George W. Bush's Pathological Attack on America: Part I
 

December 23 2005
Counterbias.com
Mel Seesholtz
 

“You know, I could run for governor but I’m basically a media creation. I’ve never done anything. I’ve worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that’s not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office.”

-- George W. Bush, 1989

 

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

-- George W. Bush, August 5, 2004

Combine some truth from the first confession with some from the second, add the appropriate commentary link – in this case “except” – and you have the disaster that is George W. Bush and his administration: “I’m basically a media creation. I’ve never done anything” except “stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people.”

George W. was not elected by “We the People” in 2000. Had he not been appointed president, there would not have been a second term and America would not now be sliding into what can most appropriately be called a theocratic, despotic state. A harsh assertion?

Consider the power the fanatical leaders of the evangelical Christian Right have over Mr. Bush. Maureen Dowd noted in an October 21, 2004 New York Times editorial that “evangelicals call the president a messenger of God.” The leaders of the Christian Right thrive on preaching hate and misrepresenting reality “in the name of God.” GWB is indeed their “messenger,” as “Take Him Out” Pat Robertson so well sermonized from the Gospel According to George: “I really believe I’m hearing from the Lord. It’s going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It’s shaping up that way. … The Lord has just blessed [George W. Bush]. I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn’t make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he’s a man of prayer and God’s blessing him.”

Consider a vice president who wants to legalize government-sponsored torture: “Mr. Cheney’s proposal … would give the president the power to allow government agencies outside the Defense Department (the administration has in mind the C.I.A.) to mistreat and torture prisoners as long as that behavior was part of ‘counterterrorism operations conducted abroad’ and they were not American citizens.” Former CIA director Stansfield Turner labeled Dick Cheney a “vice president for torture.”  A December 19, 2005 Reuters story suggested Cheney got his way:

A human rights group said on Sunday [December 18, 2005] that the United States operated a secret prison for terrorism suspects as recently as last year in Afghanistan, where detainees where subjected to torture and other mistreatment. The Bush administration has faced international criticism over detainees after a November 2 Washington Post article said the CIA held dozens of terrorism suspects in secret prisons called “black sites” in countries around the world, including eastern Europe.

And in relation to George W., consider Doug Thompson’s December 9, 2005 Capital Hill Blue report entitled “Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’”:

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

 

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

 

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

 

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

 

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

Other aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next. This is the same sanctimonious “president” who invoked that “goddamned piece of paper” when he justified authorizing spying on Americans. From the CNN report following Bush’s December 17, 2005 radio (and TV) address:

During an unusual live, on-camera version of his weekly radio address, Bush said such authorization is “fully consistent” with his “constitutional responsibilities and authorities.” (Watch Bush discuss eavesdropping, the Patriot Act -- 7:51)

 

“This is highly classified program crucial to our national security” and “its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks,” Bush said.

 

“The existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly given to news organizations,” Bush said. "Unauthorized disclosure damages our national security and puts our nation at risk.

The greatest danger to “national security” – the Constitution, the rule of law, and the republic – is George W. Bush. Even web sites and blogs devoted to damning Democrats – “I hate Democrats because they hate freedom,” as one pundit put it – even these folks who advocate a single party and a despotic ruler that sees himself as “the country” (sounds like Saddam Hussein, doesn’t it?) are forced to admit the truth:

It may not be correct to say that Bush lied about the rationale for getting us in to this war but it is fair to say he was very stupid not to verify the intelligence he used to get us into this war. … Bush did not bother to verify the intelligence because he was very eager to attack.

The writer misdirected blame, but his italicized conclusion was on target:

Of course, we must blame the Democrats for this dramatic contribution to the growing destruction of our democracy. It is they who have, since the Age of Jackson, sought to blatantly contravene the wisdom of our framers by enfranchising more and more people who are less and less competent.

“Blatantly contravene the wisdom of our framers by enfranchising more and more people who are less and less competent”: that certainly describes – and diagnoses –George W. Bush, his administration and their supporters.

“Christian libertarian” Vox Day made a similar point in his December 19, 2005 article entitled “The anti-American president”:

“Sept. 11 changed everything” has been the mantra of the strong government conservative, the pragmatic dialectoids who are flexible enough to justify any expansion of central government power in the name of the very conservatism that opposes it. Since “we are at war,” Republican media … have repeatedly claimed that because of an attack that killed the same number of people who die on American roads every 26 days, the following actions are therefore justified:

1 An undeclared war of indefinite end against an undefined enemy.

2 Invading two sovereign nations without a congressional declaration of war.

3 The anti-American Patriot Acts I and II.

4 The suspension of habeus corpus.

5 Torture.

Even key Republican leaders are dubious about the out-of-control president:

Key Republicans said yesterday [December 18, 2005] that President Bush will have to explain why he ordered secret eavesdropping on U.S. residents without first obtaining court approval, keeping pressure on the White House after Bush's unapologetic admission that he ordered the surveillance to combat terrorism.

Is it any surprise that under the despotic, “mission from God” rule of George W. Bush spying on Americans who disagree with faith-based ultra-conservative policies has become commonplace? The December 17, 2005 Advocate.com article was based on information from Sirius OutQ and NBC News:

A secret Pentagon document shows that the U.S. military has been spying on what they call “suspicious” civilian meetings – including protests over “don’t ask, don’t tell” held at various college campuses across the country.

 

NBC News was able to obtain only eight pages of the 400-page report, but that small portion showed that Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz; State University of New York at Albany; and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school’s gay advocacy group OUTlaw, and was classified as “possibly violent.”  All of these protests were against the military’s policy excluding gay personnel as well as against the presence of military recruiters on campus.

But it gets even more typical of Bush’s pathological presidency, especially when it comes to gay and lesbian Americans. As the Advocate article noted, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network wants to know why the Pentagon considers those who exercise their rights under that “goddamned piece of paper” called the United States Constitution are considered “a threat.”

The SLDN database “indicates that the Pentagon has been collecting information about protesters and their vehicles, looking for what they call a ‘significant connection’ between incidents. Of the four ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ protests listed, only one – the University of California, Santa Cruz, where students staged a ‘gay kissing’ demonstration – is classified as a ‘credible’ threat.”

Kissing makes someone a “credible threat”? To what? To whom? The answer is obvious: to the fanatically antigay evangelical Christian Right pulling Bush’s strings and the malicious, sadistic and hypocritical government they’ve collectively nurtured.

The Bush administration has dismissed thousands of gay and lesbian military personnel under “don’t ask, don’t tell” – and intimidated countless more – at the same time it’s used other gays and lesbians as fodder. From Lou Chibbaro’s September 23, 2005 Washington Blade story entitled “Out gay soldiers sent to Iraq”:

Members of the Army Reserves and the National Guard who inform their commanders that they are gay are routinely converted into active duty status and sent to the Iraq war and other high priority military assignments, according to a spokesperson for an Army command charged with deploying troops.

The Bush policies – both domestic and foreign – have been nothing less than disasters. That’s becoming clearer and clearer with every passing day. But there’s nothing more dangerous than an exposed, mortally wounded failure.

In a November 2, 2005 article, Doug Thompson made the case:

An uncivil war rages inside the walls of the West Wing of the White House, a bitter, acrimonious war driven by a failed agenda, destroyed credibility, dwindling public support and a President who lapses into Alzheimer-like periods of incoherent babbling.

 

On one side are the dwindling numbers of die-hard loyalists to President George W. Bush, those who support his actions and decisions without question and remain committed to both Bush and scandal-scarred political advisor Karl Rove.

 

On the other side are the increasing numbers of those who say Rove must go and who worry about the President’s declining mental state and his ability to restore credibility with Congress, our foreign allies and the American people. [italics mine]

Bush’s psychological profile was the subject of a book by Justin Frank. Dr. Frank is the author of Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004) and a practicing psychiatrist in Washington, D.C. He is also on the faculty of the George Washington University Medical School. In his book Dr. Frank noted that Bush has a “lifelong streak of sadism” and concluded that Bush’s years of heavy drinking undoubtedly impaired his brain function. Moreover, Dr. Frank believes George W. Bush suffers from “character pathology,” including “grandiosity” and “megalomania” – viewing himself, “America” and “God” as more-or-less interchangeable.

Dr. Frank’s interviews about Bush and the “God complex” explain much about the president and his most ardent supporters and puppeteers.

The pathologies of those anti-gay pro-Bush evangelical Christian Right puppeteers are also becoming clearer…

To Be Continued…