When even the rightists like Joe Scarborough are beginning to question the mental acuity of Bush, things are definitely on a downward plunge.
Last week Scarborough had a piece on his news mag asking if Bush is an “idiot”. I more or less already knew the answer to that question — but it was rather surprising to see this kind of coverage coming from someone who is arguably well-placed in the conservative camp.
He’s followed up with doubts about Bush in other ways:
[T]he George Bush of 2006 seems to be a far cry from the man I spoke with in 2001, or the back-slapping governor who charmed the hell out of me when I visited him in the Texas governor’s mansion in 1999.
These days the President seems distracted, disjointed and dumbed-down in press conferences. His jokes fall flat and are often inappropriate.
And like Reagan, George W. Bush seems to be getting worse with age instead of better.
And then he takes a left (or is that right?) turn in logic:
When teenage boys misbehave, I blame their fathers. When presidents come up short, I blame their staffs.
So it’s the fault of anyone, everyone, someone else that Bush is a fuckin’ tard. Blame everyone but the man himself, who is presumably responsible for his own behavior.
This is remarkably like how dictators behave, in some ways. Take the US’s current boogeyman,* Saddam Hussein, who brooked no dissent from his advisers. There’s a story told of him that he once had a senior level official killed for disagreeing with him:
When a cabinet minister suggested that he resign, at least temporarily, that minister was shot, some say by Saddam himself.
So dictators, rather famously, surround themselves with yes-men; sic semper Bush as well (and in the case of Condi, a yes-woman too). The problem with that is he’s completely insulated from the “real” world and isn’t even presented contrary viewpoints. Predecessors, such as Clinton, appointed Republicans as well as Democrats to senior-level positions, and listend to their opposition statements with respect rather than firing or squeezing out people who dared to disagree. (Shinseki, anyone?)
But it’s worse than just being disconnected from … well, the universe. The fact is that Bush has been deteriorating. Particularly in the last few weeks he’s been incoherent, unpredictable and just outright bizarre at virtually every public function he’s attended. (More so than usual, I should say.)
I think he’s back on the sauce, frankly. And that’s not a good thing. I can’t feel even some schadenfreude over this one — addiction is vicious and the personal trap he’s in is hard enough.
But it gets worse when we realize that he’s quite capable of sinking this nation totally, not the least because he’s a right-wing religious fuckwit who sincerely believes his Daddy in the Sky has some kind of eschatological plan that includes him, George, personally.
With more than two years to go and the only rational successor being Dick Cheney, ladies and gentlemen, we’re fucked.
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* Now that OBL has been glossed over, and despite the fact that Bush himself has admitted there was never a link between Iraq and OBL or the Qaeda. OBL is to George what “the real killer” is to OJ, I guess: Mysteriously not worth pursuing.
