|
Faithful husband, soccer dad,
basset owner, and former cowboy
Return to TboggHomePage
FELLOW TRAITORS
*The Nether-Count*
100 Monkeys Typing
Ain't No Bad Dude
Alicublog
Americablog
American Leftist
Attytood (Will Bunch)
Bad Attitudes
Balloon Juice
Better Inhale Deeply
Bitch Ph.D
Bloggy
Bob Harris
Brilliant At Breakfast
BusyBusyBusy
Byzantium's Shores
Creek Running North
Crooked Timber
Crooks and Liars
Cursor
Daily Kos
Dependable Renegade
David Ehrenstein
Democratic Veteran
Dohiyi Mir
Down With Tyranny
Echidne of the Snakes
Edicts of Nancy
Elayne Riggs
Eschaton (Atrios)
Ezra Klein
Failure Is Impossible
Feministe
Feministing
Firedoglake
First Draft
Freewayblogger
The Garance
The Group News Blog
Guano Island
Hairy Fish Nuts
Hammer of the Blogs
Hullabaloo(Digby)
I Am TRex
If I Ran the Zoo
I'm Not One To Blog
Interesting Times
James Wolcott
Jesus' General
Jon Swift
Juan Cole
King of Zembla
Kung Fu Monkey
Lance Mannion
Lawyers Guns and Money
Lean Left
Liberal Oasis
Main & Central
Majikthise
Making Light (Nielsen Hayden)
Mark Kleiman
Martini Revolution
MaxSpeak
MF Blog
MyDD
Needlenose
The Next Hurrah
Nitpicker
No More Mr. Nice Blog
Norbizness
Norwegianity
Oliver Willis
One Good Move
Orcinus
Pacific Views
Pam's House Blend
Pandagon
Pharyngula
Political Animal(K.Drum)
The Poorman
Progressive Gold
Right Hand Thief
Rising Hegemon
Roger Ailes
Rude Pundit
Rumproast
Sadly, No
Seeing The Forest
Shakesville
Sisyphus Shrugged
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Slacktivist
SteveAudio
Suburban Guerilla
TalkLeft
The American Street
The Left Coaster
The Road To Surfdom
The Sideshow
The Talking Dog
The Talent Show
Tom Tomorrow
Tom Watson
Whiskeyfire
UggaBugga
Wampum
Wonkette
World O'Crap
TOSS ME
A BONE
Amazon Wish List
SOURCES
MSNBC
CNN
The Washington Post
Media Matters
The New York Times
The Guardian
Yahoo News
Salon
The Raw Story
Common Dreams
Media Transparency
The Nation
Alternet
Joe Conason
Talking Points Memo
THE VAST WASTELAND
Captain Corndog & Friends
Cheerleaders Gone Spazzy
80% True
Corner of Mediocrity and Banality
Village Idiots Central
Darwin's Waiting Room
News for Mouthbreathers
Mailbox
Your e-mail may be reprinted sans name and e-mail address. Think about how stupid you want to appear.
Blogroll Me!
Site Feed
|
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
No matter how many hats he wears, they still end up on the same empty head
You've got to hand it to President Midnight Train to Offut AFB. After running away and deserting during the Vietnam war, he has really commited himself to this one. USA Today provides us with a profile of how he is doing during during Operation Inigo Montoya.
First of all, he's under a lot of strain:
People who know Bush well say the strain of war is palpable. He rarely jokes with staffers these days and occasionally startles them with sarcastic putdowns. He's being hard on himself; he gave up sweets just before the war began. He's frustrated when armchair generals or members of his own team express doubts about U.S. military strategy. At the same time, some of his usual supporters are concerned by his insistence on sticking with the original war plan.
...and he feels tested:
Interviews with a dozen friends, advisers and top aides describe a man who feels he is being tested. As might be expected from loyal aides, they portray the president as steady, tough and up to the task, someone whose usual cheer has shifted to a more serious demeanor. Their observations yield a rare inside look at how the president functions in a crisis.
...which is usually bad news for someone that has gone through life struggling to achieve "gentlemen's C's". A gentleman's C in Iraq would be....the Korean War, at best. The good news is that he is still "steely-eyed":
Friends say the conflict is consuming Bush's days and weighing heavily on him. "He's got that steely-eyed look, but he is burdened," says a friend who has spent time with the president since the war began. "You can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. I worry about him."
He wears many hats:
Bush is juggling a lot more than projecting the image of a confident commander in chief. He's a prosecutor who quizzes military officials about their backup plans when things go awry on the battlefield. He's a critic who sees himself as the aggrieved victim of the news media and second-guessers. He's a cheerleader who encourages others not to lose faith in the war plan. He's a supervisor who manages the competing views and egos of top advisers.
He consults with God and relies on his Affirmative Action education from Yale:
Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close friend who talks with Bush every day. His history degree from Yale makes him mindful of the importance of the moment. He knows he's making "history-changing decisions," Evans says
But he is also secretive and doesn't want to leave a paper trail:
But Bush doesn't keep a diary or other personal record of the events that will form his legacy. Aides take notes, but there's no stenographer in most meetings, nor are they videotaped or recorded.
He's concerned with his image so he likes to play dress-up Army man:
They are now built around war updates. Bush receives a report on overnight developments by phone at 6 a.m. from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. After an 8 a.m. intelligence briefing, he conducts a National Security Council meeting for 30 minutes to an hour. Afterward, he meets privately with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for a half-hour or so. Bush and Rumsfeld usually talk by phone at least twice later in the day.
In the first days of the conflict, the president's aides said he was leaving the details of war planning to his generals. Then, fearing that he might seem too uninvolved, they began describing him as interested in all the specifics.
That's how the White House message has shifted, but the bottom line is that Bush is an active manager and defender of the war plan. He and Rumsfeld spread out maps of the war zone in their meetings. Bush wants to know where U.S. troops are, where they're headed, what weapons are being used and how the enemy is faring. He rebukes and then bucks up aides who question the tactics, pace or human costs of the war.
He is still notoriously thin-skinned:
When an aide asked Bush recently how the war with Iraq has changed him, the reply was curt: "We've been at war since Sept. 11."
People who know Bush well say the burdens of war take a toll on him. His wry humor, which generally punctuates his relationships with his aides, largely evaporates in times of great stress. He can be impatient and imperious.
On March 17, before he delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam, Bush summoned congressional leaders to the White House. They expected a detailed briefing, but the president told them he was notifying them only because he was legally required to do so and then left the room. They were taken aback, and some were annoyed. They were just as surprised by his buoyant mood two days later at another White House meeting.
At a news conference Thursday at Camp David with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush couldn't contain his annoyance at a reporter who asked if the war might last for months. "However long it takes," Bush said sharply. "That's the answer to your question, and that's what you've got to know."
Don Evans points out that only Bush can save us:
Bush copes with anxiety as he always has. He prays and exercises. Evans says his friend has a placid acceptance of challenges that comes from his Christian faith.
"He knows that we're all here to serve a calling greater than self," Evans says. "That's what he's committed his life to do. He understands that he is the one person in the country, in this case really the one person in the world, who has a responsibility to protect and defend freedom."
...and finally, he isn't letting this darn war keep him from maintaining his boyish figure:
Bush has imposed an almost military discipline on himself. Even though he's as lean as he was in college, he decided just before the war that he was unhappy with his running times, which were slowing from his preferred pace of 7.5 minutes or less per mile.
So Bush gave up his one indulgence: sweets. It worked; he's losing weight and improving his time.
When Bush doesn't find time to run three or four miles a day, he still works out. He uses an elliptical trainer, lifts weights and stretches. Exercising regularly, he says, gives him time to think, improves his energy and helps him sleep.
There. Don't you feel better now?
Me neither.
|
|
