Zen-like calm of a president at war

kamobe

I'm not normally one for posting in the politics forums, but never have I been so 'amused' by an article in the papers (more specifically, the indo):

Even the closest aides to George W. Bush, a man who runs one of the most efficient, clean-living and least introspective White Houses in presidential history, could only marvel at the serenity of their commander-in-chief as he launched America's first pre-emptive war: a 6.45pm order in the Oval Office to unleash initial air strikes, then on to a relaxed and unhurried dinner with the First Lady, a four-minute address to the nation at 10.15pm and in bed, asleep, by 11pm.

As he sat at his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday night, about to tell his country that America was at war, in defiance of the United Nations, in the face of fierce opposition home and abroad, there was no hint of self-doubt, or guilt or moral uncertainty.

Give the article in it's entirety a read (if you havent already) for an astonishingly unexpected praising of the stupist man ever to hold the American presidency...

davelerave

you'll have to post the lot it's members only there

OfflerCrocGod

His zen like stupidity is what they meant i'd say , he is obviously obvilious to what he has done; he is too stupid to realise the consequences.

It's not calmness in George Bushs head its a lack of a sense of reality

oeNeo

Whole article:

Even the closest aides to George W. Bush, a man who runs one of the most efficient, clean-living and least introspective White Houses in presidential history, could only marvel at the serenity of their commander-in-chief as he launched America's first pre-emptive war: a 6.45pm order in the Oval Office to unleash initial air strikes, then on to a relaxed and unhurried dinner with the First Lady, a four-minute address to the nation at 10.15pm and in bed, asleep, by 11pm.

As he sat at his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday night, about to tell his country that America was at war, in defiance of the United Nations, in the face of fierce opposition home and abroad, there was no hint of self-doubt, or guilt or moral uncertainty.

Seconds before he began the address, he spotted an aide in the audience, gave a little shake of his left fist, and said: "I feel good." There is no doubt he did, for this is a President who views the world largely in terms of good and evil. In President Saddam Hussein, he sees a foe that he has a moral and religious duty to destroy. For Mr Bush, it is a casus belli so obvious, and so unambiguous, that it brings with it the clearest of consciences.

As he gave the order that cleared the way for his military commanders to launch the full-scale "shock and awe" air assault on Iraq, amid reports of Iraqi missile strikes on Kuwait and Pentagon claims that Saddam had ordered the destruction of oil wells, he was already musing on his dinner date: Paul Biya, the President of Cameroon, whose invitation was extended a fortnight ago when the White House was courting the country for its Security Council support.

No matter that the war had now begun. It was not allowed to derail dinner with the leader of a tiny African nation; nor did it stop the President's regular midday run and workout. John F. Kennedy wrote of his admiration for men who show grace under pressure. Mr Bush is different. He never feels under pressure. How does he achieve such a Zen-like state of certainty and calm?

The official story of his life is one of redemption, of a man who on his 40th birthday renounces alcohol, embraces a quiet but liberating brand of evangelism and, after a failed business career, embarks on an extraordinary journey to his political destiny.

It is also the story of a President chosen in the most controversial circumstances, the loser of the popular vote, elected with little executive experience and little interest in world affairs, a man not entirely sure of his political purpose until the events of September 11 swept away all shades of grey and thrust upon him the sureness of purpose that has defined his presidency since.

What is less obvious is that those strengths - tenacity, decisiveness and a visceral loathing of hand-wringing and self-doubt - have been there all his life, but it took September 11 to galvanise them.

The stories of his wild days as a Yale student, that continued into his married life and early business and political career, are manifold. His irreverence and sometime boorishness even continued though his father's presidency and into his own. In May 1991, his father invited Queen Elizabeth to the White House for a state banquet. When his mother introduced him to the monarch, he told her that he was the black sheep of the Bush family and then asked her: "Who's yours?" She told him it was none of his business.

Even during his 2000 presidential campaign, the impish George W. Bush, the Yale rabble-rouser, president of its Delta Kappa Epsilon, the hardest-partying, sport-orientated fraternity on campus, could not contain itself. At Yale, he had two run-ins with police: when he stole a Christmas wreath from a New Haven shop front and again when he and friends tore down the Princeton goal posts after a football game. During the 2000 campaign, there were many who thought he had yet to grow up.

But throughout his days as a prankster, the future President, a rebel by the standards of the strictly Presbyterian, patrician Bush clan, was already demonstrating the traits that one day would see him declare that when it comes to terrorism, nations "are either with us or against us".

One Yale contemporary said: "If you were not with the pack, there was no room for you. All gradations were lost."

Robert Birge, a classmate, said the conservative influence of his parents, and a sense of duty, was also apparent in those early 1970s college days. When it came to Vietnam, Mr Birge said: "He thought, if the decision had been made, you back up the country and stop whining. He was unique among all my friends that he had that attitude."

It also reflected a temperament that was practical, and not at all philosophical. "If this was something you couldn't do anything about, why waste your time worrying about it?"

Friends say that he has long viewed the world in black and white terms, and there are two reasons: his religion and the influence of his mother.

There have been many comparisons between the elder and younger Bush Presidents, but aides and friends say it is clear that Mr Bush is his mother's son. September 11 simply amplified the traits he inherited from Barbara Bush, the former First Lady: a sharp tongue, a stubborn will, a heavy reliance on gut instinct and a black and white morality. That is why September 11, and now Iraq, in terms of unequivocal leadership, have been the making of him.

April Foley, a friend since his days at Harvard Business School, said that the moment he demonstrated himself to be his mother's son came when, in the middle of the World Trade Centre rubble, he bellowed into a megaphone: "The people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon!"

"There is a strong-willed, plain-spoken stubbornness in her son," Charlie Black, an adviser, said. On Saddam he said: "His father would be more likely to leave the impression he was arguable on it. He wouldn't say it so adamantly publicly. He was always big on not showing his cards." Barbara Bush, by contrast, "didn't pull her punches. Neither does her son".

Donald Evans, Mr Bush's Commerce Secretary and a longtime friend, recalled the future President's reaction to his defeat in a 1978 Congressional race. There was not one regret, Mr Evans said. "He did not see anything to apologise for. He said it was time to move on. He's not afraid of what other people may say about him."

Mr Bush's serenity on Wednesday night also had much to do with his religion. In the summer of 1985, he met Billy Graham, the evangelical preacher, at the family house in Kennebunkport, Maine. Today, his White House is infused with a quiet evangelical devotion.

Staff who do not attend Bible classes are frowned upon. Every morning, Mr Bush, even before taking his wife a cup of coffee, reads a daily devotional prayer from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, a First World War Scottish preacher. On the morning he declared war, Mr Bush read: "The final stage in life of faith is the attainment of character . . . a life of walking without fainting."

David Frum, a former speechwriter whose biography, The Right Man, was the first insider account of the Bush White House, said that Mr Bush had many faults. "He is impatient and quick to anger, sometimes glib, even dogmatic . . . but his vision was large and clear. Bush's vision is not occupied by guilt or self-doubt."

Mr Frum, who wrote the President's January 2002 Axis of Evil speech, said yesterday: "There is a fatalistic element in Mr Bush's faith. You do your best and accept that everything is in God's hands. I am not even sure that he has self-confidence. He just does what he does, because he is one of the least introspective men I have ever met.

"This is a characteristic shared by other successful political leaders. Franklin D. Roosevelt was notorious for his lack of self-introspection. Ronald Reagan almost drove his biographer insane, because he never looked inwards."

Mr Frum says that the key to understanding Mr Bush can be found in a speech by the President at Yale, in May 2001. "When I left here, I didn't have much in the way of a life plan. I knew some people who thought they did. But it turned out that we were all in for ups and downs, most of them unexpected. Life takes its turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story. And along the way, we start to realise we are not the author."

Mr Frum said: "The great discipline for Bush is not worrying over decisions that have been already made. He gave the order on Wednesday night. What was the point of staying up? He needed to be rested for the coming day, so he went to bed."

Another quiet but powerful influence on the President is Laura, his wife, who persuaded him in her understated way to quit drinking. But Mr Bush also has the self-confidence to surround himself with people far more qualified than him, to whom he is happy to delegate and take advice. These include Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, a veteran of four Republican administrations; Karen Hughes, an adviser to whom he looks for approval more than anyone else, and Karl Rove, his political strategist who has attained Svengali status inside Washington.

The war cabinet is thus deep on experience, and tensions have been inevitable. Even on Wednesday, in a photograph released by the White House, the body language between Mr Cheney and George Tenet, the CIA Director with whom he has disagreed in the past, was unmistakably fractious.

But when the time comes for decision-making, according to Bob Woodward, the veteran Washington journalist who has had unprecedented access to the Bush war cabinet, it is Mr Bush who leads.

Mr Frum agrees. "He is the guy who stiffens spines in this Administration."

Pretty damn long.

TomF

Give George W. Bush a John F. Kennedy accent (and a J.F.K. speechwriter) and you will instantly make the left wing of the English-speaking world love him. It's all in his accent.

Shinji

Give George W. Bush a John F. Kennedy accent (and a J.F.K. speechwriter) and you will instantly make the left wing of the English-speaking world love him.

I think we might still have some issues with his politics

Besides, it's not like anyone really believes the man to be anything more than a puppet. Give him a Kennedy accent and a Kennedy speechwriter and he wouldn't be Bush any more. He's just putty in the hands of his "advisors".

Victor

As he sat at his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday night, about to tell his country that America was at war, in defiance of the United Nations, in the face of fierce opposition home and abroad, there was no hint of self-doubt,

Except when they didn't tell him the cameras were rolling before the speech and there was a 15 second delay beofer he started.

Éomer of Rohan

Give George W. Bush a John F. Kennedy accent (and a J.F.K. speechwriter) and you will instantly make the left wing of the English-speaking world love him. It's all in his accent.

Come now, there is no rationality behind that; I think that Bill Clinton was very charismatic but that doesn't stop me thinking that most of his policies were wrong - especially his policies with regard to abortion in the US.
Admittedly GWB strikes me as illiterate, unintelligent and unimaginative but that is nothing to do with his accent - it is what he says ans the way he fails to say it.

aine

Robert Birge, a classmate, said the conservative influence of his parents, and a sense of duty, was also apparent in those early 1970s college days. When it came to Vietnam, Mr Birge said: "He thought, if the decision had been made, you back up the country and stop whining. He was unique among all my friends that he had that attitude."

didnt he go AWOL??!!

and the reason he was so calm is coz hes sooooooooooo stupid that there was probably absolutely nothing going through his head apart from....'damn this tie lloks good on me, brings out the colour of my eyes' or 'mmmmm I wonder whats for dessert, hopefully no pretzels!'

having read the whole article youd wonder who actually wrote it? I didnt think anybody apart from Mommy Bush loved him that much! although you gotta wonder is it somebody pulling the proverbial?!!

the part about the queen...priceless!

bonkey

"He is impatient and quick to anger, sometimes glib, even dogmatic . . . but his vision was large and clear. Bush's vision is not occupied by guilt or self-doubt."

"There is a fatalistic element in Mr Bush's faith. You do your best and accept that everything is in God's hands. I am not even sure that he has self-confidence. He just does what he does, because he is one of the least introspective men I have ever met."

I hardly think that this could be considered flattering. Worrying, maybe, but not flattering. I see nothing admirable in following a vision without stopping to reflect upon it and yourself on a regular basis.

Indeed, I would go further and say that there is nothing inherently good in having a vision that is pursued clear from guilt or self-doubt.

Staff who do not attend Bible classes are frowned upon.

So much for freedom of religion.....I guess it means "free, as long as its Christian of some sort, and devout" in this case.

jc