From The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind:"Each morning, it is widely known, George W. Bush rises at 5:30, works out, brings his wife a cup of coffee, generally reads a religious text--the Bible or mini-sermons--and arrives at his desk by seven-thirty."
Shortly thereafter a "team" of confidants enter to tell him what he wants to know. What Bush doesn't want to know is details.
Suskind writes that "by the spring of 2003, it was becoming clear that the way policy was, or wasn't vetted, inside the White House was an extension of George W. Bush's leadership style. A president, it is often said, gets the White House he wants, and deserves."
George W. Bush "met America's foreign challenges with decisiveness born of a brand of preternatural, faith-based, self-generated certainty. ... Issues argued, often vociferously, at the level of deputies and principals rarely seemed to go upstream in their fullest form to the President's desk; and, if they did, it was often after Bush seemed to have already made up his mind based on what was so often cited as his 'instinct' or 'gut.'
This kind of go-it-alone stance was further exacerbated by his faith-based religious views and his tendency to sort out and define complex foreign policy issues in terms of good and evil.
And because Bush was not a detail man, he was not fed details. Or, as Suskind puts it, "hard, complex analysis" of both foreign and domestic issues were served to him as a "thin offering, passed through the filters of Cheney or rice, or not presented at all."
But that was what he wanted, for it gave him deniability and the flexibility to state his case without reference to facts, e.g., going to war against Iraq.
It allowed him to live in a cocoon or a world where reality rarely made an appearance; a world where peace became war and suppression became freedom, where even a failed flight-jockey could pretend to be a warrior and worse, a "war president."
This disconnect from reality came sharply into focus in an interview Bush gave Nadia Bilbassy-Charters of MBC TV (Middle East Broadcasting Center) on December 5.
One of the first things Bush mentioned was his first decision as President-elect: the color or rug for the Oval Office. While he delegated the choice to Laura, he told her "I want the rug to have a message, and that is 'optimistic guy goes to work here.'"
"Optimistic guy" is not the phrase most people would use to describe George W. Bush.
Bilbassy-Charters then asked him about his Greater Middle East Initiative, which was about democratizing and reforming the Middle East.
Bush responded: "...I believe we're in an ideological struggle against people who want to achieve their ideological vision through the use of violence and murder."
He doesn't see it. He doesn't see that is exactly what HE did! The neocon vision, adopted enthusiastically by Bush, is to remake the Middle East into our image, no matter how many people we have to kill to do it! Violence and murder define George W. Bush.
Bush went on to talk about his belief in a God who gives the "gift" of freedom. He said he felt a "moral calling" to do something about bringing freedom to people. And that's what has happened in the Middle East.
What Middle East is he talking about?
When asked about the Palestinian issue and whether Hamas should be part of the peace process, Bush said:
"I share the vision [of Tony Blair] that the only way there's going to be peace is where those who assume that violence is necessary to achieve peace cannot be part of the process. In other words, people have to renounce violence in order to have peace. It's contradictory to say, I am going to use violence to achieve my objectives, and oh, by the way, I'm for peace."
What is especially sad and depressing about this comment is it illuminates the befogged mind of this faux cowboy. One of the most "important" rationales [after WMDs lost their credence] Bush gave for his invasion of Iraq was the need to bring peace and democracy to that country. He does not understand that he's the culprit!
More delusion here. When asked whether or not Barack Obama will be able to "pick up from where you left" relative to the Palestinian problem and the "unresolved dispute" between Israel and the Palestinians, Bush said, "Well, I think we've left it in good shape. We've left it with the vision intact.
I wonder what Obama will think?
There's much more to the interview. Hopefully, it will find its way into the Bush archives for it is instructive as to how this president has operated for eight years in a delusional web spun by his own faith-based self-righteous morality and the secret chicanery of Dick Cheney and the neocons.
We are probably fortunate that this country is not worse off than it is. January 20 cannot come soon enough!
The entire transcript of this interview is here.
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