The Washington Post takes a long look at the waning years of Bush’s presidency today. Writer Pete Baker notes, among other things, that Bush is on course to set a record for sustained unpopularity—his approval rating has been under 50% for two and a half years, and barring some extraordinary reversal of character, it’s going to stay that way for the remaining 18 months of his final term. But Bush, according to friends and others who have spoken with him, remains undaunted.
That includes Irwin Stelzer, the right-wing think tank veteran who offered the either/or assessment on Bush’s emotional state, telling Baker that “You don’t get any feeling of somebody crouching down in the bunker … This is either extraordinary self-confidence or out of touch with reality. I can’t tell you which.” Steltzer doesn’t mention Door Number Three, behind which lies “both.”
Personally, I’m glad. If there’s one thing that might be worse for the country than a delusionally self-confident Bush, it’s a Bush who finally succumbs for good to the existential crisis that’s been brewing, and occasionally bubbling to the surface, since Florida in 2000.
Maybe the Bush advisors fear that they could become todays frogs and find themselves with firecrackers stuck down their throats. Or as one unnamed Republican Congressman said: “we just wish he would go away”. Some friend, that Congressman.
About the only thing Bush has done that he promised he would do is to pack the Supreme Court with right wing nut jobs, as last weeks court decisions display so vividly.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t try to pull a Sampson and bring down the temple like in an attack on Iran.
I’m happy to wait for Bush’s “existential crisis” to burst forth during his internationally televised trial for [fill in the multiple blanks].
But I fear JackD may be on to something. Attacking Iran would “solve” too many problems for this crew to not be seriously considering it.
Not least of which is plunging us into a hypercrisis that will be raging out of control, right around the time Cheney is supposed to be handing over the reins to the next President.