PUZZLING OUT BUSH: Strange Man of Contradictions

By Dorothy Anne Seese

The president of the United States is a puzzling man in many ways. It's easy to brush him off as a "bonesman" or elitist, globalist, man of phony faith or a wartime president. He is all of these and some of these and at times, none of these.

George W. Bush is not a strong man. He is determined to be his own man while at the same time realizing that he is totally dependent on his handlers for direction and his family for moral support. He truly is alone at the top as a human being ... a man desperate to find the man inside.

Gone from the news clips are these things we used to see when his presidency was new:

Bush in cowboy clothes, having fun driving his ultra-expensive pickup truck;

Bush strolling hand in hand with his wife and dog in various locales;

Bush meeting with various members of the Congress with smiles and confidence;

Bush meeting with foreign leaders in relaxed settings;

Bush mingling with the people, military or civilian, acting like a confident leader.

One might say that the George W. Bush who was elected president is gone. The job was too much for him, the weight of the world was too heavy and the obsessions of the Bush dynasty have taken over his personality and all that is left is a man searching for his faith ... whatever it really is ... and leading the world into an apocalypse that he fears as much as we do.

This might sound like I am sympathetic toward the president. As another human, I am. As the leader of this nation, I am not. He is in over his head, and his head is full of imperial notions that came from expecting too much of himself in a situation where he was far from equal to the task, even if there was prior knowledge of the events of September 11, 2001. The almost folksy president who was reading to school children in Florida when the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon was attacked had to be whisked away for several hours before he was able to return to Washington, D.C. Since that time, the George W. Bush who had been president has disappeared, and a man who is nearly always photographed alone, the imperialist, the man obsessed with a war that looms large in his own mind and causes the world to shake its collective head, has emerged as the American president.

This vaguely reminds me of the movie "Dave" in which the real president suffers a stroke and his double was obliged to fill in for him, fooling everyone except the few who were accomplices to the scheme.

However, the present situation isn't scripted in Hollywood and we're dealing with very real people, very real situations, and the prelude to a very real war. This movie doesn't have a happy ending.

From the outset, many of us were distressed at "Dubya's" preoccupation with Mexico. It is one thing to feel sympathetic toward the Mexican people who live in a tyrannical feudal system regardless of who is president. Vicente Fox has made no more changes than his predecessors, other than to give more surplus bodies to the U.S. as illegal immigrants. Fox is well-named ... he is a fox. He is cunning and ruthless, and gloating over running U.S. immigration policy. If the naive, newly-inaugurated W. Bush thought he could make friends with Vicente, he soon found out the price of Fox's friendship was to turn over the keys to the henhouse. There can never be friendship between the U.S. and Mexico as long as there are conflicts of interest the size of those being thrust at the United States via illegal invaders. Friendship would have to be based on mutual respect, perhaps something Bush thought he could achieve, only to find that Mexico still has nothing but contempt for the U.S. and always will unless a total change in the socio-economic and political structure of Mexico occurs. That is not likely under a feudal system. It would require a "revolucion" and so far, Chiapas hasn't been very successful at any revolutionary aspirations. The more likely area for a revolutionary effort is on American soil by the adherents to the Nation of Aztlan, something we Arizonans have to live with and for which we must be prepared.

While the nation's economy staggers toward the precipice, W. Bush strides around like he knew what war is all about, flanked by his immediate advisors and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There isn't much if any doubt that Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and even Rice see this war as a way to play toward the great new world order of globalist rule. But why the Congress is so willing to go along is a puzzlement. Is it no longer effective? Has the legislative branch of government given way to the elitist rule? Do those who disagree fear to do so publicly (other than Reps. Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo) because it risks their own careers?

Such has been the historical theme of people whose leader is a madman, inadequate to the task of leadership but driven by pride and fear to obliterate all those who oppose his plans.

There is probably no more dangerous leader than a weak man who has suddenly been thrust into a position requiring maturity and strength. I've met men who seem to have a compulsion to "show daddy I'm a man" and they will break their necks and risk everything to prove themselves. (The same applies to women who can't get mama's approval.) Not only does George W. Bush have his daddy's approval to seek, but he is surrounded by a pack of warhawks that would be difficult for the strongest man to keep on a short leash.

At this point, we can wonder who and what is running the country and driving it toward this war.

We hear a lot now about W. Bush's faith-based White House and all the Bible studies going on there. No court is going to challenge it or accept a challenge, but the church should. Instead, the president seems to have courted high-profile church leaders and convinced them of his righteous position, a sad commentary on the church in America.

A pre-emptive strike against anything less than what the USSR was in 1951 is unconscionable, and the U.S. made no such pre-emptive strike. Now no single nation-state is the seat of all terrorism, nor is one petty dictator the cause of all the world's evils. Anyone who perceives Hussein as such has a warped view of Saddam's abilities, making him far larger than he is. If oil interests are the backers of the war, then the United States is being used, through the weakness of its president and his family mania against Iraq, as the world's hit-man. This is a totally immoral, unjust and untenable position that will eventually bring down the United States. War for the sake of commercial interests is not uncommon but it is always unjust, immoral and unconscionable. That is the blood spot that will never wash out of human history, and to which the once-free United States seems now doomed to repeat as an aggressor nation.

Perhaps the soon-to-be demise of the U.S. is the reason that many corporations, including Microsoft, are moving large segments of their operations to India and China. It is a sad day indeed when the once-leader of the free world is considered by its own corporate interests to be less desirable than Communist China and poverty-ridden India (with all due respect to the outstanding talent of the peoples of those nations).

And where is George W. Bush? Is he calling the heads of corporations to discuss the revitalization of America's sinking economy? Or is he merely rehearsing his next "war against evil" speech? What is his faith? How does he understand the teachings of the Bible - the Christian New Testament in particular - with regard to slaughtering masses of human collateral damage?

Only weak people are afraid to make or admit a mistake. Strong people will find satisfaction in admitting error or at least in finding alternative courses to disasters in the making.

Only God knows what George W. Bush is praying for, but the rest of the Christian church would do well to pray that God would mercifully heal his mind and give him the strength and courage for the job he has, until he can be replaced by the people. This nation has had a continually diminishing stature of men in charge since Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency. It shows no sign of improvement unless some men of real integrity are willing to gather around them others who will effect a quiet revolution by sealing our borders, using diplomacy where necessary, unchaining the American citizens who thus far are already the first victims of this war on "terror" and returning to the Constitution as the rule of law.

Will all the congressmen who have joined Rep. Ron Paul's Liberty Caucus please stand up and identify? We need you to lead this peaceful revolution back to America.

Otherwise, you will all be jobless and living in a land with no identity.