With nary a whisper of irony, the Washington Post’s Peter Baker reports that President Bush feels like a prophet without honor in his own administration.
Meeting with a group of opposition leaders from around the world, a self-pitying president complained to Egypt’s Saad Eddin Ibrahim that “I too am a dissident in Washington.” He went on to whine about how the federal bureaucracy had stymied his desire to spread democracy around the world.
Think about it. Here is a man who believes it is his constitutional right as president to spy on whomever wants to, to order torture, and to arrest and hold indefinitely anyone he wants to without being charged. And he has the arrogance and narcissism to compare himself to people who daily risk their lives and liberty, to people who have lost their lives and liberty, in the name of freedom and human rights for their countrymen. Put another way, he dares to align himself morally with people victimized in their own countries by the very practices he espouses. To this man, war is indeed peace; freedom, slavery; and ignorance, strength.
If no one in his own house listens, the president has no one but himself to blame for a failed administration. Bush is caught in a trap of his own making, built of the snares of hubris and the springs of certitude. And he’s been inept enough to walk right into it, eyes wide open. At least he hasn’t lost his capacity to outrage.
BTW, if you haven't read this, what are you waiting for?