U.K. Times Online: Bush v Bush: an Oedipal battle between men of rigid beliefs

[Human Torch]

From Tom Baldwin in Washington

Bush v Bush: an oedipal battle between men of rigid beliefs

Intense rivalry between father and his wayward son has given way to mutual concern about the family legacy

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2448811,00.html

THE White House was in no mood this week to discuss President Bush’s psychological state after an election defeat that he himself had described as “a thumping”.

Tony Snow, Mr Bush’s press secretary, said: “The President is not a guy who — he doesn’t get on the couch — what he does is say, ‘What it is, is what it is’ ”.

But if the President ever did lie down on a therapist’s couch, any psychoanalyst worth the name would begin by asking about his relationship with his father, George H. W. Bush. The 41st US President is a figure that his son, George W. Bush, the 43rd President, has variously ignored, clung to, sought the approval of and competed with. Some commentators have long since taken to describing an oedipal struggle between them. “You want to go mano a mano right here?” Bush Jr demanded after being told off by his father for drink-driving in the Seventies, after an incident when he had dragged a neighbour’s rubbish down the street behind his car.

His brother, Jeb (always regarded by his parents as the brighter one and more likely to succeed in politics) tried to defuse the row, telling his father that George had got into Harvard Business School. “Oh, I’m not going,” said the wayward son, “I just wanted to let you know I could get into it (he did go).”

http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,362568,00.jpg

Bush Jr would show his birth certificate to prove that his full name was not the same as his father's, but Bush Sr has always been there when times are bad (Susan Walsh/AP)