American Mugabe

American Mugabe
by David Michael Green | Apr 2 2007 - 9:22am

Most Americans really don't understand their president.

And, no, I'm not even talking about the thirty percent or so who still give him a positive approval rating. I'm not sure those folks understand anything.

Among the remaining seventy percent, however, I would estimate that the vast bulk still have not fully apprehended what we're dealing with here. Because what we're dealing with is nothing short of an American Mugabe.

Even among the vast majority who disapprove of Bush's performance as president, the typical sentiments expressed toward him are exactly that - essentially characterized by a disapproval of his performance. It's easy to see Bush as inept, unintelligent, stubborn, lazy and dogmatic, because he is certainly all those things, and he should therefore be seen in that accurate light.

But this view of Bush is also, paradoxically, highly inaccurate, because it is so radically incomplete. It is as if one were to observe a vicious dog once only, while it was at rest. Since it is true that the animal sometimes rests, the perception of it as a (sometimes) peaceful creature would in one sense be quite accurate. But, by virtue of what was omitted, that perception would also be simultaneously woefully incomplete, and therefore woefully inaccurate.

Bush is an arrogant and incapable buffoon, ridiculously puffed up with his rigidly held assurance of his own greatness by definition (as in, "I know I'm doing the right thing - and God agrees when I talk to him - so therefore I am, any and all evidence to the contrary.") Most Americans now see that, even if they were embarrassingly slow to get there (and they were).

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/6496

even after I posted it a few days ago....