"The kid's in way over his head"

[npincus]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100200931.html

A good one that truned up on a Google search: Richard Cohen's op-ed, Oct. 3, 2006.




Not too long after Franklin D. Roosevelt died, Republicans insisted on what was to become the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution. It was meant to ensure that never again would a president serve more than two terms. Now is the time for yet another amendment. This one would ensure that no child of a president could become president. This would avert another George W. Bush.

The reasons for this amendment can be amply found in Bob Woodward's new book, "State of Denial." If ever a title was apt, this is the one. As if to prove that Woodward had it right, Bush reacted to the book's revelations about Don Rumsfeld -- intransigent, incompetent and intellectually intolerant -- by reaffirming his confidence in him. To Bush, and indeed to the rest of us as well, Rumsfeld has come to personify the conduct of the Iraq war. His leaving, especially his firing, would be an admission of the obvious: failure.

My proposed amendment comes to mind because from time to time Woodward would quote someone on why Bush ran for president in the first place and what determines his executive style: his father. He wanted to best his father but also even the score for him. This score was a twofold thing. George W. Bush wanted, in effect, to win the second term that George H.W. Bush had lost (to Bill Clinton), and he also wanted to finish the job his father had started with Saddam Hussein. If there is a better explanation for why Bush -- not necessarily the neocons around him -- so fervently wanted war, I cannot come up with it.

This descent into the fog of Freudian politics is, I know, just the sort of thing Washington eschews. Such musings lack position papers or paper trails -- paper of any kind, actually -- and rely instead on elastic language sometimes known as psychobabble. Yet those of us who are both fathers and sons know the truth of these matters. There is no more complicated relationship on the face of the earth. It is fraught with competition, a kind of canine sniffing that is suffused with both an edgy rivalry and an immense love that does not quit even with the grave. If I say that George W. Bush was out to both vanquish and redeem his father, many a man will know what I mean.

more...

[opihimoimoi]

1. To save us and the Nation...he would do well to resign...no speeches, no mo shit, just do it

His GOP is gonna force him...watch...every hour he stays...more fuck ups to contend with...worse than a loose cannon

He is a LOOSE BRAIN running amok...

[Possumpoint]

5. And Leave Us with Chaney?

No thanks.

[opihimoimoi]

6. Well, since the GOP put those 2 in office...they could get Cheney to also resign at the same time...

Its the Least the GOP could do to save Face...whatever they have left...

[A Simple Game]

10. Would you rather Cheney running things out in the open,

or running things in the dark like he does now?

These people have to pay, and it has to start somewhere.

[solara]

2. Something I hadn't thought about but definitely merits discussion k&r

[MnFats]

3. i recall a quote...can't remember who...but it's entirely

...appropriate. This is close to verbatim:
"All men wish to simultaneously win their father's approval and yet defeat him on some field of battle."

i'll try to find the source but i think that's what's at work here...

[rodeodance]

4. I am rather enjoying this 'This descent into the fog of Freudian politics is,"

[blogslut]

7. They've all got it wrong

Bush doesn't have father issues. He's got mother issues. ;)

[irislake]

8. Either way

it's oedipal. Not that I agree with Freud %100 about much. Penis envy, for example, what a laugh!

[ComerPerro]

9. Funny how even "attacks" on Bush can still be a pro-Bush puff piece

this article makes it seem like Bush and BushCo had good and pure intentions, but were just too incompetent, or the Americans just didn't get it.

I don't buy into the incompetence theory.

And I really stopped caring when the author mentioned that Bush wanted to "finish the job with Saddam that his father started".

For one thing, it implies that Clinton is to blame for not finishing the job. And, morevoer, it overlooks the fact that Bush I very well could have finish the job, he just didn't want to. And part of the reason? People like Cheney straight up said that going into Iraq and especially Baghdad would be an inescapbale mess.