Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Go to your room George

You're probably not old enough to remember the Checkers speech, or the "you won't have Nixon to kick around any more" outburst, but there's something vaguely Nixonian about Bush's rejoinder to Press Corps questioning today while he was cutting a ribbon to officially open the newly renovated briefing room. The condescending implication that the press are just rabble, asking questions just to be annoying and acting like a patient but very sarcastic martyr, had tricky Dick written all over it. I may be imagining it, but I sense that he senses his inevitable helplessness.

"Let's do this. Let me cut the ribbon ... and then why don't you all yell simultaneously. Like, really loudly. And that way, you might get noticed. I'll, like, listen, internalize, play like I'm gonna answer the question, and then smile at you and just say 'got it. Thanks. Thanks for such a solid, sound question."
That's vintage Nixonian martyrdom mixed in with the snottiness and sarcasm of a born loser who knows he's losing again and knows that we know it. There's something in it of Ratso Rizzo banging on the car hood and shouting "I'm walking here."

We're not to the tearful resignation stage yet, and I don't think Boss Cheney will let him declare he's not a crook, but the martyr complex is showing. It showed in Ohio when another caustic reply to a 13 year old girl's simple question about immigration made her break into tears - upstaging his spoiled child act.

Of course it's an act that comes from his nature; he is a spoiled brat with an arrogance that comes from long experience with self contempt over mediocre achievement, multiple business failures, weaseling out of military service and now a Crusade turned to ashes. He's been surrounded with sycophants since daddy became an important public figure and he's employed an army of world renowned yes men to prop up his rickety ego, but it's falling apart. People are leaving. People are standing up to him and so he barks at a little girl.

But he's a spoiled brat with an army and a navy and nuclear weapons and sometimes when you send a naughty kid to his room, he burns the house down.

Cross posted at The Reaction

4 comments:

Intellectual Insurgent said...

If those were Fox News reporters, I might be inclined to characterize them as rabble. :-)

RR said...

Jan '09 can't come fast enough: not for the least of which you mention (his ego-driven finger has access to the button).

I only wish I knew what historians will say in 10 or 20 years... If the damage he's wrought doesn't bring down the republic.

mrsleep said...

honestly I am quite worried about our country. I have to keep pinching myself everyday that this is not a dream. My wife hardly has a political bone in her body, but she seems to be cussing under her breath all the time about the rabble ruining our nation.

Capt. Fogg said...

Does Fox actually have reporters?

Needless to say, I'm worried too. There really is massive opposition to this administration's corruption, cronyism, secrecy and defiance of the law, yet the remaining hard core seems oblivious as if it were only a few ragtag, fringe element loonies that can be dismissed by talking about Clinton and supporting the troops.

The pressure is building and I don't see a safety valve, unless it's impeachment.