Regarding George W. Bush [View All]

[H2O Man]

"With all Bush’s upbeat talk and optimism, he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become."
--Bob Woodward; State of Denial; 2006; page 491.

There was an article on Yahoo news today, regarding George W. Bush’s "regrets" from his years as President. Not surprisingly, his regrets are that at times, he made a fool of himself in a public way – with the "mission accomplished" banner, and his "bring ‘em on" nonsense. There were no regrets about the damage he has done to this country, nor the horror of the violence that he has caused in other nations.

As I read the article, which ended with Bush saying he wants to write a book because people deserve to know how he thinks, I was reminded of the sociopaths that I sometimes encountered in the county jail when I did forensic work at the local mental health clinic. Although Bush lacks the moral capacity to accept responsibility for what Vincent Bugliosi accurately has called "the most serious crime in American history," I hope that a state or county prosecutor will charge Bush after he leaves the White House, in the manner that Mr. Bugliosi brilliantly outlines in his book ("The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder").

I do take some pleasure in knowing that Bush, a vain and arrogant man, recognizes that he has become the most unpopular President in our nation’s history. Back in 2002 and ’03, Bush took pride in the fact that he had critics on the left. This was because many polls indicated that he had a high approval rating. And George W. Bush requires "approval," no matter how much he pretends otherwise – for he is a hollow man, a mere shell that imitates a true human being.

It is interesting to consider his attempt to shape his own image over the years, including his deal with Bob Woodward, which has allowed Woodward a level of access to classified information that would not be possible without Bush’s consent. And although I do not have a positive opinion of Mr. Woodward, I like that each of his four books on Bush have taken progressively negative views of him as a President.

One of the best parts of the last book, "The War Within" (2008) is the description of David Satterfield’s view of Bush. Satterfield was "a brainy foreign service officer" from the State Department, who had 25 years of experience working for both democratic and republican administrations. Let’s take a look at some information from pages 407-8:

"Satterfield could barely listen to Bush’s inflated rhetoric. It was too overstated, too triumphant, too victorious. …Bush, Satterfield observed, tolerated no doubt. ….As a result, he often made biting jokes or asides to colleagues that Satterfield found deeply wounding and cutting. ….Satterfield found it offensive ….Satterfield thought this reflected an insecurity in Bush. The president was a bully."

In the epilogue of this book, Woodward takes the opportunity to review the first three. He notes that "in ‘Bush at War’ many readers and a number of reviewers and columnists thought that I had portrayed Bush as a strong, inspirational leader. But my account also showed that he didn’t want an open, full debate that aired possible concerns and considered alternatives." In that book, Bush had identified a number of grandiose goals for his presidency, including uniting the country, defeating "terrorism," and achieving world peace. Modest goals for a man who actually believed that "God" had selected him at this point in history to accomplish them.

In his second book, "Plan of Attack," Bush told Woodward that he had sought briefings on how to go to war in Iraq, but never on whether to go to war. He told Woodward that he purposely did not ask four key people for their opinions: George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Tenet. When Woodward questioned him on this, he said that Bush "dodged the question"; when Woodward attempted to pin him down, Bush gave his famous reply: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher Father."

Woodward ended the third book, "State of Denial," with the quote at the top of this essay, in which he states clearly that Bush had not been honest with the American public. On page 433 of the new book, he writes, "My reporting for this book showed that to be even more the case than I could have imagined." He describes Bush as recognizing that he was impotent in his final year as President. Rather than take any responsibility for the hell he created in Iraq, Woodward tells of being "more guarded than ever, often answering that he could not remember details and emphasizing many times how much he had turned over to Steve Hadley."

"In our final interview, the president talked irritably of how he believed there was an ‘elite’ class in America that thought he could do nothing right. …There was an air of resignation about him, as if he realized how little he could change in the eight months he had left as president." (page 434)

Woodward ends his description of Bush’s presidency by noting that he had failed to accomplish any of the three goals he had identified in his first term. He notes that Bush had become "the nation’s most divisive figure." While I agree that Bush is a failure, both as president and as a person, I think that the months since Woodward’s final interview with him have proven him to be, in a very real sense, a figure who has united diverse groups in this country. Almost everyone has rejected him. Even the republicans running for congressional seats refused to be associated with him.

It may be that like Richard Nixon, that President Bush will avoid legal consequences for his crimes and abuses of the power of his office. But he has become a more pathetic figure than was Nixon in his final days and nights in the White House, walking the halls and talking to paintings on the wall, fully aware that he would be remembered as one of the most disgraced villains in our nation’s history.