Okay, so I know the piece was supposed to scare the living daylights out of anyone not already enrolled in Liberty University, but I was a little alarmed nonetheless. The good news is that Bush seems genuine about tax reform and social security privatization in his second term. Here’s hoping. The bad news is that he thinks he’s Moses. But what Suskind does innovatively capture is an evolution in Bush over the past four years. Remember the open-minded, engaged, querulous figure from 2000? We got a glimpse of him in the third debate, which may account for his blip upwards in the polls. But what you get increasingly from the president is an arrogance and contempt for critics that is bordering on dangerous. You saw this in the first debate when Bush looked genuinely shocked to hear anyone voicing criticism of his policies in his presence. That obviously hadn’t happened in a very long time. You see this in the thuggish ways in which opponents are removed from campaign events, jailed and fired from their jobs. You realize eventually that Bush’s cabinet is actually a royal court, in which criticism is simply treachery. In the broader political world, you’re either with this president in everything he does or you are a traitor, an unbeliever, a leftist, and an enabler of terror. That’s how Bush sees the world. And he wonders why has left this country even more divided than when he found it.
WEAKNESS AND DOGMA: This insularity, of course, is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. So there are no deficits; or they do not matter. There has been no increase in domestic spending because the president’s plans say so. There was no insurgency in Iraq, just a fgew ‘dead-enders’, And on and on. The reason Bush cannot name a mistake he has made is not because he is smart enough not to admit error in public. It’s because he doesn’t believe he has ever made a mistake. If you are God’s instrument, how could you? And notice the only mistake that came to his mind: he allowed a few non-believers into his inner circle. You can be sure that won’t happen again. I cannot be the only person of a conservative disposition in politics to be alarmed at this kind of blindness in a president. Most people become tempered by experience; they learn from their mistakes; they adapt and reflect and adjust. Not this president. If he is as sealed off from reality now, what will he be like if he’s re-elected handily?
THE STEWART INTERVIEW: Here’s the Crossfire interview with Jon Stewart. He’s so right.
The Dish 