The Teenager-in-Chief

September 7, 2006

I wish I found this surprising, but at this point, it sounds consistent with everything we’ve heard about the president for years.

President [tag]Bush[/tag] was driven by a visceral hatred of [tag]Saddam Hussein[/tag], which he privately demonstrated in expletive-laden tirades against the Iraqi dictator. In May 2002 — months before he asked Congress for authority to attack Saddam — Bush bluntly revealed his ultimate game plan in a candid moment with two aides. When told that reporter Helen Thomas was questioning the need to oust Saddam by force, Bush snapped: “Did you tell her I intend to [tag]kick[/tag] his sorry mother fu*king [tag]ass[/tag] all over the Mideast?”

In a meeting with congressional leaders, the [tag]President[/tag] angrily thrust his [tag]middle finger[/tag] inches in front of the face of Senator Tom Daschle to illustrate Saddam’s attitude toward the United States.

Michael Crowley asked if the president of the United States could “truly be this [tag]infantile[/tag].” Of course he could.

Consider what we’ve learned about Bush, just in the last few months. U.S. News & World Report noted that the president “can’t get enough of fart jokes” and has been known to “cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides.” He’s also been seen giving an unsolicited neck-rub to the Chancellor of Germany, trying to publicly embarrass top administration officials for getting post-graduate degrees, and yelling “Air Assault!” while riding his bicycle on a hill.

I’ve heard for over six years now that Bush doesn’t necessary need intellect and competence to get ahead; he excels thanks to his personality. We’ve all heard the line about how more people would rather go have a beer with Bush than Gore or Kerry.

But politics and policy aside, I simply fail to see what people like about this guy. Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich — what exactly do people find appealing?

Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich

Um, unfortunately he has that in common with far more American men than you’d think.

  • Yes, what Mr F. said. Once we complete the job of choking off the life blood of this country throughout its history – immigration – we’ll be well on our way to becoming the second-rate country we deserve to be. Might even see it in our lifetimes.

  • I’ve despised him since before the 2000 (s)election. But the thing to keep in mind is that he’s a figurehead, a visible ragmuffin put in place by far smarter men. And he’s worked for them – giving them tax cuts and no-bid contracts worth hundreds of billions, and regulatory laxness and negligence worth billions more. Even now, as his reputation is turning to ashes, Bush works for them as he distracts from the real forces he represents. In two years he’ll be gone and they’ll be offering up another meat puppet to continue to do their work.

  • From, “The End of Iraq” by Peter Galbraith p.83 – “A year after the Axis of Evil speech, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans: the author Kanan Makiya; Hatem Mukhilis, a doctor; and Rend Rahim, who later became postwar Iraq’s first reprepsentative to the United States. As the three described what they thought would be the political situation after Saddam’s fall, they talked about Sunnis and Shiites. It became apparent to them that the president was unfamiliar with these terms. The three spent part of the meeting explainging that there are two major sects in Islam…..” Heard from two participants in the meeting…..

    The Emperor has no clothes. The “personality” argument has always been the default because to admit the truth would be unthinkable…….

  • I’m proud to say that I’ve hated this piece of shit since all he did was pretend to run the baseball team. Everything you read like this represetns only a portion of his overall vileness. No surprises to me here, only confirmations of what I already knew. He’s is one of the sorriest excuses for a human being you are likely to find in your lifetime.

  • There are several people I know that I would like/do have a beer with – not one of them is anywhere close to being qualified to be president.

    I did see a documentary done by Nancy Pelsoi’s daughter on W during the 2000 campaign (all you very smart people here I am sure know her name or know her) – anyway what I took from that was how immature/nerdy the guy is and thought no way ever could this immature party boy be the leader of the free world. I HATE being wrong.

    CB – we need a countdown clock to when W is out and hope with all hope we actually get someone in there who is smart, porfessional, strategic, etc – everything W is not

  • Why does Boy George II hate Saddam so much that he behaves in this infantile fashion?

    Do I have to go over this again?

    One, Saddam tried to kill Poppy (GHWB) in Kuwait not long after the Gulf War.

    Two, after Poppy lost the 1992 election Saddam bragged that HE had won the Gulf War because Saddam was still in power and Poppy was not. Because Boy George II is a child in a man’s body, he is incapable of not failing for the game of “I Win (you lose)”. Just look at how he reacted to the Hezbollah claiming victory in Lebanon or how desperately he clings to the disaster in Iraq just so he can not hear al Qaeda claim victory there during his administration.

    It’s pretty simple. Just look how crazed he got over the recount in Florida in 2000. The infantile behavior is just the expression of a mind damaged by years of legal and illegal drug abuse.

  • At this point I think there’s just a broad reluctance in people to admit they were wrong. Bush divided and then polarized the public. People who defended him were forced to do so strongly, then aggressively, then irrationally.

    You’re not going to see too many Andrew Sullivan-style mea culpas, but I think reasonable Republicans are fed up with what the Bush team has done to their party and our country, and they’ve been waiting, uncomfortably and impatiently, to quietly abandon them in the voting booth. My hope is that those Republican legislators who have loudly and proudly hitched their wagons to BushCo are going to be punished. Even if the Dems don’t win back either house, at least then us citizens might get back our branch of the government.

  • Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich — what exactly do people find appealing?

    Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich — exactly what people find appealing.

    Remember what country we’re living in.

  • I still find it remarkable that people consider him the ‘guy they’d like to have a beer with’ when he doesn’t drink!

  • WHY would anyone be surprised at juvenile behavior exhibited by this dickhead? He’s been out of his element since he moved his shit out of the frat house for the last time.

  • Gee who could of known what sort of president W would make? I would have to say anyone who was paying attention during the late 90’s and not expecting big financial gains from his election. Here is an article from the summer of 1999 which laid it on the line.

  • Beth:anyway what I took from that was how immature/nerdy the guy is and thought no way ever could this immature party boy be the leader of the free world. I HATE being wrong.

    exactly.

  • Bush snapped: “Did you tell her I intend to kick his sorry mother fu*king ass all over the Mideast?”

    As the soldiers said of Patton: His guts our blood.

  • Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich — what exactly do people find appealing?

    While I agree with the description above, he doesn’t use big words, he frequently sounds like he believes what he says, he publically praises Jesus as his Lord and Saviour…all these things resonate in fly-over country. Frankly, I think its either the last item on the list or the first item on the list that really seals the deal. The vast majority of people don’t like to feel dumb, and resent it when people in power use complicated words or hard to grasp reasoning/logic. When was the last time W did either of those?

    To be clear, those are the qualities/behaviours I detest most in W. The fact that Clinton was sucessful is truly a mystery. I think it was largely due to the lack of charisma in Poppy and, especially, Dole, so that people were able to forgive Clinton for his occasional use of $10 words.

  • “… what exactly do people find appealing?”

    Nothing. Everything about the Regal Moron — and his biological and Crime families — is repellent to me. I can’t wait till they all go back to their Crawford opium den and get the hell out of our lives for good.

    I liked your phrase “intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich”.

  • People who like Bush are people with “horse sense” — just like him. Octopi are, by the way, more intelligent than horses.

  • People who like Bush are people with “horse sense” — just like him. Octopi are, by the way, more intelligent than horses.

    Comment by Alibubba

    I’m afraid they got the wrong end of the horse. 🙂

  • Think of how fucking STUPID the average guy is?

    Well, statistically, and by definition, *half of them are even dumber than that*!

    Yes, I know it’s “median” not “average”. Who cares? Neither the median nor the average guy has any goddamned idea what the difference is.

    Congratulations, you now know everything you need to know about electoral politics.

  • I liked your phrase “intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich”.

    Comment by Ed Stephan

    Me too. His politics are cheesy, his stories have more holes in them than Swiss cheese, he likes to cut the cheese and he doesn’t even realize that someone moved his cheese.

    George is caught in the headlights of history.

  • I have been saying Bush had in mind to go into Iraq before he was elected since the run up to Iraq, and no one takes me seriously.

    I don’t however think it had squat to do with WMD and how bad a man Saddam was/is. I think he internalized all the grief his father got on not persuing the war further back during the Persian Gulf War. I think he though this was a way that he could best his father. He could say look what I did, my dad didn’t do this, and use that as a way to prove to everyone (most especially to himself) that he was just as capapble as his father and brother. That as well as Rummy’s incompetetence and Cheney’s delusion is why there was no plan for after – because the truly didn’t care about the after. Also, the war was macho and sexy which would appeal to people like Bush (and Cheney and Rummy for that matter) and the rebuilding was hard and dirty.

    I have always thought that the defining bits of Dubya other than his total lack of intellectual curosity and experience in anything other than frat boy antics, was his feelings of inferiority when compared to his father. He can’t admit his mistakes or wrongness becuase those are things that help him feel better about himself and recanting or admitting mistakes would mean he couldn’t use them a crutches.

  • What do people find appealing? Hate to think this, but a lot of Americans celibrate people who got ahead in life by taking short cuts, risks, cheating, having the right connections, having the right parents, winning the lotto, talking big, strutting their stuff, driving racy cars, wearing the glitter, taking steroids, etc. The new American dream is not just to get rich, but to do it quickly and easily. Real role model for our youth, that GW.

  • This is what you get when a beer drinking crowd selected Dumbya based on the desire to drink with this incompetent fool. However,I still think that white america and small group of others are still very much asleep at the voting switch. They will do whatever dumbya and rove tell them to do. More wars ie. Iran and Korea, more loss of $ (billionssssssssssssssssssssss with a B) and young american lives. There will be a military draft after the Nov election to get your sons and daughters ready to fight these wars. White Americans like war, just ask the neocon-men who have gotten nearly 3000 soldiers killed and 20000 injured and disabled. O, what price we all pay for the incompetence of Dumbya.

  • I’ve always been mystified by people who say they like Bush, even some people I sort of respect. Maybe he’s a “fun guy” to be around when you’re in the mood for fart jokes and verging-on-cruel personal comments. There simply is not one attractive thing about him in my opinion. When you think back to how this asshole became president of this once-great nation, it really makes you want to hurl.

  • He is the ultimate example of the triumph of mediocrity. I think a lot of people like him because he makes them feel that they too could be something great.

  • Edo: he doesn’t use big words

    hey! dude said eck-a-lektik the other day. can you imagine them coaching him [e.g, ‘ec-lec-tic’] and he fucked it up anyway?

    last year he said ‘disassemble’ and then felt compelled to define it. i laughed my ass off each time.

  • He has always given me the creeps and I would walk a mile to avoid having a beer with him. I am still in shock over Bush v Gore. That the public couldn’t see through this drunken, coked out, burned out, spoiled brat of a fraternity ass-hole is something that truely amazes me. What further amazes me is the support he gets from the so-called Christian community. Don’t they reasd their own Bible? I wouldn’t even call him a pharisee because the pharisees actually studied scripture and did what they believed to be correct. W never studied anything in his life and I think he cares less about what is correct.

  • “But politics and policy aside, I simply fail to see what people like about this guy. Misplaced arrogance, frat-boy antics, fragile ego, the intellectual curiosity of a cheese sandwich — what exactly do people find appealing?”

    I call it the “git-r-done” mentality (ever since I saw a hat with “git-r-done” over the picture of a tank…hello, rural Indiana!). To these people, everything is right or wrong, black or white (preferably white), etc. It is more important to rush in using whatever superficial information is at hand than to actually consider consequences. Analysis of a situation beyond “they are evil” and “they hate our way of life” is anathema to them. Only geeks and nerds are capable of or interested in such analyses, so one must display the antics you describe to be fully vetted as a git-r-done type of guy. Another requisite characteristic of a git-r-done guy is that he believes fully and only in an initial, gut reaction, i.e. just start shooting. Without such a trait, otherwise known as arrogance, you are a nerdy PhD, paralyzed by thinking. Since the immediate obviousness of the initial decision cannot be incorrect, one must stay the course. Also, why examine something in depth when it is already certain you are correct? If facts get in the way, they must be wrong. If a git-r-done guy allows facts to sway him away from his original decision, then he is really questioning his entire set of values, which are absolute. This accounts for the affection of the religious right for git-r-done guys.

    A git-r-done guy foreign policy is something like:
    – we’ll kick his ass
    – we’ll give them freedom and democracy

    A git-r-done guy says things like:
    “We will be greeted as liberators!” and “Mission Accomplished!”

    They don’t waste time worrying about the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. That just gets in the way of kicking ass. And really, what better way to combat anything but to kick ass?

  • CJ: They don’t waste time worrying about the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. That just gets in the way of kicking ass.

    they’re all brownish and Asian so they’re all terrorists all the time. nothing else matters. kill ’em all. |-(

  • hey! dude said eck-a-lektik the other day. can you imagine them coaching him [e.g, ‘ec-lec-tic’] and he fucked it up anyway?

    Comment by rimone

    They told him to pronounce it the way he does “athalete” and “nukular”

  • LMAO. wait—he goes ‘athalete?’ /ath-a-leet/?

    shit, now i wanna go have a beer w/him. if the world ever gets back to normal (the Hague would help muchly), we’ll ALL be laughing our asses off at his stupidity, and in public w/o any fear. if not…well, then, see y’all at yer local Halliburton detention camp. i hope they have wi-fi.

  • Well, ours is a country where a member of the world’s most important deliberative body, the US Senate, can come out and say of brown-skinned people: “they drive taxis by day, plot terror by night.”

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