Clearly, this past week has not been the best of weeks for George W. Bush. It's been the most disastrous trip abroad of his administration -- and, as others have said, probably the worst of any presidents' since his father vomited onto Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in January 1992.
Which got me thinking ... time for a whisper campaign!
Most of what happened -- from the cursing with his mouthful to Tony Blair, to demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of the complexity of the Lebanese outbreak, to new disclosures that he personally blocked an investigation into his own illegal warrantless surveillance program -- again confirms what must of us know: Bush is a privileged incompetent simpleton being thrust into the most demanding, most important, most dangerous job in the world. Oh, and he doesn't much respect the tenets of the US Constitution.
But really, that's nothing new. What is new are signs that Bush is actually completely out of his freaking skull. I'm talking, of course, about the Angela Merkel back-massage incident from yesterday.
Every misstep Bush has undertaken -- the Occupation of Iraq, the Katrina disaster, the whole nine yards -- can be explained by sheer incompetence, blind loyalty to conservative ideology or your standard run-of-the-mill corruption.
But the Angela Merkel thing -- that's a whole new beast. Seriously, who else but someone's who completely lost their mind would think it's appropriate to randomly walk behind the sovereign leader of a major world power and administer an unsolicited back massage?
Is Bush losing it?
Actually, that last question wasn't meant rhetorically. If Bush were a Democrat, the GOP's operatives who do the dirty work would be asking that question on every talk radio show, newspaper editorial, magazine piece, friendly Web site and Sunday morning talk show.
Because it's a question that can't be defended. Tony Snow can't tell the public, "No, Bush hasn't lost his mind." Just addressing that question gives it validity, and would make the public at large as if their president is out of it.
Generally, the best thing for someone in Snow's position to do is just to ignore the incident completely, wait until it blows over. That's probably what will happen, and it'll probably work.
But if Republicans were to be the ones attacking Bush, they wouldn't let the question go away. They'd be asking it everywhere, and if the White House chose not to defend itself, all the better.
And seriously, doesn't a reduced mental capacity explain quite a bit of the White House's current strategy, from the Iraqi Occupation, to deserting Americans left in the wake of disaster yet again (from New Orleans to Beirut), to ratcheting up the rhetoric with North Korean and Iran with no plan to follow through on the tough talk?
So I say, let's begin our own Swiftboating campaign. Since there is no real Democratic Party underground attack mechanism comparable ot what the GOP has, let's do it ourselves. Ask friends, family, the editor of the local newspaper in a LTE, comments on this site and others, calls to Air America programs:
Has Bush always been this bizarre, or has he completely lost his mind?