Arrogantly Bush told us once that he was the “Decider” and that (by George)
the rest of us Americans did not get a say. He knew what was best for us. Narcissistic? You decide. In his 2003 State of
the Union address, Bush said Saddam had attempted to buy yellow cake uranium
from “Africa.” When that baloney got debunked by Ambassador Joe Wilson as
forged intelligence, Bush bristled. Wilson had called Bush out, and that’s a
mistake you never want to make with a Narcissist. Somebody had leaked the
secret identity of Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson’s wife who worked undercover for
the CIA. Strong evidence pointed to the White House. Plame was on our side, working to gather
intelligence on countries who had and who sold WMDs. She was the real thing. So
why would somebody in the White House “off” one of our own undercover CIA
secret agents just to get back at Plame’s husband? Doesn’t make any sense does
it? But it might to a Narcissist. Why not get even with Joe Wilson and send a
message to everybody not to mess the Decider’s policy on attacking and
occupying Iraq? If nobody else exists, why hesitate? But Scooter Libby, Dick
Cheney’s top aide, was convicted in the Plame/White House scandal. And to boot,
the Libby Jury that convicted him apologized to Scooter because the jurists
felt the evidence showed that Libby had taken a fall for bigger fish in the
White House. Imagine that. Did anybody
care? Nah. Another non-issue during the reign of the Great
Decider.
With the corruption and treason appearing to go to the White House bone, head, and ass, the jury just knew that the crime evidence of leaking Plame’s identity should have smoked out Rove and Cheney and maybe even Bush. The jury wanted more. Maybe we should have listened.
Early on, the CIA warned Bush that the Niger intelligence was counterfeit. So said British Intelligence. But Bush still used it to scare us, in his state of the union address, knowing it was forged. Years later, after the invasion, Bush then blamed Tenet, head of the CIA, for giving him bad intelligence. Tenet fell on his sword, and Bush rewarded his loyalty with the United States Medal of Freedom.
Ironically, before 911, Richard Clarke special counsel to the White House on foreign matters told Bush and Rice that intelligence showed that al Qaeda had plans to fly airplanes into American buildings. Apparently, Bush was nonplused about all that. But why wouldn’t he listen to Clarke, a seasoned terror expert with years of experience in the White House under President Clinton? Good question. He didn’t. How did Bush’s refusal to listen to Clarke’s advice help prevent the 911 attacks? It didn’t. And whose intelligence does a Narcissist usually trust? His own. For in his eyes, he is truly the only person that exists in the world.
In many ways, Bush ignored the will of the people and showed us that his will and wants were superior to ours. I wonder, does Bush still consider America to be a democracy where Americans vote for presidents who will represent the best interests of the American people? Since the Magna Charta the US Constitution is the most sacred document ever written into law. It protects our rights, our lives, our laws and our liberties. Dave Lindorf of “Capitol Hill Blue” said that when Republican congressmen went to the White House to advise against Bush’s pushing for stronger articles in the Patriot Act, Bush shouted at them. “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper.” When one of them warned that his push for more police state powers in a new version of the legislation that Congress initially passed in the wake of the 9-11 attacks might alienate some of his conservative backers, the president shouted, “I don't give a goddamn: I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way." Sound like a sensitive president who cares about the American people? Or a bleedin’ Narcissist who could care less about us or even the US Constitution, itself? In his mind, were we, the people, just mere extensions of Bush? Did he even know that we do, in fact, even exist? And if so, did Bush view us as being beneath him and his agendas of grandeur? You got to wonder, just how far down the ladder were we in Bush’s eyes? When he began to dismantle the Constitution.
Like an abusive King, Bush robbed us of our inalienable rights as human beings granted to us under the Constitution. Bush hammered our right of habeas corpus with a 20-pound sledge. He smirked as he wiretapped our private conversations and emails without lawful court orders and warrants from the FISA Court, while his Attorney General, Gonzales panted like a smiling wolf. In the night, some American citizens got shipped to foreign countries, like Syria. There, they were tortured. They had no right to a lawyer or to a phone call. Bush mocked human rights by proclaiming that he has the right to torture. That “enemy combatants” as he called them, had no rights in America the free, America, the brave. And he affixed his “signing statement” mark to McCain’s No Torture Bill, writing that he has the right to torture if he wants to. Doesn’t that destroy the bill, scuttle Congress and trash our separation of powers? In total arrogance, didn’t Bush seek to preempt Congress by making up his own laws? Wasn’t he telling us he was the full-blown dictator of the United States and that Congress can pass no law that he could not overrule, change or rescind? How Narcissistic is that? And how lingering is the effect of his marking his territory like a dog pissing on a fire hydrant to mark his territory?
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were testimonials to Bush’s torture philosophy. The world knows. And all of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ jawboning in Bush’s behalf just did not convince us believe that torture was or is ever justified. Our collective conscience as good Americans found Gonzales’ legal sleaze to be repulsive. We could not accept the Attorney General’s word that Bush had the right to torture. It’s bull. No Attorney General can make us believe that Bush’s shredding the Constitution to bring terrorists to justice serves our best interests as a fair nation, either. Didn’t Bush and Gonzales swear under oath to protect, uphold and defend the Constitution? So by burning and shredding the Constitution, how many terrorists have Bush and Gonzales caught and brought to justice? And how many innocent Americans have they illegally wiretapped? Why couldn’t Bush ever capture Osama bin Laden, anyway?
Narcissism knew no boundaries in the White House back then. By claiming Executive Privilege, Bush said Gonzales could refuse to testify under oath when questioned by Congress on the US Attorney firings. Gonzo’s email records went “poof” and nobody complained or tried to account for accountability. They were slugs of the lowest order. Destroyers of Constitutions. Remember when Karl Rove said, “I change Constitutions?” First Bush wanted to shred the Constitution to his liking and then he sought to staff the US Attorney docket with “yes men” attorneys like Gonzales who would rubber stamp any part of the Constitution shredding that was to come. My God. Who, before, as Attorney General of the United States, ever attempted to trash the integrity of our Justice System as did Alberto Gonzales? Police State, anyone?
It’s known that US Attorneys are appointed by the president, but to recommend firing a bunch of them because their politics was not acceptable to the White House or Alberto Gonzales, was the height of a White House in love with itself. It’s typical of a Monarchy where all your allies are selected to do the King’s bidding. Plain and simple, this White House never promoted a Democratic government in the United States. Bush plummeted us into a dictatorship. He broke the law by wiretapping us without bothering to get lawful court orders and warrants. Gonzales supported Bush on that, and Bush still supported Gonzales. With fire in his eye Bush said so in his news conference on March 21, 2007. In disbelief much of America was stunned to now accept illegal wiretapping, torture and attempting to stack the US Attorney docket, could exist in America. What kind of person would want to exchange our democracy for something like that? What word comes to mind? Narcissist perhaps?
Our own battered soldiers in Iraq who were stop-gapped and retoured repeatedly, showed the world hard evidence that Bush ignored the horrible reality of the Iraq War. Such persistent behavior seemed indecent to much of the world. Our soldiers deserved better. That they had to fight for so long without proper body and vehicle armor is symptomatic of a commander-in-chief who cannot prioritize the most important duty of all: to see that our troops have the best and safest arms and equipment with which to wage war. That so many men and women came home with blown off arms and legs is hard evidence of an administration’s indifference to stopping a hopeless war. That our VA hospitals under Bush’s presidency jacked our Veterans around after they came home is inexcusable. And just because the miserable Bush Budget cuts to fund Veterans Programs finally caught up with the president, he was in the spotlight accountable. He tried firing a few generals to scapegoat his own inadequate ability to manage. But look at the numbers: For each year of Bush’s presidency, his Budgets slashed VA funding. So where did the Bush Budget big money get allocated? How about Tax Cuts? Were Trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich more important in the Bush Budget than providing adequate funding for our own men and women who bravely served? Was there no remorse in in the White House how the Congress had underfunded VA assistance programs for each of the years of the longest war in our history? Is there no shame for sending our brave soldiers into armed conflict without proper vehicle and body armor? Does one need a degree in Psychiatry to determine that Bush listened to no one and, like a runaway train, charged ahead on his own? Without a pause Bush’s purposes seemed clear: enriching his “Have More” friends and supporting, staging, and directing a war where war corporations made Trillions and the US Treasury went bankrupt to the tune of double-digit Trillions of dollars.
Yoshi Tsurumi, Bush’s Economics professor described Bush as a grave threat if he ever rose to power and had control over people and governments and laws. Tsurumi described Bush’s narcissistic persona perfectly in an article he wrote for the Harvard paper the “Harvard Crimson.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2004/7/16/former-hbs-prof-blasts-bush-as/