Who Does George Bush Think He Is?

Lest we forget, George W. Bush is still president, the eldest son born to power and privilege by primogeniture.

We the people have exactly seven more months of his reign and believe me, he won't miss a day of making the republic a little more miserable. He is, after all, an activist "wartime" president who, unlike his father, does not practice benign neglect.

For me, the latest outrage is not the aggressive move to lift the ban on ocean oil drilling on the outer continental shelf. That shouldn't surprise us. But you'd think he'd have prepared more to say to Iowans who were flooded out of their houses and farms than this: "The people of Iowa are tough-minded people." Almost as if the city drowned by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, didn't have enough "tough-minded" people.

Who does George Bush think he is?

Honestly, the answer, my friend, is Sir Winston S. Churchill. The President keeps a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office and takes every chance he gets to compare himself to the great British Prime Minister who emboldened his nation during the harrowing days, months and years of World War II:

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans... we shall fight in the fields and the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Bush is convinced he is made of the same Churchillian stuff. This is why we hear so much about "tyrants." This is how he carries on calmly with utter disregard for public opinion of the Iraq war and his "war on terror." He believes with certainty that the rest of us don't get the noble mission of prosecuting these wars, at the expense of everything else going on in the economy.

That smug sureness renders Congress, federal agencies and the press, not to mention the people, bit players in our democracy such as it is. Bush believes that with Churchill's ghost and God on his side, he will be vindicated by history. As President, Bill Clinton cared what the polls said, like stars to navigate by.

Go back to the goal Bush stated in the Second Inaugural Address: "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Hey, some of our best friends are tyrants, including the rulers of every Arab nation. But facts have never stood in his way as he changed our foreign policy stance almost overnight.

When Bush recently addressed the Knesset in Jerusalem, there was the tell-tale language again. "Appeasement" is the enemy, he said, conjuring up the ghosts of Churchill and his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who famously thought he could do business with the rising menace of Adolf Hitler and keep the peace at home.

During Bush' s London visit this week, the BBC reported, barely 30 seconds passed before Prime Minister Gordon Brown mentioned Churchill at a joint press conference at Downing Street. Well-prepped as Brown was, our special relationship with the Brits doesn't have to go that far. All it does is buttress the Churchillian complex and the Bush ego doesn't need another spoonful of sugar in his tea, thank you very much.

While the ruins of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center smoldered after the Sept. 11th attacks, Bush suggested we could all go shopping to fight terrorism. In a fateful hour, during his first statement as Prime Minister in 1940, Churchill told the House of Commons: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

The twain shall never meet. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the American president who was truly a kindred spirit with Churchill and his eloquence. Neither one bragged about being a "wartime" leader. I think Churchill would be deeply offended at the notion of a likeness between him and Bush.

Speaking of Churchill, Bush told the British ambassador years ago that Sir Winston was a man of great courage who knew what be believed. "And he really kind of went after it in a way that seemed like a Texan to me," he added.

There, I have it all wrong: apparently, Bush believes Churchill is like him. In any case, there's the matter of speaking in English.

Bush's talk would be the kind of language, Churchill might say, up with which he will not put.

Jamie Stiehm is a political journalist in Washington.

Comments

[skwan91607]

Bush is thinking he is a DECIDER who would put foods, lesser and lesser every day, on your table. "You" means his servants in his ranch.
Bush is thinking he is the model of an intelligent designed creature who can talk directly to god. So, god told him to start the Iraq war.
Bush is thinking he is a COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF who declared "mission accomplished" while American casualty was less than 100. It is more than 4000 today. He should be called Commander in shit.
Bush is thinking he is a MBA who considers American economy is still in good shape while everyone does not believe so. Don't be surprised he will never understand how you struggles for living today
Bush is thinking he does a great service for the American people to have Iraqis war. Americans will be beneficial in the future from such war. while only he and his cronies has such vision but not the others.
Impeachment off the table and his buddy in the supreme court, Bush is thinking what the hell you do to me. Bring it on. A red alert can give him another years in his current job.
He is a Joke to the world, but not to Americans while he is in the upper hand.

[LiberTLover]

Well he thinks God talks to him and tells him to go to war, maybe that should give us a clue.

[realpolitic]

So right, Churchhill or FDR would have never gone around bragging about being a wartime leader and constantly referring to himself as the Commander-in-Chief. Neither leader would have had nothing but sycophants around them as Bush does. Appeasement to Bush is not the act of making unilateral concessions to an enemy as Chamberlain did, but is simply talking with them. Most call it negotiations or diplomacy. Bush is only like a Churchill if Winston had a crazy brother somewhere who spoke constant gibberish.

[Toonadude]

And let's not forget how Churchill's daddy pulled strings to keep him from having to serve in the Second Boer War and in Malakand.

[realpolitic]

Great point!!

[PADDYWHACK]

There are similariti­es:Churchi­ll was responsible for the Dardanelles disaster based on lack of any real plan i.e.the Turks would not fight back even though they were known to be tough as nails.Hund­reds of thousands dead later the whole force withdrew.H­e caused a currency crisis with massive losses while in charge of the Treasury for the weekend,and was in charge of the disastrous Narvik expedition.
These are similar military and monetary missteps to George Winston Bush,Churchill wrote his own version of history,W can't write.The great mystery about Churchill is how he stayed alive politically;the commonest theory is that he was more useful in the tent pissing out.
Churchill has not been diminished by history because of his eloquence and literacy,maybe W should take an English course.

[Lisette]

Very good article
I agree Bush is very arrogant
And this is a situation
up with we won't have to put in 7 more months.

[Rescisco]

Who does Bush think he is? Don't know, but the suggestion that he "thinks" is the big news to me.

[MajorKong]

Iraq is not the Third Reich.
Bush is not Churchill.
This is not our finest hour.

[Desiderata]

And we countdown the days left of the Commander-­in-Grief's horrific abuse of the nation. Well, nation, better add a few more years to the countdown. Another false flag will be raised with Presidential Directive 51.

Todays Congress is like the Roman senate, surrendering the Republic to Caesar for the sake of their own privileges.

[Shaddup]

First, Bush is not a Texan, so why would he say Churchill acted like one. It's only more proof Bush ain't no Churchill. Although, he cash in on that "nothing to fear, but fear itself," it kept him in office. That and the blackmail, fixed elections, graft etc.

[bhenry112]

Maybe Bush is right. Churchill was a racist, imperialist asshole who thought that the sun should never set on the British (white) Empire. We may have watched too many episodes of "Victory At Sea" as kids. The real historical Churchill's views on the Third World would be indefensible today.

[serena1313]

Churchill never played on people's fears, nor did he distort intelligence to convince people to support an unnecessary war. Churchill acted on his convictions not a false sense of self-righteousness. Sir Winston Churchill was an English gentleman, not an ideologue.

Churchill: "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense."

Churchill stated that 'one of the first strengths of democracy is holding leaders to account for their decisions.­..'

As Winston Churchill put it, "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.­"

"Hitler knows that he must break us in this island or lose the war." Bush would have said "defeat". Blair would have said "beat". But Churchill said "break". If we stood up to Hitler, Churchill said, "all Europe may be free and the light of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands." Compare that to the "I am absolutely and totally convinced that I was right" of Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara when pontificating on Iraq."

Bush is no Churchill.

[pfc1369]

Of course, there is no way one can be "an English gentleman" and an ideologue.

Or so you say.

[RedDogBear]

I think you give Bush too much credit. The man is clearly an idiot who is good at campaigning and worthless at everything else. I seriously doubt that Bush even knows who Churchill really is. That stuff about apeasement was written by his speech writers not him.

[pfc1369]

And you know this how?

You realize of course that Churchill wrote a classic multi-volume history of WWII all by himself, and that he was a writer before he was a politician.

[framante]

Bush is just a spoiled, rich kid frat boy. If he didn't come from money, he would be a total unknown with no accomplishments. I never understood how anyone couldn't see through him. Yet, we elected him leader of the free world. See what we have done. It just goes to prove that voting matters.

[mmerose]

Far be it from "the loyal opposition" of Pelosi, Hoyer et al to disillusion His Churlishness, er Churchillianness.