OK. If the papers have it right, Bush is fixing to veto the newly passed stem cell bill. First veto of his presidency. "Excellent," I sez to myself, "now we see his true colors. Here is a man who... who..." And then I think about it for a second. What does his extraordinary decision to veto an immensely popular bipartisan bill say about the President?
Possibility A. He is a stringent ideologue, motivated by a far-right-wing Christianity that trumps any and all considerations of the public will & political reality.
Possibility B. He is desperately in need of political support from the far right wing, and has made a calculated political move to appease them, despite overwhelming popular opinion and the obvious value of the bill.
Possibility C. He is incompetent.
So we have three different scenarios - for the sake of convenience I will call them Crazy Bush, Evil Bush and Stupid Bush. (None particularly heartening for the state of the country, but let's leave that aside. We are scientists here, after all, not some kind of liberal blogofascists. We must be objective.) Which is most plausible?
-- Undoubtedly, the religious fringe has a major influence on Bush's electoral fortunes; the entire career of Karl Rove is testament to that fact. Consider Harriet Miers, who was nominated to great fanfare and was clearly the President's personal choice, yet no more than a dismissive gesture from James Dobson and her nomination slept with the fishes. At this point, with approval ratings so desperately low, the only politically feasible strategy is to fire up the base as much as possible (hence gay marriage & flag-burning) in hopes of retaining some semblance of a majority this fall.
-- Yet, there is also little doubt that George Bush is a deeply religious man. "Jesus is my favorite philosopher," he once said. And we know how firmly he adheres to an ideology once he's established it -- look at his treament of the Iraq occupation, forever clinging to the "righteousness" of his now wildly unpopular decision. It is by no means a stretch to think that he is vetoing the stem cell bill out of pure ideological fervor. (Which in a more reasonable political climate would be called fanaticism.)
-- And lurking in the background, making everyone uncomfortable, is the notion that George Bush in point of fact does not know how to run a government. Nor do his advisors. The actions of this administration often point to nothing but sheer incompetence backed by sheer irrationality; case in point, Katrina, which requires exactly zero elaboration. This White House simply does not know what it is doing.
Now we have three theses, and (in the parlance of our time) shit is getting awkward. Which is the real Bush? Evil, Crazy or Stupid? They all seem so blindingly obvious... but remember, we are not some kind of Kingpin-worshipping thugs here, willing to just slur our various ideas and attack the President without a ideological theme. Oh no, we are scientists. So look at it scientifically: and as any high school teacher will tell you, if you have multiple hypotheses that all seem right, you have probably structured your experiment poorly. (Or so I assume - I never did high school science.) Let's take a step back.
Aha! Maybe we have set up a false trichotomy here. In fact, if you aggregate all this evidence, it might suggest that in fact George Bush is some unholy combination of Evil, Stupid and Crazy. He is FrankenBush, or possibly UberBush (Der Überbusch - able to transcend character traits with the single flick of a veto pen!). No wonder Democrats have such trouble coming up with a coherent countermessage -- George Bush is in fact, at any given moment, doing several things wrong simultaneously. The mind boggles.
And so we heave around words like "evil" and "crazy," without ever being able to look the real President in the eye; can you blame us? Our skin would turn to stone. But the fact is, even if it sounds like hyperbole, a monster has been unleashed on this country. By some incredible twist of luck we have managed to get us not just one Worst President Ever, but three.
[Cross-posted at Dem Apples, official blog of the Harvard College Democrats]