No, I haven't worked in the White House with the President or spent time at Yale with MBA candidate George Bush or been in the National Guard in Alabama...well, neither has he.
But after 5 years of tidbit after tidbit, you form opinions that fit a certain pattern and, without deviation, you have to believe in them. We've heard these stories and rumors all along, e.g., the cocaine use, the drunken driving conviction, his obsession with his workout routine, his avoidance of all things regarding international diplomacy and domestic governance, his childish games at inappropriate times including immediately preceding his announcement of the invasion of Iraq, his inability to deliver personal thoughts and only a marginal ability at reading a teleprompter. "Frat boy" says it best.
"In many regards, the Bush I knew did not seem to be built for what lay ahead," wrote Frank Bruni, the Times writer who covered W.'s ascent, in his book "Ambling Into History." "The Bush I knew was part scamp and part bumbler, a timeless fraternity boy and heedless cutup, a weekday gym rat and weekend napster, an adult with an inner child that often brimmed to the surface or burst through."
Maureen Dowd has
correctly pegged the George Bush that has gelled in my mind over 5 years.
No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach -- swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.
He acts the figurehead or worse by disdaining the specifics of his role as though they weren't part of his responsibilities as the Leader of the Free World.
This is the George Bush I've observed: detached, bored, entitled, disdainful and so, so, so pedestrian and plebeian. I thought this on day-one of his campaign (as I'm sure many Kossacks did). What twisted mindset allowed this dufus to be elected and unleashed his evil, greedy, power-hungry flying monkeys to take over?
His loosey-goosey confidence that everything could be fixed with a phone call [by Kofi Annan to the Syrians] was striking. He seems to have no clue that his own headlong, heedless actions in the Middle East have contributed to the deepening chaos there, and to Iran's growing influence and America's diminished leverage.
George Bush, the impish child, was given the world's supreme sand box and he acted accordingly. He has killed thousands of otherwise-innocent people for his political purposes, destroyed America's image around the world, alienated and frightened those leaders who cooperated with and counted on the United States for world leadership, and diminished our own internal processes into religious battles seeking meaningless goals and furthered the crises of our worst problems, especially those of debt and the plights of children and healthcare.
The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits -- no matter how decorous or serious -- into a comfortable frat house.
It's sad that he doesn't even have the maturity to feel shame.