People have been writing me recently to ask my thoughts about Petraeus and his relationship to Bush. It is pretty simple, really. In David Petraeus, George W. Bush has found his new Dick Cheney -- a man who can speak for him in an articulate way -- and stand up to questions. As we recall, Bush was too afraid to appear alone in front of the 9/11 commission; he had to take Cheney with him.
Now Congress and 70% of America have become Bush's equivalent of the 9/11 Commission, so he enlists General Petraeus -- along with newly minted photo ops -- to make his case. Bush has always talked a good game in front of vetted, sympathetic crowds like the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Legion. But when there is a risk of genuine interrogation Bush needs a partner -- a phallic spokesman. He needs a new Dick, a new stand-up guy. And he's found one.
In simple psychoanalytic terms, Cheney and Petraeus are functionally interchangeable phallic enhancements, compensating for Bush's sense of smallness. His fear of appearing weak could drive him to ever more reckless positions. New adventures -- like attacking Iran -- remain viable options for a President who equates leaving Iraq with personal humiliation.
As I wrote recently in "Dangers of a Cornered George Bush" (7/27), Bush "will flinch only if directly confronted and, so far, there has been no one to confront him in a way that gets through to him. The son has great fear of being seen as not as big as his father, and works hard to avoid public exposure of his inadequacies." Hence his need for a new mouthpiece, which for him doubles as his codpiece.
What remains difficult to understand is how Bush gets highly respected generals, like Colin Powell and David Petraeus, to do his dirty work. They are the ones, not Bush, who end up suffering public humiliation. Is it some perverse idea of loyalty to the Commander-in-Chief that no matter how destructively wrong-headed he is they will willingly squander life-long reputations as respected public servants to justify his war? Or are they gallantly responding to the fact that he is only a "bush"?