''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''
…
“When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help Methodist, very open, seeking,'' Wallis says now. ''What I started to see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year -- a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him.''
…
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
Wow! Is that nuts, or what?
But he’s smart, too!
Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''
That was two years into his presidency. He still didn’t know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland.
So that’s pretty bad. But what’s worse is just how nutty this administration is. I mean, Christ, even Nixon didn’t talk like these kooks until he got dangerously drunk. I knew they were incompetent. But I didn’t know they were actually crazy.
EVERYONE read the whole linked article. Scariest thing I've read yet about this administration. Not surprising, but having it laid out like this...
For more background
Posted by: Jerry | October 16, 2004 at 11:15 PM
Appalling, isn't it? I mean, just frightening.
Posted by: ricky | October 17, 2004 at 12:10 AM
...and re-election would just mean to them that GOD approved of his hideous four years. Imagine the bizarre and mad reign that would follow. They do have a responsibility:
"For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
"The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
"The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
"Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." Psalms
And if they are questioned? "If therefore the whole church be come together into one place,and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?" 1 Corinthians
Posted by: Jerry | October 17, 2004 at 02:25 AM