderestimated" he was.
Now nothing works. Iraq, Katrina, Walter Reed. He even botched the duties of Mourner-inChief at Virginia Tech. He is the most unpopular President since Nixon and may preside over the most corrupt Administration in history. And he is now daily fighting off subpoenas. And when he goes to the public to present his point of view no one listens. Nancy and Harry are more popular. The polls say the public trusts the Democrats more than he on just about every issue imaginable. Even his allies in the NeoConservative movement have abandoned him saying they never knew just how incompetent he would be. And so even this most unreflective and uncurious of men must know that his "legacy" is secure. Among the worst if not the worst President ever.
He's failed again. Like every other endevour he has blown it. And compared to father its almost a parody. And this time dad can't get him out - even if he'd take the help, which he won't. He can't. He's a real NoWhere Man.
I'm curious. what did you mean by this:
He even botched the duties of Mourner-inChief at Virginia Tech.
I hadn't heard any criticisms of him on this score.
Posted by: MMGood | April 19, 2007 at 02:33 PM