Thank you, Herr Doktor. And, no, Maher is NOT funny in the way that Jon Stewart is funny.
In my mind (such as it is), the revelatory importance of this piece (if any) is in the sea change that has taken place in America in the past 12 months or so. This sort of stuff would simply have never made it on the air in ANY form in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, or 2005. We truly had a "The Emperor is wearing no clothes" interlude throughout the country in which ANY serious criticism of W and his minions was unthinkable. Such is no longer the case.
And Maher's analysis is flawed. I see no evidence of schizoid behavior by Bush. He is not Tony Perkins in Psycho or a "Sybil" on the loose. But he IS the "Boy In The Bubble", a real life incarnation of the old S & G song "I am a rock; I am an island", to wit "I touch no one and no one touches me." He appears totatally oblivious to the truly global suffering he has inflicted in his single minded, inflexible drive to "get" the man who tried to "kill my father."
But as we will see this week when Tenet's book hits the bookstores, he really IS a puppet. Cheney is the real power behind the throne and always has been. A reasonable fellow with a healthy dollop of paranoia in his makeup (that would be ME) could come to believe that the entire W era was nothing more than a cover story to insert Uncle Dick into a position where he could manipulate the levers of power to implement the Plan For A New American Century. W is just the front man. I find it odd and disturbing that virtually ALL of the co-conspirators who drew up the PNAC (and had been lobbying for its provisions since the Ford Administration) became central role players in the W maladministration: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, Feith, Lindsay, Poindexter, et al. No one serious thinks that BUSH selected those guys, do they? Uncle Dick suggested and W followed Cheney's "advice."
How else to explain the incredible Bush campaign of 2000, with its own Air Force One clone and its 100 million dollar war chest BEFORE W officially annouced? Where does an unannounced candidate GET $100,000,000 anyway? From the piggy bank? I don't think so.
Certain elements, who were strong supporters of the PNAC, financed that campaign and made damn sure that Cheney would be sitting right next door to the Ovoid Office, in a position to ensure that the carefully laid plans would be implemented at long last. Tenet will make it clear beyond any discussion that Cheney was pushing an invasion of Iraq before the last strains of "Hail to the Chief" died away at the Inauguration.
Bush was CHOSEN, because he was the son of a former President, because he was a feckless and inattentive leader, and because he could be easily and reliably lead around by the nose by his designated handler, Dick Cheney.
In commemmoration of these thoughts, I have been moved to create two images which accurately portray MY take on the whole sorry state of affairs which has been the BushLeague Administration since Day One (and before, if I am correct.) By sharing these images, I will forever confirm my total lack of artistic and creative ability (I still cannot draw a convincing airplane, despite trying for almost 60 years, for example), but, to paraphrase W, God told me to do these, so in this case I am merely the instrument of Divine guidance.
Enjoy! Or not........
