The Emperor is Naked

Craig Crawford:

Hurricane Katrina exposed to the bone what many consider George Bush’s true persona. We’ve seen it all in the past two weeks: his patrician instincts, the seemingly disingenuous posturing and a stubborn refusal to fully take responsibility for what goes wrong.

The more frantically Bush now tries to compensate for early mistakes, the more serious those initial failings seem.

The president’s handling of this disaster reveals a part of his nature that explains so much more than the arguably preventable extent of Katrina’s unprecedented wreckage. It explains such things as his refusal to back down on Social Security revisions that even his own party leaders don’t want anymore. It explains how the “compassionate conservative” proclamation of his first presidential campaign translated into little of significance, especially for the urban poor. And it explains why he hasn’t gone to one funeral for an American soldier killed in Iraq.

In short, rising numbers of Americans perceive Bush as someone who thinks he’s always right, who believes his critics are know-nothing wimps, and who considers the little people as mere tools for the rich and powerful to do what he considers right for America.

[snip]

about average people unless their suffering threatens his political power. His priorities became suspect almost as soon as he landed for his first on-the-ground inspection tour after the hurricane.

Hoping to show empathy for the victims, Bush chose Sen. Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican whose home was washed away, to be his prime example for demonstrating how he would fix things. “Out of the rubble of Trent Lott’s house — this guy lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house and I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”

There is no way that anyone with a brain in Bush’s inner circle would have scripted those remarks, at least not at this critical opening juncture of the president’s first ground tour. That is why it was so revealing. Bush’s world view seems mostly about the life experiences of his rich and powerful friends. He did not have a clue that in this widespread human tragedy, most Americans do not give a damn whether Lott gets his porch back or not.

What's ironic is that many people voted for Bush because he was a guy you'd "like to have a beer with." The problem is, he's not that guy at all. He's not the guy who buys you a beer because you listened to his tale of woe about his wife -- and then helps jumpstart your car when you go outside and the battery's dead because you left your lights on. No, he's the guy at the OTHER end of the bar -- the guy with the trust fund and the Rolex watch who's only deigning to drink a Pabst at this particular dive because his flight back from his big business meeting in Cincinnati was cancelled and the only rental car available because of the storm was a Dodge Neon and no self-respecting American should ever have to drive such a thing and hell no he won't give your car a jumpstart; it's fucking pouring out and a dumbass like you who leaves your lights on deserves to be stranded out in the middle of Dumbfuck, Pennsylvania in a thunderstorm. That guy thinks the world owes him a living because he has a Porsche at home and a trophy wife and a lingerie model mistress and an indoor pool and a Yale M.B.A., but unlike those lowlifes who don't want to work and take welfare, he worked HARD for everything he has.

In short, he's the blowhard that everyone wishes would just shut the fuck up.

Bush was NEVER a man of the people. He's been spun that way, and that persona has grown around him, but for all the use of phallic gasoline-powered tools to Cut Stuff Up in the Crawford, Texas scrub, he's the child of Kennebunkport, not of rural Texas; the guy that REAL men used to beat senseless for being such an asshole.