Pay Off The Rich And Banter With The Fools

This is how George W sees the world. The group he can't communicate with, he bribes with tax breaks and the ones he envisions he can are treated to "good old boy" buffoonery. I know that leaves a middle group, but he'll get them at church. So, it's a wrap. Persuasion tailored to fit the categories.

But then there's the international scene. Lately he's been awkwardly joshing with the press and seems to be so deliriously pleased with himself that he's taken that show on the road. No venue too prestigious for Bush banter, no world conditions too serious, seems to be Theory Why Not at the White House.

These are the actions of a man who thinks he has it all worked out - a frightening state of mind for someone who operates in the concrete rather than abstract domain of human cognition. He appears not to read micro-expressions or even overt gestures of disregard and disdain. For him there is no gray area. And it isn't so much that he doesn't understand the world and therefore he bumbles. That explanation doesn't work anymore. He's a "Just give me the facts I want to hear' kind of guy; a "Don't bother me with the details" "That's all I need to decide" cognitive miser. When he says, "Some of these guys talk too much" about six leaders of the world, it's because he's convinced he has the whole thing under control, as if Iraq proves it. And so, anything they have to say bores him and demonstrates how out-of-touch they are. He's a man who walks and talks as if what's happening now in the Middle East got his okay and, that's all that matters. All else is diversion. He's not an evil guy; he's just the wrong guy to be carrying our futures on his shoulders -- a "decider" with extraordinary power, intolerant of information.

How did we do this to ourselves, and to the rest of the world? Frankly, it should make all of us shudder.