The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way. -- Samuel Butler
I don't know which is more frightening; the idea that Bush can stand calmly asserting obviously constructed prevarications which assume a complete lack of reasoning ability on the part of the public, as he did trying to make a case for his impending war on Iraq, or the idea that his calculated portrayal of emotional sincerity which are the basis of his communicative "charms", are a product of self-delusion.
On a personal level, I find his sincerity utterly unctuous and transparent to an underlying emotional glibness. It is a perfect demonstration of his innate sociopathic ability to con sans remorse. Like many other members of the Bushco coterie, there is no measured consequence in his internal world and he wants to prevail at any expense. He will say anything or do anything to achieve that end. That's why he is a better politician than a business man; business requires promises and contracts be kept for the most part. Because Bush is a fundamentally glib personality he has had a string of business failures at least as long as his political successes.
Fortunately for Bush, Americans love jumping to their to feet like they did tonight to applaud and cheer his rooster crowing threats of absolute violence to any who would challenge the security of the American people or American interests. It was like he had sprayed the room with Eau de Testes...I am always taken aback that Americans are still so easily adrenelated by even the most cliched instances of male bravado. Like many Americans pampered with the media instilled chauvenisms of their naive world view, the Busho crowd has never really progressed beyond the cowboyninjuns model of conflict resolution.
Pandering to that predictable response of the American psyche was the route Bush took in his address last to cover for the utter lack of actual facts presented as the rationale for all the Saddam hysteria. Each point he mentioned about how Iraq was being non-compliant was based on decade old intelligence reports which may or may not have been accurate even at the time they were written.
The CIA is famous for its erroneous intelligence reports then and now. Bush of course couldn't care less about the realities of these things. The course is set and now, according to the dictates of his personal compulsions, he wants to prevail at any cost. Though its likely he cannot help himself feel otherwise, there's no reason that America should allow itself to be dragged into one of the potentially darkest moments in its history.
Should the US actually launch all those missles on Baghdad, the whole thing will rank right up there with the other great national monuments to shame like the Trail of Tears or Institution of Slavery.
And all because a Texas wimp with a desperate need to match some cartoon version of manhood isn't conscious that he is the snake he is trying to charm.
"We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared, and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people," Bush said in his speech, delivered under extraordinary security to a joint session of Congress.
Now take a look around and see if that matches reality.
Scariest fact of the whole night:
"In a long-standing practice, one Cabinet member did not attend the president's speech in the event that something catastrophic happened at the Capitol. This year, it was Attorney General John Ashcroft."
See how mean spirited they are? They would either leave us to be lorded over by the embodiment of their worst knotted anal clentching spasms or, knowing the sensible among the slaves would recognize that fact, are using Ashcroft as insurance against having the room taken out in fell swoop. At least the latter proposition has a conscious intent....the former, mere predigested seed of greed creed.