That way son----It's Shakespeare meets Freud,

[rodeodance]

Worth reading the whole article.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2449573,00.html

The Sunday Times November 12, 2006

That way son
After his election humiliation George Bush has slunk back to Dad for help. It's Shakespeare meets Freud, says Andrew Sullivan



The events of last week in America have an almost Shakespearean quality to them. It’s like some ghastly conflation of Richard II’s doom-laden “Down, down, I come” and Richard III’s “winter of our discontent”. Richard II is how Bush would like the world to see him — a king of noble motives brought low by injustice and fate. Richard III is . . . well, ask Karl Rove, the hunch in W’s back.

At the centre of this epic psycho-political drama is a royal family of sorts in a war for survival: the Bush dynasty, a story of a father and his son, their tortured relationship and what they have had to do to survive.

..........

The irony last week was even worse for the 43rd president. By firing his defence secretary, Bush was also firing his dad’s old enemy. He was surrendering one of his dad’s foes and replacing him with one of the old man’s closest pals.

In his latest book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward is clear about the long-held animosity between Poppy and Rummy. They couldn’t stand each other. “Bush senior thought Rumsfeld was arrogant, self-important, too sure of himself and Machiavellian. He believed that in 1975 Rumsfeld had manoeuvred President Ford into selecting him to head the CIA. The CIA was at perhaps its lowest point in the mid-1970s. Serving as its director was thought to be a dead end . . . Rumsfeld had also made nasty private remarks that Bush was a lightweight, a weak cold war CIA director who did not appreciate the Soviet threat and was manipulated by secretary of state Henry Kissinger.”

If you want to know why Bush Jr held onto Rumsfeld longer than any sane person should have, one clue lies in the paternal relationship. Surrendering Rumsfeld means that Poppy was right. Not just right about Rumsfeld’s skills and nasty streak. Right about the biggest things: war and peace, country and honour. Rummy was in some ways the personification of the son’s refusal to be his father. Rummy was the prickly, querulous, impolitic businessman, everything Poppy was not.

[aquart]

1. George Bush needs therapy. He should resign and devote himself to it.

[Briar]

2. It's ridiculous to elevate Bush to tragic hero status

but typical of Sullivan, who also indulges in the equally reality-minus fantasy of imagining that Bush Sr could have successfully invaded Iraq if he had been bold enough. His mawkish sympathy for the loyal and loving son and for the loyal and loving father is supposed to distract us from the disastrous consequences of Dubya's brutal imperialism? I don't think so. Just another attempt to construct excuses for the real tragedy - the horrific atrocity that is Iraq.

[Demeter]

4. Neither Bush Makes a Good Anti-Hero, Either

Villainy is in the genes.

[Jade Fox]

6. It's a mystery to me why anyone takes Sullivan very seriously....

He takes himself very seriously, but even when he is on the right track, which he is here, his best amounts to stating the obvious. He's no rocket scientist. He employs fancy metaphors because the meat of what he has to say contains few original observations.

[pretzel4gore]

3. fukkin mediawhores talks too much

eats too much, gets paid too much, fukks too much, takes too much dope, lies too much ie talks too much....

[grasswire]

5. I reject this narrative

The notion that Poppy is a man of virtue and merit is disinformation. Sullivan has bent reality to fit his storyline and Oedipus metaphor.

[Bozvotros]

7. Now the castration complex is in play

Actually, the Oedipus complex is not a bad explanation for Bush's clear madness. Always over attached to his narcissitic and demented mother, Bush deeply fears and resents his father. Instead of identifying with him and giving up the quest to possess his mother, Bush tries repeatedly to best him. His repeated losing battles trigger increasing fears of reprisal, ie the loss of his weenie. To assure himself he has a weenie as big as his father's, Bush must constantly try to prove he is a man and can do something greater or even comparable to him. His awareness that any accomplishment in his life was arranged by his father, stirs up shame in his impotence and weakness. His humiliation grows as he imagines his father's contempt and pity for him. Similarly he fears and avoids his father's friends who he believes are scornful of him too. His macho posturing, attempts to strut and puff himself up are designed to hide his terror of his father who he still believes wants to or already has castrated him. Fearful of losing any fight with an equal he must attack only those whom he knows are much weaker.

Longing for the phallus he lacks, he has lifelong sadistic homoerotic fantasies and unconsciously surrounds himself with men who have similar proclivities and twisted father figures who exploit his insecurity. Always he compares himself to his father, despairing and raging as he sees daily that he is still losing the battle to his aging but still potent father who still possesses the mother he wanted. I am sure that Pickles has a white wig and big pearls to help Junior get it up on the rare occasion she takes pity on him.

As Baker and Gates muscle in, he will feel increasingly castrated and weak. His homoerotic fantasies will increase in intensity till he will have no choice but to indulge them while real men clean up his messes.

Sullivan, who no doubt knows about these things must have forget to include them in his "anal-ysis"

Edited for spelling

[Raster]

8. A fairy tale from Sullivan. This baby puts the Brothers Grimm to shame.

The third paragraph--

"Last week George W Bush was forced back — once again — to the protective arms of his father. They call the first President Bush “Poppy” in the family, and it captures both the authority and the slight daffiness of the 41st president. His first son always lived in his shadow — both deeply admiring him and deeply resenting him, the way dauphins often do their monarchs." ...the way dauphins often do their monarchs."???????

Careful Andrew. If old man bush* turn a corner too hard you're likely to break your nose.