Bush looks to his father to mend relations with Putin

Source: The Independent

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 30 June 2007

Tomorrow's summit between George Bush and Vladimir Putin raises the intriguing question of whether the shadow of the father can help the son bring an end to the frostiest period in ties between the United States and Russia since the Cold War?

For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Mr Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Mr Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.

The White House confirmed yesterday that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Mr Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.

Tomorrow and Monday, his son will be hoping to do the same. "What the President wants ... is the ambience and the background and the life out here just as it is when our family is here," Mr Bush Snr told a local radio station yesterday. "You sit down, no neckties, in a beautiful house looking over the sea and talk frankly without a lot of strap-hangers and note-takers."

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2723234.ece

relations with Putin, he can start by not calling him "Pooty-Poot". And this coming from the President of the U.S. What an idiot he is.

(did he?) :rofl:

to come up with that one. It's been talked about several times in the news that it's junior's pet name for Putin. He also has nicknames for other world leaders that he is not shy about others knowing. I swear he is brain dead.

:eyes:

He has had an aura of failure surrounding his persona these past weeks especially when he almost broke down
( see this video : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x37148 )
plus his relationship with his father has never been good. He has been worrying about his fate as his father's son quite a lot.


For a psychotherapist it's impossible to believe that GWB's private mind doesn't sting with a emotional awareness we might imagine as follows:

My father's "aid" has repeatedly turned my failures into apparent success. He has repeatedly indicated that he has little faith in me. In my secret heart I know that I have had no success on my own. I am not capable of it. Yet I must never let on that I feel this way. In fact, I must refuse even to allow myself to feel this way. I must show my father and the world that I am own man though I am not." That is the inner conflict.


April 2004. Bush refuses to testify under oath before the 9/11 Commission on his most decisive issue, and refuses to face the commission alone. He says he needs Vice-President Cheney to come with him. Psychiatrist Justin A. Frank calls this "his ultimate expression of dependency " and says it seems impossible to justify. Bush claims he needs Cheney there is so that commission members can "see our body language… how we work together." Can we detect the feelings of inadequacy working here?

Early 2006. Reports say that behind the scenes the President's father has been trying to remove Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and find a replacement. Rumsfeld had interfered with the career path of the elder Bush and was the father's bitter enemy, so there are multiple motives here. The president apparently rejects his father's efforts and when seven retired generals demand Rumsfeld's resignation, the younger Bush reacts by declaring, "I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain." Hard not to hear the echoes of a father and his teenage son arguing over who knows best, a father worrying that his son isn't up to the job and enacting an "I told you so" for taking Rumsfeld in the first place; a son insisting he's his own man. The sound of old buttons getting pushed. A few months later, after his party's stunning election defeat, the son takes on his father's new Rumsfeld replacement, his father's crony Robert Gates, all the while insisting that dad has nothing to do with the decision. When asked by Fox reporter Britt Hume about his father's influence on decisions, Bush replies with fist clenched and smile crooked, "I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/12/05/BL2006120500720_pf.html


An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down or give way. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His boyish penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them, particularly if the name diminishes them, reduces them to one quality or characteristic. Most nicknames, except in bullying situations, arise as a kind of mutual naming. The name is suggested; the recipient accepts it as a sign of affection. It's not clear the people the president gives nicknames to feel they have that choice.
He probably got this from his bullying Mother.

I suspect that his mother and father will play their perspective developmental and family roles at the summit
with Lil bush playing his.

"An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down or give way. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His boyish penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them, particularly if the name diminishes them, reduces them to one quality or characteristic. Most nicknames, except in bullying situations, arise as a kind of mutual naming. The name is suggested; the recipient accepts it as a sign of affection. It's not clear the people the president gives nicknames to feel they have that choice.
He probably got this from his bullying Mother."

SUCH a great point!

I wanted to copy it in here and put it in my journal because it's so spot-on. I've been saying the same thing, especially about that damned, galling habit of his to "bestow nicknames" on people. WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS???? What was so disgraceful is how, like so many hungry pound puppies, the press lapped it up. After their first encounter with his lordship, they probably all went back to the press bus and compared what nicknames he gave out, and whose was cuter or suggested a more favored status to the recipient (hey, look, guys! Get a load of MY nickname!!! I'M his pet!!! He obviously likes me better than you!!!").

It ABSOLUTELY IS a diminishing, discounting, power-asserting move - to nickname people you've just met or barely know. As though YOU are the lord and master, and they are the subservient or dependent ones. Who'd he think he was, Adam in the Garden of Eden? Some big God-figure told him to go name all the creatures around him? It's a subtle message of mastery or dominance over the one being nicknamed - putting them in a lesser position. Because they were so fawning back then, they VERY likely DID interpret it as a gesture of affection. Especially since they weren't paying a whole lot of attention to his background, the psychology behind his moves and motivations, or anything much about him below the shallow surface he showed them all the time. And because they just liked him somehow, and thought Al Gore was more of a stuffed-shirt, cold-fish, know-it-all rather than this easy-going good-ol'-boy they could go have a beer with, they left it at that. And they thus helped him get into position to screw us ALL - themselves included.

His minions are still trying to do that to us as a group, even to this very day, by referring to us as "The Democrat Party" or "the Democrat bill" or "the Democrat this-or-that." THEY are trying to assume a superior position over us by determining for us and for everyone else what we are to be called, and how we are to be referred. And I ABSOLUTELY call BULLSHIT on that! I will NEVER accept the yoke of their naming strategy upon myself. They will NEVER name me because I'm not some subservient or slave or possession or pet or one of "the help."

Just totally galls me. I'm glad it's being exposed.

Says he might be planning to make a move toward Iran around the time he gets his pacemaker batteries replaced. WTF? On topic--looks like Bush's surrogate Daddy is out, real daddy back in.

it needs to go into the editorial section cause it hits
on the Washington Post story.

I loved the title though

during one of Bushie's pressers this spring. Wish I had that photo.

Vice President Dick Cheney in the Rose Garden at the White House, April 3, 2007.

Especially after the "Let's put ABMs in the Czech Republic so they can take out ... um ... Iranian or NKean missiles" fiasco of late.

Almost as stupid as Dick Shelby wanting "conventional warheads" on ICMS and then on submarines at that!

Good Lord, I think that everyone even contemplating running for office should have a copy of Immanuel Kant's "What is enlightenment?" essay read to them daily until they have the tenets memorized! Then maybe the Junius letters and then the hard stuff: Paine and the Constitution.

What will Pootie-Poot's cap say? I'm sure that Big Bush and Little Bush will be wearing their 41 and 43 caps.

And will Putin be wearing a windbreaker embroidered with "Vladimir Putin, President, Russian Federation? Maybe he'll wear socks with the Russian Federation seal on them.

Is that why Pootie is frosted?

What good is she, then?

shoes, piano lessons, intellectual hypocrisy:

with her time in Denver
when it was exploding, her life has been a shelter of experience,
which lead to a myopic vision of civil rights and moral ambiguity.

She has never married, she is doing a father thing with her worship of Jr.
as a woman that had her first experience in her sexual development.

She is smart, but wisdom and knowledge are too incoherent opposite inanities to her


It is strange she has a lot of quotes which go on this theme
"No one ever thought"

. I guess she is waiting for her Conoco ship to come in
to prove validity in her consciousness.
Worthless and a poor academic and intellectual.

"You would think"