Category: The Dish

"It is imperative that we journalists state the truth, without fear or favor. We must be prepared to take unconventional, unpopular positions on grave matters of public interest. Accordingly, I would like to leave you with four points to ponder.

(1) We need more Jews in the media. You can never have too many Jews, is my position.

(2) Objectivity is a good thing to strive for in journalism, but not at the expense of failing to confront the obvious. My own newspaper, for example, has written extensively about Vice President Cheney without once pointing out the self-evident fact that he is — and I offer this as a trained professional observer — Satan.

(3) You know that guy, Anderson Cooper, the CNN correspondent with the elegant white hair and the really sincere attitude who manages not only to report the news but also to feel the news resonate deep in his soul? Can’t we put him in jail?" – Gene Weingarten, Washington Post.

You can’t resist. Two responses:

The three postings abut Bush, The President, the Predicament, the Bush Conundrum and Conundrum II are probably some of the best descriptions of this jackass that have been written yet.

The simple fact is that he is very much in over his head, which is a kinder way of saying that he is simply not too bright. It does not take a psychoanalyist to figure this out. All you have to do is look at the picture of him sitting in a schoolroom for 6, 7, 8 minutes after being told that the Trade Center had been attacked and he simply sits there, not reacting with a dumb expression on his face like a deer caught in the headlights. Same thing for the Katrina briefing where he sat in a video conference never making one remark or asking one question. My final example is the fact that after the Trade Center was hit, it took him three days to get his sorry ass to New York. By contrast, when the London subway system was bombed, Tony Blair left Scotland to return to London that very same morning. Now THAT is leadership, something that is very lacking in Bush.

I wish that I could share your enthusiasm for McCain, but I am afraid that he is too much of a loose cannon, bordering on being a nut case for me.

The couch bites back. Then there’s this twelve-step insight:

Christopher Hitchens wrote an article in Vanity Fair in 2004 wherein it was posited that W’s problems stem from being a dry drunk. As someone properly brainwashed by 12-step group thinking, I’ve come to believe this is the case.  So many of Bush‚Äôs thought processes seem to be those of the alcoholic he’s acknowledged himself to be: inability to accept criticism, colossal ego, ‘my way or the highway’ thinking and decision making. 
It’s a common thought in recovery circles that trying to ‘tough out’ sobriety on one’s own can be even more difficult than being a drunk, as one is exceedingly irritable and has all the insecurity baggage that comes with alcoholism without the release of tension that comes with the drink. Surround this kind of thinker with yes men and sycophants and just watch the fireworks.

Moderate drinking and moderate politics. Maybe the president is incapable of both.

In May, this blog got two million page views: a record, I think, outside of election season. Thanks for being such a critical part of the conversation here, for the amazing pictures, smart emails, and brutal criticism. Keep it all coming.

Great news for Glenn Greenwald, but even better news for the blogosphere. His book has just made the NYT best-seller list. A writer who has mainly reached a readership through his blog has now managed to translate that into book sales. A tipping point?

Another reader writes:

Just to join the thousands who have tried to psychoanalyze this president:

I think what you have is a man of fundamentally weak character. I mean, we’re talking about someone who is essentially afraid of the Washington press corps. Ponder that for a moment and imagine how Al Quaeda must make him feel.

He managed, in the wake of 9/11, to muster just enough fortitude to mount some kind of a response, but, in retrospect, there was never any indication even at the very beginning that he had anything like the stomach that would be required to see it through.

That process would have required literally hundreds of gut-wrenching decisions made under the most extreme pressure. And the clear majority of them would have needed to be wise. Although many of us fervently wished otherwise, it is now abundantly clear that this president has never possessed any of the qualities required to beat this enemy–a fact the enemy surely has not missed.

Thus we are caught in the worst of all possible quandaries. We’re governed by a man who had just enough will to start a war but has nothing like the brains or guts required to wage it successfully. And the "opposition"–whether in his own party or the other one–doesn’t want to wage it at all.

I fear he’s right. One thing that has surprised and vexed me a little: that there haven’t been more on the right criticizing Bush for not being serious enough in the terror war. Mark Helprin has occasionally vented. The analyses in the Weekly Standard have sometimes shared this premise, but they have remained civil toward the president, perhaps because the alternative seems even worse. (I endorsed Kerry out of desperation, not enthusiasm.) My own evolving view is that this analysis makes a McCain candidacy much more attractive. He seems to me to be the only figure right now with the determination to fight the enemy, and to do so with sufficient resources, resolve, candor and national unity. As Iran prepares its next gambit, 2008 may, however, be too late.

(Photo: Mandel Ngana/AFP Getty.)

One in six Brits is under the influence of alcohol at work, according to a new study. And that’s before the World Cup gets under way. In some strange and nostalgic way, I’m proud of ’em.

"The reason that I think this game has a chance is that it’s not particularly preachy. I will say some of the dialogue is pretty lame ‚Äî people saying, ‘Praise the Lord’ after they blow away the bad guys. I think they’re overdoing it a bit. But the message is OK," – Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, on the potential sales for the Left Behind video game series, where Christianist teens can fantasize about murdering people for Jesus. More here.

A reader offers another, perhaps more persuasive analysis:

If you look at every single aspect of his presidency, Bush has never been serious, never asked for sacrifice (only demanded sacrifice from those unable to say no or even complain – our military). Massive tax cuts with no way whatsoever to pay for them. National security with virtually open borders and minimal port security. Disaster preparation run by a crony whose chief qualification had been managing a horse association.
So you’re surprised that he launches a military campaign that ignores the best advice of his top generals? Why?

Maybe I should drop the attempt to psychoanalyze the guy and accept that he’s simply reckless by nature, and has never had to face the true consequences of his own actions in his entire life. Why would he start now?

A reader writes:

I think there is no doubt that Bush must know that many of the statements he makes are simply false. There’s too much of a track record of this to doubt it.
On the other hand, it is also quite clear that Bush is in well over his head, and he has turned over the actual thinking about his job to others – Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. He pretty much has abandoned leadership on issues except when he gets something fixed in his head, and then he ignores any advice or information to the contrary.
In other words, the answer to your questions: "Is he lying? Or is he just drowning in a job that he is simply unable to do?" is "Both."

There is also the unnerving possibility of psychological denial. I was struck, for example, by the fact that the president recently cited Abu Ghraib as one event that he regrets and that has deeply damaged the war on terror. So I scratch my head and ask myself: has it occurred to him that even the various official reports he commissioned trace that incident to decisions the president himself made to relax detainee standards in the war? Is he even aware that these incidents, again according to his own government’s reports, have been replicated in every theater of combat? And yet, when given the chance to draw a line under all this, and embrace and enforce the McCain Amendment, the president still refused, and issued a signing statement reserving the right to break the law.

My only rational conclusion is that the president cannot face the consequences of his own actions and so simply blocks them out. Confronting Cheney and Rumsfeld on this is beyond his capacity. His psyche, rescued from alcoholism by rigid fundamentalism, has been sealed off from rational assessment of empirical reality, from basic concepts of responsibility and accountability. The people he has surrounded himself with have only one thing in common: the knowledge that the maintenance of his denial keeps them in their jobs. And so we have this bizarre unending war of attrition, where no strategic logic can be discerned, where goals are set with no means to attain them, and where American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are put through a grinder of brutality and terror. I’m saying this as someone who desperately wants us to succeed, but simply cannot understand why the president refuses to commit the necessary resources to do so.