On public tears and president's state of mind

[seafan]

On public tears and president's state of mind

BY KEN HERMAN
Dec. 31, 2006

On a small plane during a Texas gubernatorial campaign in the late '90s, George W. Bush peered out through a small window and got about as emotional as he gets with those outside his inner circle.
''It's going to be strange when the old man's gone,'' he said, contemplating the death of his father.
The words, uttered during a conversation about family, were at once very personal and dispassionate, largely devoid of emotion.
It remains the modus operandi now for Bush who, as president, has confronted gut-wrenching tragedy -- natural and man-made -- without major public displays of emotion.
....
The ex-president's (GHWB) public tears flowed recently while discussing what he called ''unfair stuff'' that son Jeb endured during an unsuccessful 1994 bid for the Florida governorship. He regained his composure only when Jeb Bush joined him at the podium and offered him a bottle of water.


snip

The former president's recent public tears raised questions about the current president in the mind of Peggy Noonan, a former aide to presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She wrote about a White House incident during which the elder Bush shed tears while discussing ''the pounding'' son Neal was taking over his connection with a savings-and-loan scandal.
''Afterwards I thought about the two presidents I had known. Ronald Reagan was emotionally moved by American history and the Founders, by the long sweep of history. Personal issues and relations left him more dry-eyed,'' Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal. ``His successor was enormously moved by personal relations, by his love for his children and parents and friends. But to him the sweep of history was more abstract; it didn't capture his imagination in the same way. It left him dry-eyed.''


And she wrote about the war's impact on the current president.
''Unlike anguished wartime presidents of old, he seems resolutely unanguished,'' Noonan noted, recalling Mathew Brady's photos of a troubled Abraham Lincoln and photos of Lyndon B. Johnson ``sitting in the cabinet room by himself, literally with his head in his hands.''
''But George W. Bush seems in the day to day, the same as he was,'' she wrote. ``It is part of the Bush conundrum -- a supernal serenity or a confidence born of cluelessness? You decide. Where you stand on the war will likely determine your answer. But I'll tell you, I wonder about it and do not understand it, either what it is or what it means.''
''If he suffers, they might tell us; it would make him seem more normal, which is always a heartening thing in a president,'' Noonan wrote. ``But maybe there is no suffering. Maybe he outsources suffering. Maybe he leaves it to his father.''

snip

Characteristically, (George W.) Bush talked about his emotions, rather than showing them, during his recent year-end news conference.
''The most painful aspect of my presidency has been knowing that good men and women have died in combat. I read about it every night, and my heart breaks for a mother, a father, a husband, wife or son and daughter, it just does,'' he said. ``And so when you ask about pain, that's pain. I reach out to a lot of the families; I spend time with them. I am always inspired by their spirit.''
''Look,'' he said, ``my heart breaks for them, it just does, on a regular basis.''
But, though clearly a president who has aged under the stress of office, there is little to no public display of heartbreak over a war that won't go away.

snip

Emma Booker Elementary School, Sarasota, Florida, September 11, 2001




Comforting the daughter of 9-11 victim, date unknown




Pope John Paul II funeral, April, 2005




In Air Force One over devastated New Orleans after Katrina, September, 2005




Surprise physical contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at G8 Summit, July, 2006




President Gerald Ford's funeral tribute, January, 2007

Bush pumps fist, “feels good” as attack on Iraq begins

by Martin Merzer, Ron Hutcheson and Drew Brown,
Knight-Ridder Newspapers


March 20, 2003

WASHINGTON -- War erupted Wednesday night as the United States launched dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles and aimed 2,000-pound bombs at Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and other "leadership targets" in Baghdad.

....


President Bush announced the attack in a four-minute television speech to the nation. "On my order, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," he said. "These are the opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign."

Minutes before the speech, an internal television monitor showed the president pumping his fist. "Feels good," he said.

Every day that passes with this man still crouching in our White House will unleash unimaginable damage to our country.

[Virginia Dare]

1. He outsources his anguish to Poppy?

how fucked up is this? As a nation we pay each and every day for the Bush family's severe dysfunctions.

If Poppy is feeling any sort of anguish or distress over his son's single-handed ruination of our country, much like a drunken frat boy would trash a hotel room, that is a good thing, but something tells me his emotional outbursts have more to do with saving his own ass, as well as that of the rest of his family and inner circle.

They are in serious trouble right now, and he knows it.