"someone at his core consumed by fear, anger and self-hate" aka GW Bush

[understandinglife]

<clip>

George Bush in his fifties is the George Bush of his twenties, simply minus the alcohol. His actions make this transparent. There is no evident maturity. Change, adaptation, evolution is not possible for him because he views such as weakness, as wrong and therefore failure, instead of as a positive development. Such is not the light in which George Bush can ever view himself, let alone allow himself to be seen. Nakedness is a vulnerability he will not assume. All is black and white, win or lose for him. Fear and self-hate trumping common sense.

The only hope for any sort of a George Bush personal renaissance is someone or something leveraging him into modification or reformation. But remember, even Laura Bush was able to achieve but a cessation of drinking. Can a Democratic House of Representatives, with congressional subpoena power (a big November, 2006 assumption) force more? That's more than likely the only hope.

<clip>

As with #1 above concerning George Bush, can Karl Rove be 'forced' into personal rehabilitation? A kinder, gentler Rove? It's unlikely, at least not until all avenues of escape have been explored and attempted. And even then, he'll sell out anyone he can in an attempt to escape personal penalty. It appears he is already doing so in the Fitzgerald/Plame investigation.

But he isn't interested in ever playing 'nice'--there's no element of satisfying revenge or personal redemption in that. He'll do it as long as no alternative is available, as long as a prison cell looms in his future or else.

More at the link to Cogitator's David Gergen badly miscalculates the damaged characters of Bush and Rove:

http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/node/29158

I agree.

As Lawrence Wilkerson noted yesterday:

"In January 2001, with the inauguration of George W. Bush as president, America set on a path to cease being good; America became a revolutionary nation, a radical republic. If our country continues on this path, it will cease to be great -- as happened to all great powers before it, without exception.

From the Kyoto accords to the International Criminal Court, from torture and cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners to rendition of innocent civilians, from illegal domestic surveillance to lies about leaking, from energy ineptitude to denial of global warming, from cherry-picking intelligence to appointing a martinet and a tyrant to run the Defense Department, the Bush administration, in the name of fighting terrorism, has put America on the radical path to ruin.

Unprecedented interpretations of the Constitution that holds the president as commander in chief to be all-powerful and without checks and balances marks the hubris and unparalleled radicalism of this administration.

<clip>

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.radical23apr23,0,7907127.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

Bush and Rove are armed and dangerous criminals. It is time for everyone to approach them accordingly.

A Cornered Administration: Dangerous Times Ahead

By DAVE LINDORFF

The noose is tightening around George Bush and his gang of White House crooks and liars, with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald reportedly getting closer to an indictment of Karl Rove, and now with the Illinois and California state legislatures considering resolutions that would have those states submit bills of impeachment to the U.S. House of Representatives--an alternative means of bringing an impeachment case against a president when, as now, the sitting members of Congress don't have the courage or conviction to do so themselves.

These are dangerous times, because the Bush family history, and the Rove M.O., are to attack viciously and without restraint when cornered.

<clip>

The only way to defeat this threat is to warn about it and resist it openly now.

Link:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04242006.html

Turn up the volume and be persistent, everyone. Humanity is in the balance, not just America.


Never Forget: George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. You have to read "Bush On The Couch"

by Justin Frank, a really great psychiatrist.

It explains everything about this psycho mofo.

Gergen is the biggest Washington whore around. I love when he swings over to our side, but he's just as fast to swing over to the other side. He has, because of his history, zero credibility except to people who watch TV and think he might be legitimate, by the way.

[understandinglife]

2. I share your assessment of Gergen. Thank you for the book recommendation.

Peace.

[electropop]

3. Will the next warning of Bush's insanity be a mushroom cloud?

He's like Hitler in the bunker now, enraged at his country for not making his harebrained schemes succeed. He is cornered and desperate and probably drugged. A more dangerous tyrant the world has never seen.

[understandinglife]

5. "A more dangerous tyrant the world has never seen." In_deed.

It's Tribunal Time in The United States of America

[understandinglife]

4. Bush "Explains How God Shapes His Foreign Policy"

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002385210

He really is a "crusader" ....

[glitch]

6. Except I think there's been a lot of brain deterioration since his 20s.nt

[understandinglife]

7. "During their glory years of 2002 and 2003, Bush followers became ...

... convinced that they were part of a movement that was going to lead America to renewed and profound glory under the heroic leadership of George W. Bush. They become so personally invested in the triumph of that dream. It gave them a feeling of strength and purpose. And now it has all crumbled. It's all been exposed as a sham and fraud. The President is one of the most unpopular and failed presidents we have had in some time, and their views have been rejected, discredited, and are increasingly reviled. And they are extremely angry about this and want vengeance on those they perceive as responsible.

The ever dwindling group of Bush followers has become a highly emotional group, having far more to do with psychological and emotional needs than political beliefs. Anger, hatred, rage and a desire for punishment are what fuels them, and they recognize no limits on what ought to be done to satisfy those cravings.

UPDATE: posted yesterday on the fact that Bush followers are "agitating to criminalize dissent" and compiled additional examples and documentation. As I have pointed out before, there is conventional wisdom that a weakened and unpopular president becames less powerful and less able to pursue extremist policies, but I actually think that in the case of this president, the more weakened and unpopular he becomes, the more desperate he will be to lash out -- in bitterness, with a desire for retribution, and to display strength.

Purging CIA leakers, prosecuting whistle-blowers, imprisoning journalists who publish politically embarrassing revelations -- we are seeing only the incipient symptoms of those efforts.

Link to Glenn Greenwald's A political movement built on rage:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/04/political-movement-built-on-rage.html

And, like all crusaders, they'll be shouting the name of god and Jesus as they lash, ever more recklessly and dangerously, at anyone who opposes them.

Charge'um and book'um.


Peace.

[DemReadingDU]

8. Powerful articles, K&R

[understandinglife]

9. Thank you!

Peace.

[Flubadubya]

10. Shoulda heard Gergen talking with Anderson Cooper...

about the "resurrection" of the Bush admin. He apparently had some advance knowledge of a 5-point plan (or such) that Josh Bolton is intending to implement to get BushCo back on track. Gergen was simply incredulous because it represented no substantial polcy change, but, rather, was only the old shop-worn political moves to keep the base in line and bring the straying rethugs back into the fold. In other words, it was strictly to shore up the Rethug party and had nothing to do with the welfare of the country. Duh, Gergen.

Gergen said he simply could not believe that this was "the plan" and that Bolton would sign onto it. He went on and on about how cynical it was and how ineffectual it would be and how it just could not be happening. I just laughed. :rofl: Poor deluded Mr. Gergen. When will he ever learn that there is no substance to this administration. It's like one of the e-mail responses Jack Cafferty got yesterday to the question, "What would you add as a plan for a recovery of the White House and Bush?" A: "I didn't know you could recover from stupidity!" Bwahaha!!! :evilgrin:

[understandinglife]

11. "A: "I didn't know you could recover from stupidity!"" --- ROFL

:rofl:

Thank you!!


Peace.