{"id":8396,"date":"2006-09-07T09:47:35","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T13:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8396.html"},"modified":"2006-09-07T09:47:35","modified_gmt":"2006-09-07T13:47:35","slug":"the-teenager-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-teenager-in-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"The Teenager-in-Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wish I found this<\/a> surprising, but at this point, it sounds consistent with everything we’ve heard about the president for years.<\/p>\n

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?”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

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<\/a>” 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<\/a> to the Chancellor of Germany, trying to publicly embarrass<\/a> top administration officials for getting post-graduate degrees, and yelling “Air Assault!<\/a>” while riding his bicycle on a hill.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}