Sunday Discussion Group

December 4, 2005

I did a post about the subject earlier this week, but I’d like to get some more feedback in a discussion group today. The subject is a political issue that helps define the president’s personal style — his “bubble boy” policy.

Since being sworn into office in 2001, Bush and his staff have gone to extraordinary lengths to shield the president from those who may disagree with him. Public audiences are routinely pre-screened for ideologies, and then scripted and rehearsed before Bush ever steps foot near the event. Even when presidential gatherings are held on public property, and at public expense, Americans are consistently excluded if Bush advance-team members believe the ticket holders might be a Democrat.

As the WaPo’s Dan Froomkin asked this week, “Why is this happening?” There are a few possible explanations:

* The Bush gang is worried about how dissent might look on TV, and they’re unwilling to take any chances.

* The president is so uncomfortable with ideas that challenge him, that he insists on the comfort of his bubble.

* Bush might actually prefer to talk with real, non-sycophantic Americans, but his staff doesn’t want anyone giving him any strange ideas.

* The entire team worries that someone might ask the president a question that he’s incapable of answering.

Or maybe it’s something else altogether. What do you think?

I think it’s partly the management style this bunch is used to … straight out of the corporate world. The CEO is a virtual god as long he lasts; everyone else, even those with very high rank, are ass-kissing syncophants. These guys like to think they’re the only ones with balls, that everyone else is there to be used to ultimate, then dumped. The whole corporate world, at the top, is a bunch of ass-kissing brown-noses trying to protect the transitory deity of their obscenely paid CEO.

The other part of it, of course, is Bush’s “character” – his almost total lack of curiosity about or competence at anything. His brain, if he ever had one, was fried on booze and drugs long ago. Instead of undergoing rehab, he took Jesus as his personal savior, blah, blah, blah. That illusion and a psychotic addiction to exercise seem to be all that hold him together. He’s simply too fragile to be subjected to anything beyond his handler’s control. The only reason for his political “success” was the public’s disgust with government, a disgust which began with LBJ’s signing the civil rights legislation of the ’60s, was nurtured through Nixon’s cyncial “southern (racist) strategy”, culminating Gingrich’s silly “contract with America”. Voters have been trained to hate “gummint” so much they find a blithering fool like Bush to be personally “charming” (until recently). They would (and obviously did) elect a vegetable under those conditions.

Any comparison of Bush with any other president is ridiculous of coure. But consider FDR: H had successful experience in many worlds more personally difficult than the corporate one. His health problems alone would’ve made most men retreat to a private bubble. The Depression had already been daunting for one provenly able public servant (Hoover). World War II wasn’t beanbag, like our current unwarranted invasion/conquest/quagmire in Iraq. Democratic party politics in his time was feisty: immigrants, labor unions, socialists, southern racists … all them willing to tear someone else’s heart out (even their own if the cause called for it), none of them with much to lose personally. Unlike Bush’s bunch of Poppy’s has-beens, the men around FDR were ambititous and had to be constantly managed by their boss. FDR was intensely curious. Faced with a new economic problem, e.g., he’d call in his paid advisors and ask their opinions, then confront them with a wealth of information he’d just previously obtained on his own by privately telephoning scores of economics professors around the country. Can you imagine Bush doing any of this, let alone all of it?

  • This is the first truly Orwellian propaganda presidency, where every appearance is adroitly stage-managed for its effect on the TV screens.

    Beyond that, you have all the documented attributes of the worst president ever – anti-intellectualism, hubris, exceptionalism, alchoholism, cronyism, that create his management style. It’s a paranoid, insulated world that incurious George inhabits, where criticism and dissent are products of godless enemies.

  • I think it began with item 4. As spokemodels go, Bush is a walking train wreck. I can’t think of a worse public speaker who has risen that high in politics. And that’s when he saying what’s been prepared for him. When he has to think on his feet or speak off the cuff, his incompetence is glaring.

    But by now, I think item 1 is an almost equal consideration. Just going by recent polls, most people do not approve of him in any area. If Bush were to interact with a representative sample of the American people, it would only highlight how out of touch he is. The questions would be too difficult for him to answer. And they’d likely draw more applause than his answers.

    Bush’s main problem is that he runs out of gas after a soundbite. The more he speaks, the more people diagree with him. Even in the controlled settings of his Social Security tour, he single handedly convinced America that they didn’t want him to lay a finger on Social Security.

  • You saw Dubya in the debates with Kerry last year, right? How flustered and peevish he looked? The newscasters who moderated those debates were respectful towards both candidiates but nonetheless prodded Bush with questions he clearly didn’t like. All he could do was fall back on his carefully scripted talking points, repeating key phrases to the point of idiocy (“hard work . . . hard work . . . hard work”) or clumsily attempt to change the topic while Kerry argued circles around him. The poor guy didn’t look like he was having much fun, did he? And if the election had been decided solely on the candidates’ performances in the debates, Kerry would have won in a landslide.

    Seeing as how Dubya isn’t required to put himself in that position again, don’t expect him to do so voluntarily. Unlike Clinton, Bush is at his worst in a spontaneous forum situation and can barely squeak through it without humiliating himself. So it isn’t going to happen again.

  • I agree JoeW–it starts with point #4 – The entire team worries that someone might ask the president a question that he’s incapable of answering.

  • A mix of 1, 2 & 4.

    Sorta o/t: I’d love to see some serious analysis of his jaw grinding/rolling during some appearences.

    What’s really, really strange about it (to me) is that it isn’t something he does all the time, but when he does, it’s pretty dang noticable. What could cause this?

    I know this is super-crazy stereotypical left-wing nut talk, but could he be schizophrenic? A google search for “adult jaw rolling symptom” calls up the page I’ve linked to under my name.

    I feel like a friggin nut just for suggesting this – maybe it’s just some kind of dental work, I don’t know.

  • I think that it developed the way most scandalous affairs do. It probably started as an attempt at image control during the 2000 campaign, and jsut kept growing from there. Bush liked it, the images looked good and the press never got an embarrassing gotcha moment.

    Bill Clinton’s big advantage is that he was sharper than practically anybody you find willing to stand and heckle, so he relished the chance to run circles around those guys. Can you say the same thing for Bush? No. Pick five guys out of a crowd and three could probably beat him in a debate.

    Overall I think the biggest factor was the prominence of Rove in practically every decision the White House made. If you leave everything up to the political operative then everything you do will look like a campaign stop. If that’s how they campaign then it’s how they will govern.

    Case in point, look at how they handled Republican defectors in the Miers case. In a campaign there’s no time for building bridges; you slime the guys who cross you and move on. So instead of responding coherently they called Republicans sexists and narrowminded elitists. So it is with the bubble-boy. Everything’s a caqmpaign. What’s more, everything’s a Rove campaign.

  • Bu$h’s “bubble” is the same as his “ranch”: All hat, no cattle… there is no “there” there.

    For Bu$hCo, nothing is fact driven, least of all policy. The decisions have already been made as to the policy — AND the politics — that will be pursued. The rest is all just window-dressing for the CCCP and the sheep.

    One other theory…we are watching a real-life “Dave” acting as our President while the authentic, competent, progressive and caring person we deserve and elected as our true President is actually locked away in some secret prision run by the CIA under order by Darth Cheney!

  • Bubble boy`s in such a bubble,that if his brain size were to double,the whole world would really be in trouble,and we`d all be crawling from the rubble.

  • I like Ed’s analysis. There is the system and there is the person. The CEO system does not demand isolation of its leader, but it does enable a weak leader to isolate himself.

    Why does this isolation happen? Given Bush’s obvious weaknesses Rove designed a system for him which, to the extent possible, hides these weaknesses. In an uncontrolled environment Bush would quickly reveal himself as uninformed, uncurious, petulant and intolerant of dissent. Bush could not even go before the 9/11 commission without Cheney in tow.

    Think of those rare times when he has come out of the Bubble. During campaign 2000, Rove thought that Bush could be trusted to do interviews with less demanding local TV anchors. The result was the famous pop quiz on international leader which Bush failed. Recall Bush’s aggressive reaction,

    “Wait, wait, is this 50 questions?” asked Bush.

    Hiller replied: “No, it’s four questions of four leaders in four hot spots.”

    Bush turned the tables on Hiller, though, asking him if he could name the foreign minister of Mexico. Hiller said he could not, but also added he wasn’t running for president.

    Bush replied: “What I’m suggesting to you is that (because) you can’t name the foreign minister of Mexico, therefore you’re not capable of what you do. But the truth of the matter is you are, whether you can or not.”

    Then there was the interview on
    Irish TV .

    Unlike American reporters, who lob softball questions Bush can field with prepared, rehearsed answers, Coleman performed as most European broadcast interviewers normally do — in a naturally engaging, intellectually rigorous, conversational manner. However, Bush bristled at Coleman’s questions and interviewing style, about which the White House (which posted a transcript of the session on its Web site) later “lodged an official complaint with the Irish embassy in Washington.”

    Who would the White House lodge a complaint with if an ordinary American citizen asked him a tough question? Or do you think they would respond with some snappy comeback as Karen Hughs did following the pop quiz.

    Bush’s campaign spokeswoman defended the governor’s performance. “The person who is running for president is seeking to be the leader of the free world, not a Jeopardy contestant,” said Karen Hughes, communications director for the Bush campaign.

    I don’t think that would play well when directed against a mother who has lost he child in Iraq.

    I could go on document the manifest stupidity of W, but I believe the point is made: Rove had no choice but build the presidency to suit this rather limited individual.

    PS. Ed the notion that the corporate model is superior for all large organization is ruining academia. This is a topic for elsewhere.

    Double PS.
    CB, did you throw in point 3 in order to be fair and balanced or just for the laugh?

    For some reason the above links aren’t working. Here they are in order:

    http://tinyurl.com/d8yq5
    http://tinyurl.com/yrtxm

  • I don’t see the obvious choice – that Bush simply can’t
    express himself coherently. Without a script, he comes
    off as an ignorant, bumbling fool.

    I’d like to know how he handled himself as governor
    of Texas. Was he every bit as inarticulate then?
    Was he carefully managed before the public?

    I see some signs that he is actually deteriorating
    as the years go by. Could be I’m just focusing
    more on his remarkable inability to express
    himself, though.

    There are of course other reasons as well. This
    is the most corrupt administration in history, in
    my opinion. It requres very careful management
    indeed to get away with all its misdeeds,
    although in retrospect, not so much with the
    compliant press and media and ignorant
    public that we have witnessed. It all should have
    blown up by now, and it likely won’t at all.

  • I totally agree with Rege and Ed, and sometimes I also think that Dubya is intentionally left in the dark, or shielded, so that the corrupt group of crooks working under him (including Mr. Go Fuck Yourself) can carry on with their shady dealings, leaving Dubya untouchable.

  • I don’t have much to add here but I do think that his temper is part of it. So, #4 along with a fear that his “regular guy” image might morph into a “stupid f#@king jerk” image (the one many of us here already have).

  • I think it’s the second with a twist. It’s true Bush doesn’t like anyone to challenge him. But I believe either he or the administration don’t want people to know the real intent and the real costs behind his policy proposals. Take the Medicare Drug Benefit or the Iraq war as examples. Sycophantic audiences give him the perfect cover. There are no inconvenient questions, there’s rapturous applause, and everyone in attendance buys his bullshit.

  • CB, did you throw in point 3 in order to be fair and balanced or just for the laugh?

    Honestly, the laugh.

  • Ed is right about the character issue and CEO thing as background, while CharlesW hits the nail on the head: Bush is incapable of having a “real” conversation with anyone (probably even those he does agree with), so the thought of this inarticulate moron trying to talk to someone who thinks he IS an inarticulate moron would be more than this idiot is capable of. I mean, does anyone here think he could successfully convince them it’s Sunday, without looking at the calendar?

  • It works.

    Even now, despite the complaints of the liberals, it’s been very effective. With a more open presidency, the guy would have been impeached.

  • I keep seeing too many similarities to the 20th century totalitarian “Party” model where citizens only got to participate if they belonged to the “Party” – whether it be the Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy, or Communists in the Soviet bloc. Dissent is punished by exclusion from the civic and national table. On a national level, non-true believers are denied positions on international technical positions – no one is going to get any government position based upon merit or competency – whether it be rebuilding Iraq or running FEMA – all that matters is party membership. At the local level, this takes the form of exclusion from Presidential events. In small town America, a Presidential visit is huge – and attendence carries a cachet for local bragging rights. Rather than allowing ALL citizens to see THEIR President, only the select few are rewarded for their loyalty which is thereby reinforced.

    I should also note that this fits in hand and hand with the GOP embrace of relgious fundamentalism – an anthema to democratic ideals. There is a whole segment of the population – embraced by the GOP as its power base – that cares little for our civic and legal heritage and who think of America as being built upon “Christian” rather than Enlightenment principles. This whole point of view exists with, and is very comfortable with, an “us vs. them” viewpoint – whether it take the form of Christians vs. non-Christians or “Right Americans” vs.however they see the rest of us, but certainly not “true American from ‘the Heartland'”. Bush gave us an important clue to this when, in the Iowa debate in 1999 he was asked who his favorite *political* philosopher was and he famously answered “Jesus Christ”. The answer was widely commented upon (and misquoted, often, as being asked who his favorite “philiosopher” was) at the time, but very little was discussed in terms of Bush’s intentional substitution of individual religious belief for intellectual politiical thought mostly associated with the Enlightenment.

    And, I submit, this whole “us vs them” idea, which manifests itself at the local level by exclusion of the general public from Presidential events is indicative of the movement of the GOP away from the political philosophy of the Enlightenment toward a totalitarian theological model.

  • One of the original Star Trek episodes comes to mind where the Nazi leader is drugged and controlled by those behind the scenes.

  • “Who would the White House lodge a complaint with if an ordinary American citizen asked him a tough question?” – Rege

    That’s funny. Maybe the Bubble-Boy concept is an attempt then to just try and save everyone a lot of trouble. If disrespectful audience members have the gall to ask difficult questions of Shrubski then small planes will have to be chartered to carry off the miscreants and time will have to be spent calming the press and family members. Why risk the hassle?

    They stay on their side. We stay on our side. Life is just simpler that way. ‘Cause we all know how important it is that it all be kept very, very simple. For Shrubski anyway. The rest of the world gets a ball of confusion.

  • They’re not worried about the dissent, they’re worried about what Bush looks like when he’s on the defensive. Already he reeks of contempt in public appearances. They’re afraid a real confrontation would result in 1) the super scowl (not photogenic), 2) the president dropping the F-bomb or gesturing rudely, and/or 3) “the tantrum”. Any of the above could make the Dean Scream look like an invitation to tea.

  • I just had another thought, somewhat akin to several already expressed. The “bubble boy” bit is really a corollary of his own theological certainty. Those who are infallibly connected with the divine view all else as mundane, evil, something to be shunned utterly.

    When you actually engage with another, even your enemy, you risk being contaminated. Nietzsche said that when you battle with monsters, you have to watch becoming one yourself. Battles and arguments involve real-world give-and-take, awareness of facts, taking the role of the other, etc. Bubble boy can’t afford that.

    I just got one of those endlessly circulating emails. You’ve probably seen it. Stuff about we, the silent majority, the Americans who truly support our troops, ignored by the liberal TV and all that crap. The emailed request to all such true Americans is for everyone to wear red on Fridays.

    My initial reaction, of course, was to suggest wearing blue on Fridays. See what bubble boy has done to us? The “uniter not a divider” has turned our electorate into a nationwide version of the Crips and the Bloods. By staying in his bubble, not getting contaminated by facts or shades of gray, he divides and conquers. Maybe we should wear purple. Or even a weakened version of that, lavender. Maybe we should just all wear white t-shirts and wait for Bush’s bubble to burst wide open as current legal inquires unfold.

    P.S. to Rege’s “the notion that the corporate model is superior for all large organization is ruining academia.” Absolutely agreed. The corporate model is being applied to all sorts of institutions for which it is entirely inappropriate. It is a way of structuring industrial enterprizes, in partiular those with a uni-dimensional metric for success — dollar return to investors. But the model ruins pre-industrial institutions whose many simultaneous purposes include service and satisfication, even at considerable cost (i.e., net loss). Examples of these include universities, hospitals, orphanages, museums, armies, governments, galleries, theaters. For such entities “you’ve got the Midas touch” should be considered a fatal curse.

    The first to begin this error, I think, was Robert McNamara, when he brought the Program Planning Budgeting System over from Ford Motor Corp to the Defense Department and ultimately the whole government. How do you measure “return on investment” when it comes to evaluating a government? Government is supposed to “lose money”, i.e., to provide services rather than make profits. That’s what’s wrong with all our thinking about Amtrak. That’s what’s wrong with health care. McNamara was even wrong in applying PPBS to Ford, which has mostly slid downhill since. The Japanese proved more clever in manufacturing “at the local level” free of PPBS; the Ford Foundation was more forward looking (it managed to escape PPBS). In the end, the corporate model isn’t even any good for corporations.

  • All of the above! I totally agree with #11..hark.

    In the first debate with Kerry, Bush was on edge, restless, irritated and visually disgusted with the debate and Kerry. His spin team attributed it to “How would you react if someone did not understand and put you down on national tv?’..and some other spin words. His behavior was so obvious…he hated being challenged or is not use to it. I think he showed what is now known as ‘early signs’ of things to come. We overlook warning signs of a person’s behavior and when the fire hits the fan…we either recall these signs or say we never noticed. This is the case with Bush. He showed these signs in the aforementioned debate…that he was utterly flustered if another disagreed with him or ‘corrected’ him(like in Saddam did not attack us). I noted, if he cannot deal with an American candidate during a debate about the mutual interest of the USA without becoming restless, irritated and visually disgusted…….oh edgy too, HOW IN THE HECK CAN HE DEAL WITH OR WORK OUT DIFFERENCES WORLD LEADERS! His trips abroad recently make my point…

  • Bush is a vehicle, a device. He’s propped up and intricately rehearsed and handled as a Potemkin President. He is simply a means by which Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Rice, Wolfowitz and any other ambitious idealogue can advance their separate agenda. Individually these people aren’t appealling, even downright creepy. So they need a smiling synthetic president as a front for their hare-brained policies.

    Otherwise, I agree with Ed.

  • 1) The Bush gang is worried about how dissent might look on TV, and they’re unwilling to take any chances.—- definitely part of it.

    2) The president is so uncomfortable with ideas that challenge him, that he insists on the comfort of his bubble. —- not really. I think he doesnt realize sometimes how out of his depth he is, and he would probably take on regular people, thinking his folksiness would get him by (which it used to but wont anymore now that the emporer has been shown to be wearing no clothes). Mostly he is clueless, and probably unaware that he is largely despised, and the ranks of those feeling that way grows each day.

    3) Bush might actually prefer to talk with real, non-sycophantic Americans, but his staff doesn’t want anyone giving him any strange ideas. — see above, #2. I dont think his staff is worried that he’ll get any ideas, because conversations/discussions with Bush are really no such thing, since he talks (spouts) but does not LISTEN.

    4) The entire team worries that someone might ask the president a question that he’s incapable of answering.— This is a big part of it as well. However, it misses another important point – that in his impromptu replies he will open up another can of worms. While he oftens blubs his lines, or is completlely inarticulate in his responses (which is actually a plus for him, read on…) the real danger is that he speaks a truth he wasnt supposed to speak. His inability to articulate actually works as pretty good cover for this problem. As for his general demeanor, this creates other problems. If you put him in a corner such as Kerry did, the real Bush comes out – petulant, mean, spiteful, ugly. And its been made quite clear that that is how he treats the people in the White House that he doesnt favor, or when he is in a pissy mood (which I think is the natural state of the born loser). Further evidence for #4 is the tacit agreement that got him elected. They let the little frat boy run the show in title, but they pull the strings. This was clear to anyone who cared to know about such things even before the 2000 campaign. He has always been a puppet, and still is.

    As for the CEO stuff, this is just silly PR crap. The guy never ran a company anywhere, except into the ground. It’s like saying hey, let’s hire some totally inept CEO to run the country. If you want a good CEO type to run the country, you hire a Robert Rubin or something, not a total screwup legacy loser who owes his whole existence to family ties. We really shut put this whole issue to bed regarding the president, because its an insult to real CEOs. (This is not to say that I disagree with those comments about the damage done by the CEO model).

    We all already know what has happened here, but noone ever comes out and says it : our government has been hijacked by a bunch of right wing lunatics, and we got suckered by their front (con) man, Bush. At least this country is still free enough that I can say that here and not worry that the secret police will come knocking on my door, but hey, if we keep going in this direction, when does that day come? I weep for the future….

  • I’d be inclined to say that it is a combination of most of the theories espoused here. This presidency is a result of a 30 year program to desensitise the average American to the true depravity of right wing politics. This has been their big moment in the sun. A Republican congress and presidency. The people pulling the strings had a dedicated agenda for 25 years before W was elected. He is nothing more than a figure head to allow them their back room machinations. Since he is simply a figure head, and not bright, casual public contact is to be avoided.

  • There’s no question in my mind that Bush is fully capable of breaking out of the bubble if he wants to. It’s a popular idea that it’s a completely goofball but, frankly, that’s giving him too much credit. He’s angry, he’s bitchy, he is very easily riled by any opposition, he’s self-righteous, and he’s smart enough to know that interaction with “unreliable” people would be a really bad move.

    I think we’ll know a great deal more about Bush — with some surprises — after his presidency (if we don’t manage to get him imprisoned before he’s free of the WH.)

  • I can agree with almost all the comments above. I believe Bush was put up as a candidate because he has (in controlled circumstances) what some people seem to think of as an engaging personality on TV. He was the front man for Cheney and the rest to carry out their cherished war on Iraq. After all, Darth Cheney, with no personality to speak of, could never have been elected himself. This is the price of the television age: showmanship out classes brains and competence.
    Now we are stuck with a megalomaniac who believes he is ordained by god to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. There is no one so dangerous because there is no crime that can’t be justified by the god-given mission.
    We had to know that our democracy was gone when it became possible for a candidate for public office to be completely shut off from any private citizen who was not per-vetted and coached.
    I remember WWII. I never thought that I would become ashamed of my country. Fran

  • * The Bush gang is worried about how dissent might look on TV, and they’re unwilling to take any chances.

    I think this is 100% of it. This is all he’s good for.

  • I have to disagree with No. 1, having spent most
    of my career in the corporate world, and the
    last thirteen as the second ranking officer,
    under the CEO, as a sr. vp and chief actuary
    of my company. To be sure, there are plenty
    of louzy CEOs out there, figureheads as
    well as ego maniacs, but there are many
    well run corporations where executives function
    as a team and not as a group of pathetic
    sycophants and incompetents, as in the
    present administration. A corporation would
    not long survive if run like that.

    I do agree that CEO pay has gotten totally
    out of control.

    In my company, I was quite outspoken, and my
    boss, the CEO, welcomed it. He hated sycophants.
    Although it’s been some time since I’ve been in
    that world, I have to believe that most management
    teams work toward company success, not toward
    bolstering the inflated egos of blowhard CEOs.

    The Bush administration does not function like a well
    organized corporation at all. Government itself,
    other than the military, is not organized top-down,
    but bureaucratically, and that’s a major reason for
    its inefficiency both in terms of not getting anything
    done, and for costing a fortune to do nothing.

    But the Bush administration is unique, as far as
    I can tell. Woefully incompetent and totally
    corrupt at the same time.

  • I believe it’s a mix of the first two ideas. It’s not that they don’t want descent on TV (thought that’s probably a nice side benefit). And I don’t think it’s because Bush is uncomfortable being challenged. I think his staff know how terrible he comes of when he confronts someone he disagrees with. Every time I’ve seen him confronted he gets acerbic, snarky, petulant and shoots uninformed BS from the hip.

    In full, he’s deeply unpresidential.

    His handlers don’t want him (metephorically or literally) flipping off questioners on national television.

  • What are the odds? Just today I was wondering to myself if we are looking at the whole ‘bubble boy’ thing the wrong way. Bubble boy, of course, conjurs up the boy in the plastic bubble – protected from infectious diseases he can’t handle.

    But what if it is more of a hamster exercise ball thing? Just an awkward device that allows a critter with a brain smaller than a pea play with us. Viewed that way, Bushco’s reasons might be simple:

    If it weren’t for the bubble, he’d run away, gnaw through a power cable, and make doo-doo in a box of breakfast cerial…

    -jjf

  • The Whitewash House must have figured out (probably from the countless polls we pay for) that most Americans feel that the Shrub is isolated so to dispel that and to push the Shrub’s “honest” feelings extolling the virtues of a free press, they’ve put this outBush disturbed about paying Iraqi newspapers. I would have to agree that Bush is disturbed and we need to get him out of the Whitewash House and away from anything that controls nuclear weapons as soon as possible. Unfortunately that means waiting for another election before the Democrats have enough power to go after the Shrub Gang themselves. America seems to have a short memory and I hope Bush’s and the Republican’s “antics” won’t be forgotten. Bush and anyone that participated in promoting Bush’s War should be prosecuted for war crimes. That would include everyone that had full accurate knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s weapons and that they were not an immediate threat as Bush and his cronies portrayed them. I would be absolutely delighted if we could indict and convict enough crooked ass Republicans to expedite Bush’s impeachment.

    Hadley on Fox saying “But the message we need to get out has to be truth and facts.”

    Some truth would be a nice change from our media too. I agree with point 1, 2, & 4 that CB mentioned and with message #25. Bush is just a prop put up by Rove. They first met when they worked on Shrub, Sr’s campaign. Rove said,”I could make him president” NOW WHAT? I don’t want to see his encore act.

  • * After projecting their own dark urges onto the opposition, the Powers That Be and Always Will Be are terrified that Bush might be, er, {sotto voce} ‘ventilated’. Why terrified? They suspect nearly as well as actual sane and lucid people how awful life could be if the acting President was the de facto President.

    If shrink-wrapping GeeDumb is the price of preventing that awful day, then I’m all for the Bubble.

  • Think about it:

    Was Bush the best they could do?
    Did all these huge corporations want W. to be president?
    Did the oil companies want W.?
    Did the far right religious theocrats want W.?
    Did the war mongers and profiteers want him?

    Is it really possible that after all these years of trying to force their agenda upon the american people…of waiting for just the right time when they could gain control of both houses of the legislative branch…of the executive branch and, (possibly) therefore the judicial…that they were planning on having someone like W. as their political leader?

    Was this the “front man” they were hoping for?
    After all this time…effort…and money spent?

    No wonder we have such little repect for the republican party…

    …they chose the least successful CEO imaginable…with, to the say the least, a rather unusual religious faith…to lead their corporate, theocratic government.

    They planned and planned and planned…and they wound up with W.?

    Gimme a break.

  • I don’t think it’s any of them. I think it’s arrogance, pure and simple. Bush is the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. He thinks people should just trust him and do what he tells them to do. If ever there was an “Imperial Presidency,” this is it.

  • I would love to hear the actual political conversations between Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Rove. Of these five persons, I know four can hold an intelligent conversation(I think). It makes one ponder the question……Is Bush really the front man that relishes in the title of the Presidency without having the actual responsibility of governing??? If you think of a group of elite persons and the conversations they must have, you know they reject/eject persons not on their level. But what if…..what if……This is all a ruse by Bush. Maybe he knows and does not care as long as he can maintain the title of President without the actual responsibility of governing. I hope one day the First Lady writes her memoirs and I get to read them… That will be an all time bestseller.

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