Interesting piece in the Bayou Buzz. Would seem to be at least a partial explaination for how someone could be so wrongheaded enough as to get Americans killed for his arrogance.
Earlier several other writers and I likened Bush´s personality characteristics to those of a person who, in AA parlance, is "dry" but whose thinking is not really sober. Grandiosity, rigidity, and intolerance of ambiguity, and a tendency to obsess about things are among the traits associated with the dry drunk. The dry drunk quits drinking, but his or her obsession with the bottle is often replaced with other obsessions. Twelve Step programs help their members modify their all-or-nothing thought patterns which associated with the disease alcoholism. "Easy does it" and "One day at a time" are among the slogans; the serenity prayer, similarly, helps persons with addictive tendencies to curb the tendency to excess.
In Bush´s irrational patterns of thought lie the clues to his single-minded obsession with Iraq. For the explanation for Bush´s vendetta against this one country, we have to look to his biography and to the meaning that Iraq held for his father.
The father-son relationship can be problematic in any family. When the father is considered a big hero, the first-born son, especially one bearing the father´s name, identity issues are common. As any chronology of George W Bush´s childhood will show, the son was set up to follow in the exact footsteps of his father. Sent away to the very New England prep school where his father´s accomplishments were still remembered, the younger Bush became better known for his pranks than athletic or academic achievements. His drinking bouts caused problems during his military service as well. (Remember that his father had been a war hero.) In college there was heavy drinking and other drug misuse, one arrest for a wild college prank and one conviction for drunken driving.
