President Bush now fancies himself an Educator-in-Chief, according to his recent interview on 60 Minutes. However, what most struck me by the interview is Bush's detachment from the education spirit. Namely, from that principle of learning that says that, in order to learn from your mistakes, you have to recognize when you've made them and be open to being corrected on them.
It's clear that Bush only gives lip service to this notion, though. Many in the dKos thread discussing the interview noted how, despite Bush's explicit admission that he'd made some mistakes, his every non-verbal cue said quite the opposite: that he saw his mistakes as trivial and viewed his critics with derision.
It's not just Bush's nonverbal cues - the smirks, the sighs, the rolling of eyes - but his choice of words is telling, too.
For example, his use of the term "scapegoat".
As Bush said in his interview:
Well if people want a scapegoat, they've got one right here in me. 'Cause it's my decisions.
The word "scapegoat" is a pejorative word used to describe blaming someone who really isn't at fault, but has to take the fall for other people's mistakes. Scapegoats, by definition, don't deserve the blame they receive.
When Bush says, okay, he'll be a "scapegoat", he's saying something profound. Namely, that he's not really at fault for all the bad leadrship - it's someone else that is responsible for the myriad bad decisions in this war - but if people want to blame him for it, anyway, then go ahead.
A true leader never suggests that he would be willing to be the "scapegoat" for bad leadership decisions. A true leader would actually take personal responsibility for having made those bad decisions.
Added to the smirks, the sighs, the rolling of eyes, it's pretty clear Bush thinks he's pretty much faultless in his leadership decisionmaking, regardless of the vast mountain of evidence of his error that stretches in front of his own eyes.
This is who sits in the Oval Office, leading our country during wartime: President Bush, Scapegoat-in-Chief.