In other recent behavior:But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.
Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."
[S]ome big money players up from Texas recently paid a visit to their friend in the White House. The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine, a rant, actually, about no one understands him, the critics are all messed up, if only people would see what he’s doing things would be OK…etc., etc. This is called a “bunker mentality” and it’s not attractive when a friend does it. When the friend is the President of the United States, it can be downright dangerous. Apparently the Texas friends were suitably appalled, hence the story now in circulation.This is not surprising in the least. The pressure on the President is enormous in normal times and these times are definitely not normal. Still, holy crap is this scary.
Good thing this guy isn't in charge of the most fearsome weapons mankind has ever seen.
4 comments:
I'm skeptical about this story. It sounds too good be true, like a plot on "24."
On the other hand, maybe Bush is simply applying Nixon's concept of the "madman theory", ie, you make the rest of the world think you are so crazy, they are afraid to try anything. This could be a clever ruse by the president to throw our enemies off-track. By the way, when does Cheney invoke the 25th Amendment?
I don't have much trouble believing this. I think Bush desperately wants to be popular and he isn't. So instead he's decided to be a martyr for his version of reality. He's saving the U.S. despite itself and that's taking a heavy toll on his sanity.
I think that he probably sees himself as sort of a Lincolnesque figure, in the sense that Lincoln was very unpopular until the war turned around and now everyone concedes that Lincoln was right. The problem is that history is highly contingent; if the war had gone well, Bush would still be highly popular. By the same token, if Grant hadn't taken over, Lincoln probably would have lost and our view of history would be a lot different. You need to make decisions based on current knowledge rather than on some premise that if I hang tough, things will turn around.
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