Dubya's key personal strengths are an engaging, gregarious personality bent on getting people to like him, and a domineering streak that people will call
charisma in a rich man, and
slippery in a used car salesman.
As a business executive, he's a public pickpocket. This man who literally could not find oil in Texas went on to find his true talents lie in the swindling of the unwashed multitudes. His pappy and his brother Neil surely showed him the ropes, and he's been at it ever since.
Dubya's Daddy's posse also steered Junior towards the filching of the public purse, if only to spare their own wallets the recurring expense of bailing young Master Frogblaster out of his latest corporate collapse.
First with the Texas Rangers, then as a Governor, and now as a President, the
"action" for Bush has always been to line the pockets of the Have-Mores and Haves, and line them again, and yet again, and always from the public purse.
As a politician, the Dauphin is an empty head sticking out of an empty suit. He isn't in charge of, or particularly aware of, any damned thing at all; he's simply the senior front man for the mob in charge.
His entire personal involvement in the War on Terra is to strut about saying Stay The Course while calling himself Commander in Chief, and imagining he is a War President. He is squarely among those who know not the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, nor why he ought to. He cannot push the pins around the map in the War Room without making an immediate mess of things, much less push anything of value around in the real world. That's something the grownups do, not Dubya.
Like all idiot children, Bush can be relied on to do what you set him at doing until such time as you set him at something else. With a daily dose of personal praise from his small circle of adoring mommies, he can stay the course.
But it's hard, and getting harder. He's no longer a happy boy. It shows in his impatience with advisors, with adversity, with reality itself. A natural born thief, he knows when he is cornered, and he wants out more desperately with every passing day.
Any grifter worth his name knows there is a natural grace period built into every con. There's a given period to hook your mark easily, while their trust is still extended. After that honeymoon, they begin to look twice, and your mask starts to slip. They begin to sniff your greed and contempt and fear, and you'd best just walk away, then and there. Try the next rubes who come along.
Our gallant Sir Staydacorz knows he is years past his 'walk away' moment, yet he hasn't permission of his masters to go. Now it dawns on him that he was their mark, and that he bit real hard. There's no way out.
It's sad, and it's creepy. He's a cardboard King. He's Peter Pan in a three piece suit.
If he serves out his sentence to the Oval Office on good behavior, he'll probably be bailed out of even this fantastic fustercluck he calls a Presidency. Not a financial bailout -- that's hardly needed in his case.
But he'll probably be pardoned in full by his successor, and sent home to build a Presidential Library full of papers no one will be permitted to see for a century or so.
He will be pardoned at the last not because of his power or influence, but because he will be even more irrelevant then than he is now. You may as well prosecute a cardboard cutout. Bush isn't the heavy in this Administration.
Beyond the puppet masters who march Bush out to speak for them, the real heavies are the moneyed class atop our Republic, who back the corporatocracy our government has become, and who will continue to back it through the politicians they select, and we get to vote for.
For them is this gargantuan Federal government being built, for them is the Unitary Executive set in place, for them is the conquest of oil-bearing nations, for them is the militarization of space, and for them is the impoverishment and control of the non-rich. For them is the security state being built, and yet still called America.
If the Democrats do take charge in this election cycle, or the next, they will be allowed to make reasonable rollbacks of the Bush extravaganza, to placate the public somewhat. For a while, for a Friedman or a few. But the powers that be will see that the Leviathan of American Empire continues on course, continues seeking full spectrum dominance of the planet, and of all the lesser people on it, bless their malnourished little hearts.
The program is to move money and power relentlessly into higher, tighter, righter and whiter hands. War and religion are the finest methods ever discovered to make that happen, and that is how the Republicans will rule. Leave the rich in charge of our democracy, and that is where they will take it. That is the Ownership Society Bush prattles on about. That is the Leviathan staving in the timbers of our ship of state, and sinking our fortunes as a free people.
As for Dubya, well -- the only real consequence for the Texas Tot in all this is that he won't be able to visit any countries that subscribe to the International Criminal Court. He won't be able to travel abroad -- (wherever that is.)
Nancy Pelosi says she has no plans to impeach Bush, should she become the next Speaker of the House. Who knows? Dubya may well end his days on a ranch in Paraguay. Whatever. Honestly, whatever. He's not the enemy. He fronts for the enemy.
He is not Leviathan. And it is Leviathan that is eating all our children.
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