Echidne has the report from Bushworld, where his aides are nervous, no one can get through to him, and Sy Hersh suggests that Bush is listening to his voices, which are apparently telling him that Nixon got it right in Vietnam so that’s the way to go. (“I’ll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they’re not sure how you get to this guy.”)
And Hersh’s article in The New Yorker, Up In The Air, is now online, and full of creepy quotes. Like Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “There is a very deep feeling on his part that the issue of Iraq was settled by the American people at the polling places in 2004.” And as to advice from wiser heads: “Many of the military’s most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don’t want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has “so terrified the generals that they know they won’t go public,” a former defense official said.”
(Via The Sideshow.)
Which is most unsettling to you:
* We have a leader that seems to be heading more and more into insular insanity;
* We have a majority of the population that seems to be incapable of recognizing these symptoms;
* We don’t have a majority of the population that believes that, but we have an election system that is so screwed up that the will of the majority is not properly counted;
* We have 30% of the country or so still voicing support for this nutter. I guess these are the same people who take “the War on Christmas” seriously. Quoting Elvis: “In America, it is a proper role of government to decide which gods are worthy of worship and which are just a figment of the imagination…. We wouldn’t be having all these problems if those crazy Kansans just believed in the right kind of god.”