W.'s Twilight: A Man of Feeble Temper

[Christa]

W. said goodbye to us last night, in an appearance that was surely notable for most Americans mainly because of the annoyance that he delayed by fifteen minutes their prime time shows like Gray's Anatomy and Eleventh Hour.

When W. hit rock bottom in his drinking and womanizing he was about 40, and he got the most rigid and simplistic kind of religion, which suddenly all the rest of us had to support. Why is it that wastrels who find faith are so insufferable? And despite all his personal failures and the clear evidence that if you put him anywhere near the leadership of an organization he would run it into the ground faster than a drunk can down a shot, he kept being given chances because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his father had amounted to something. It has long been recognized by historians that the key problem with dynasties is that being born to a powerful father is no guarantee that the heir apparent won't be a royal screw-up.

So Bush, the impudent, opinionated, stubborn socialite is made president in 2000 by his daddy's rightwing friends on the supreme court. And because of September 11 he gets his chance to avenge the failed Vietnam War, and to kill Saddam Hussein, the unpleasant little brown man who had dared defy W.'s wealthy and powerful daddy.

W. is a frightful combination of ignorant, dull, and pigheaded when to succeed in the Middle East he needed to be well-informed, bright and intellectually agile.

Bush never escaped the habits of his ne'er-do-well undergraduate days at Yale. In the end, he replaced being drunk on beer with being drunk on power. He replaced wooing the women with wooing the corporations. He replaced frat boy hijinks with ruinous wars that wrought a devastation across the rugged expanse of West Asia unlike anything seen since the pagan Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/ws-twilight-man-of-feeble-temper.html

[WI_DEM]

1. K&R

[AzDar]

2. K & R

:kick:

[enough]

3. If you only have time to read one overview of the Bush years, read this.

The OP leaves out large passages without indicating where it has been cut.

This essay is far more than Bush-bashing at a personal level. Cole's passion and vast perspective has never burned brighter.

A must read.

[gratuitous]

4. The good thing about the plane crash

Is that it knocked practically all discussion of Chimpy McCokespoon's last poo fling off the news. But Cole has had Bush's number for his entire administration. Odd how you don't see him on the talking chucklehead shows, which always seem to find time to promote any number of dimwit right wingers.

[Christa]

5. I find it ironic

that his greatest time was with planes crashing into the WTC, and his lowest point was with a plane crashing in NYC again.

Karma.

[gratuitous]

6. Maybe he should go stand in the middle of the Hudson with a bullhorn

Of course, since nobody died in the US Airways crash, Chimpy isn't going to be too concerned about it. He gets, shall we say, engaged when death is involved.

[Beetwasher]

10. Engaged or engorged?

n/t

[bleever]

7. Highly recommended; read the full article.

An incisive post-mortem rendered with the sharpest of scalpels.

[Christa]

8. Shameless kick

because I believe it is such an excellent article.

[rhiannon55]

9. K&R

[Vickers]

11. "Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours"

OK then, I'll kick this fucker to the top.

Please read the whole article!