I have to wonder how many who seek the office do so with the notion that something is wrong and think they are the one who can correct it. I doubt many are of the notion that all is running well and the job looks ''cushy''. Just my thought. Happy turkey day to those north of the border.
George W. Bush, because I care enormously what happens to the United States and also because I care what the rest of the world thinks when it sees him as its leader. Think of the contempt many of you have felt for Boris Yeltsin, or one or another of the various French and or Italian Prime Ministers.
I have been thinking for rather a long time about the contrast between George W. and his brother Jeb. Or the contrast between George W. and George H. W.. I think the difference is one of connectedness. Jeb projects the sense that he gets it, that he sees the person speaking to him and that he listens even if that sense is an illusion as it often is in politicians. George H.W. for all his patrician detachment also projected a sense that the United States was not some gigantic Tinkertoy for him to play with, but was an entity with a history to which he had the opportunity to contribute. Whether you liked his politics or not, he was a good caretaker of the legacy. I'm not anti-Bush, I'm anti George W.
George W. projects nothing except total self-involvement IMO. He gives me the sense that he grew up thinking he was entitled to anything he wanted, but cared for nothing. He still leaves me feeling that he has no feeling for, and cares not a bit for the 230 years of history that comprise the US, or the glorious experiment of inventing the beginnings of a truly democratic government out of almost nothing, and with no precedents. He has no attachment to the past or to the future. To him you can change anything because there is no consequence to him personally. People don't matter to him, but his own desires and feelings do. He can conceive an idea on a whim and put it into action regardless of the cost to the US financially, militarily or in terms of embarassment in the face of world opinion because he has no empathy for anyone. It's all just him, him, him, aided and abetted by people who are either just like him or whose position and self-interest is defined by manipulating and supporting him.
It's like watching the US governed by a socio-path determined to do away with checks and balances because they ruin his fun.
Rob