Around the Bend
One of my readers (apologies, I can’t remember who’s site I saw this at) brought this harrowing little tidbit to my attention. It’s a story from the gossip blog Capitol Hill Blue, purporting to describe the President’s precarious mental state and erratic behavior. I have no idea if it’s true. I certainly hope it’s not. But you can’t say that Bush has given us great reason to laugh it off as entirely implausible.
The really scary thing about this piece is not what it says about the President, which could very well be entirely fabricated, but what the reaction of his supporters would be if it were true. Let’s say it were possible to get four or five independent confirmations that, yes, the POTUS is acting like a paranoid psychopath, “quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as ‘enemies of the state.’” You know the drill. The damage control team would swing into action, and we would see the following reactions:
- Discredit the accusers – they’re all partisan, unhinged, incompetent, disloyal, afraid of being fired, mentally ill or hopeless corrupt.
- Deny it categorically and blame the left-wing media for propagating an outrageous lie.
- Change the terms of the debate, try to redefine the context so that the story seems insignificant or ridiculous.
- Admit to something less serious than what’s being charged. “Well, sometimes the President blows off a bit of steam. What’s so wrong with that?”
- Faced with insurmountable evidence, brazen it out and make excuses. “So what if it’s true? Maybe this behavior is justified, considering the pressure you’ve put on the President. If you take him down for this, you’re just giving in to the terrorists.”
We’ve seen this pattern before whenever Bush has come under intense criticism. It’s happened with the Richard Clarke revelations about 9/11, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story, the Abu Ghraib case, and so on down the line. In a sense, you can’t blame the President’s minions. It’s their job to defend their guy, and if they’re not willing to go balls out to do it, they have no business working for the Administration. Fair enough.
What’s much more troubling how the vast number of people in the country who are not on the Bush payroll or RNC stooges would react. Presented with a plausible case that the President is off the deep end on one hand, and a series of predictable, scripted and misleading denials and countercharges on the other, many would still choose to believe a happy fable over the troubling truth.
I don’t want to take this too far because of the dubious quality of the original report, but it’s an interesting question to ask. Exactly how far do people’s tribal affiliations go, and what are their implications for democracy?
Caveat to commenters: we are talking about Bush here, not Clinton. I recognize there are some superficial parallels between supporting Clinton against the (accurate) charges made against him regarding his personal conduct, and defending Bush from repeated questions about his judgment and behavior. As a Clinton supporter myself, I made the judgment that the acts for which Clinton was made to answer – including the perjury – had no bearing on his overall fitness for office. Honest people can, and clearly do, disagree with that judgment. But in my view, it’s a different matter entirely when the charges relate directly to the President’s professional responsibilities, decisions and conduct. In any case, Clinton was impeached and tried, and if he deserved that, Bush deserves no less.
12:40:38 PM 
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