Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The Obsessional President

Is George W. Bush's obsession with Iraq fueled by a sense of divine mission? That's the disquieting inference that I'm drawing from this article by Sy Hersh in The New Yorker. Key paragraph:

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” [a] former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

We are so screwed.

No comments: