I am amazed, this morning, not by the National Enquirer’s Bush story (linked below) but by the reaction of some commenters on the various liberal blogs.
Generally, and unbelievably I feel, these people see the story as presenting the President in a sympathetic light.
Oh sure there are those quibbling with various details of the story and another set who view all world events as being manipulated by master svengali Karl Rove but while scenic and motivational details embellish a story they are not the story.
How an insensate President, asleep at the wheel as our national ship steams aimlessly across a wine-dark sea, could engender positive voter feelings or a kinder historic judgment remains a mystery.
The nit-picky scene-settings and reporter surmised motivations are not as important as the overall thrust of the often very credible National Enquirer's source information.

Bush this morning at DOD

The President, to my jaundiced eyes, has been acting strangely for quite a while now...tic, fast anger, mood swings, odd moments of confusion and his own unique memory of public events.
Mr. Bush's behavior, sadly for our country in these perilous times, has been another large pink elephant in the living room of the public stage.
And oh yes, of course, remember the President’s actions are always carefully enabled by our warm, caring friends in the very corporate (not Jack Cafferty) media.
Was it yesterday that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer kept saying..."We're expecting the President to speak any moment now.
We're expecting tape to be fed in and we'll get it to you just as soon as possible."
Huh?
What is this suddenly 1973, the dawn of live cams?
Isn't it curious, to say the least, that this President is so rarely shown conducting his version of public business live on the toob???
Oh sure, there is the very occasional East Room prime time press Q&A and a SOTU or two, but mainly Mr. Bush is presented via "tape just fed in."
Clever how the easily excited Blitzie casts this unnecessary process in such exciting terms, no?
Consider that other things could happen prior to a tape feed...things like sound and image editing...odd statements and odd (or let's call them unsettling to the national psyche in these times of national security) images deftly moved, shifted or excised altogether by the skilled hands of a tape editor.
People, based on Internet commenting and emails to the cable webs, love to mention Bush and his controlling snake Rove in terms of The Wizard of Oz.
For this present idea of a barely sober Bush the Videotaped, think of the imagined Wizard’s big green Wizard head rippling with video scan lines and a roll or two, ala Max Headroom.
Presidents, and I mean all Presidents, know they will linger in the histories of their time.
It wasn’t so many years ago that another President, polling in the upper 30 percentile and facing an onslaught of scandal, began drinking heavily.
Thanks to tattle-tail Henry Kissinger, we know that our 37th President, when deeply into his cups would telephone to ask his Secretary of State to stop by the White House for one of the pudgy Bavarian’s ego-building tongue baths.
Kissinger’s descriptions of a sloppily inebriated Nixon sobbing, praying and cursing portraits of previous First Citizens have remained etched in my mind for many long years.
Drunkenness and drug-addiction are serious American problems that cut through all class distinctions.
A person with such a burden destroys himself and all around him in his slavery to the substance of choice.
As much as I dislike President Bush and the policies of his maladministration, I wouldn’t wish substance abuse on him.
For America’s sake I hope the Enquirer, this time, got its facts wrong.
But, I, with great trepidation, suspect yesterday’s story is largely and disturbingly correct.

Image: National Enquirer, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 9:41 AM