rumors on the internets: bush-kerry #2
Favorite Bush moments from the 10/8 Bush-Kerry “townhall” debate:
I hear there’s rumors on the Internets.
and his sorrow and confusion that Saddam didn’t have WMDs. This line has been trotted out before [Colin Powell on the lack of WMDs: "I'm disappointed"] and is quite revealing — the Bush administration is sorry that Saddam didn’t have weapons. Often they add some folksy, being-real clause, like “frankly,” or “nobody could have been sorrier” etc. Hello! It’s a good thing Saddam didn’t have weapons. Right? Or am I missing something? Of course what they should be sorry about is that they didn’t know it in advance of the invasion, but that would require admitting that they were sorry about something they did, not just sorry about lousy Saddam’s failure to develop weapons of mass destruction.
understanding what happened
paperwight’s fair shot explains the bush “dred scott” reference
my thoughts
Overall, I thought the debate was a draw, simply because Bush had set the bar for himself so very low after the first debate. Viewed completely objectively, without the first debate, and without knowing these two characters, I think that Kerry “won” — but the debate is necessarily viewed in the context of the extremely low standard Bush now had to meet — not look like a deer in the headlights again.
My original impression of Bush, though, was bolstered: he is just an incredibly hollow man. He draws most of his image of himself from the fact that he is the president:
Of course, I listened to our generals. That’s what a president does. A president tests the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.
Parsed, this would make no sense for Bush to say. It would suggest that anybody who is president would automatically do the presidential things.
In actuality, though, I bet that is what’s going on in Bush’s head: I’m the president, so of course I’m doing what you have to do, because I’m working hard; it’s hard work, and I’m doing the best I can. Everybody has to rely on the advice and counsel of others, and delegate to others. This is what a president does. Nobody could possibly do anything else, or any better, because this is what everybody has to do. So I’m doing the best that can be done.
What’s weird to me is that this line of thinking, which is drawn basically from the self-justifying things he says, is centered so completely on him performing a particular role. He’s not referencing his own personal, internal strengths and weaknesses, his own judgment. I’m an evaluator; I gather evidence well; I’m intelligent; I go by the gut instinct and my gut instincts are good, etc. Instead, in the first debate and in the “townhall”, he is doing the tasks he is supposed to do, and therefore he is being “a president.” The checkbox method of being a president — it’s not about the personal skills, it’s about doing the things you’re supposed to do, which will make you presidential.
But of course, his media message is good and he stays on point: the message he delivers is: “I am a decisive man of action who sticks to a plan, compared with Kerry who can’t make up his mind and therefore can’t lead the troops or an international coalition.” It’s repetitive and he stays on-message. By staying so on-message, he can screw up his delivery sometimes, which he seems to do about half the time in televised appearances.
But when his delivery is off, when it is clearly wooden and repetitious, and a bundle of memorized lines slung together not very convincingly, as in the first debate, you can see through it a little more easily. And you can put it together with his more spontaneous utterances, the lines that I’m certain nobody scripted for him, the lines about “that’s what a president does.” Those lines betray his vision of the presidency: delegation to others to figure out the information and the strategy; checkboxes of “what to do” so he can sign off on others’ decisions. Nowhere in there is the personal judgment based on his own experience, knowledge, intuition, information-gathering, etc. And the self-confidence is derived, not from knowing his judgment was right, but from knowing that (a) he is the president; and (b) he did what presidents do in a checkbox fashion.
…
It’s hard to resist the pop psychology. Usually I resist, because we can’t ever know, and it is just a waste of time. But Bush has so many bizarre behaviors that it’s so tempting to try to figure out what’s going on with him.
algorithmically similar posts:
» WaMo explains Bush’s “interesting idea” about a national sales tax, 2004-08-14 (score:19)» sweet (day 1: stop the bush regulations), 2009-01-21 (score:18)
» debate notes, 2004-10-01 (score:18)
» Compassionate Bush, 2004-05-20 (score:17)
