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05.02 11 Baltimore City Students Win Awards in Md. History Day Competition
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05.15 Horrific Injuries Linked to BP Dispersant Corexit
05.15 'Last Call at the Oasis': Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water
05.14 German Government to Oppose Fracking
05.11 Petition calls on Brazilian president to veto 'catastrophic' forest code
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05.11 When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed
05.10 Game Over for the Climate
05.10 Pollution: the great leveller
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05.10 Big Agriculture's Big Secrets: 9 Things You Need to Know About the Food You Eat
05.09 Gloria Feldt: The War on Women [video]
05.02 Common Pesticide “Disturbs” the Brains of Children
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05.01 Big Changes in Ocean Salinity Intensifying Water Cycle
Ref. High health-care costs: It’s all in the pricing - graphic
Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics
Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators
Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
05.01 News Corporation has sought to undermine elected governments
Daily The Daily Howler
05.16 Is the filibuster unconstitutional?
05.15 MONEY UNLIMITED
05.11 How the Corporate Right Hijacked America's Courts to Enrich the Top 1 Percent
05.03 Supreme Court Favorability Reaches New Low
05.01 Eliot Spitzer’s challenge to DOJ as it investigates Wall Street: ‘Bring some cases’ - video
05.01 Laissez-faire with strip-searches: America's two-faced liberalism
05.16 5 Ways Conservatives are Destroying the Institution of Marriage
05.16 Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds Of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars
05.16 The Economic Case for Same-Sex Marriage
05.16 If Information Is Power, What Is Lack Of Information? [video]
05.15 IMAGE: It doesn't have to be true, just credible...
05.15 WEDDING BELLS
05.15 Memo to Mitt: Time to Fess Up on Bullying
05.14 “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
05.14 Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane
05.11 Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side
05.11 Fixable Error, New Insight, and Social Security
05.10 Ballot Access
05.10 Christian Conservatives vs. Sex: The Long War Over Reproductive Freedom
05.03 Out of the Margins, Into the Fray
05.03 Occupy May Day: Voices from the LA protests [video]
05.02 Jon Stewart Assails GOP for Their Hypocrisy on Obama Campaign Bringing Up Bin Laden [video]
05.02 Hamptons Home Prices Rise as Buyers Prefer Luxury Deals
05.02 The Administration Is Scared of Its Own Regulatory Shadow
05.16 “What Scares Me Isn’t $2 Billion Loss JP Morgan Made, What Scares Me is the Record $19 Billion in Profits” [video]
05.16 Republican Party suckles at the breast of Big Business
05.16 Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina
05.15 Greek deadlock heightens fears of full European economic crisis
05.14 Why We Regulate
05.11 Indentured Servitude for Seniors: Social Security Garnished for Student Debts
05.11 Breaking Up Four Big Banks
05.11 Wall Street’s immunity
05.11 How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
05.10 Real Estate 4 Ransom -- locking up the Great American Dream
05.10 Quelle Surprise! Fed Defends Incompetent Bank Management Against Investors
05.10 Europe’s Problems Multiply
05.09 Ryan Shrugs: Overlooked GOP Budget Provision Would Fuel Offshoring With New Tax Incentives
05.09 Top 1% Fills Gov. Scott Walker’s Recall War Chest With $25 Million
05.09 ALEC Affiliated Corporations
05.09 Teachers’ Board Becomes Fifteenth Group To Drop ALEC
05.09 ALEC’s Top Five Anti-Environment ‘Model’ Laws
05.09 Special Rights for ALEC: Three States Exempt Stealth Corporate Lobbying Group From Lobbying Rules
05.09 A web of privilege supports this so-called meritocracy
05.03 How Wall Street Drives Up Gas Prices -- Ripping Us Off and Killing Jobs
05.03 Paul Krugman on How to Fix the Economy - and Why It's Easier Than You Think
05.02 There is an alternative to austerity
05.01 Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism
05.01 Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!
05.01 Tea Party Congressmen Accept Cash From Bailed-Out Bankers
05.01 Paul Krugman and Ron Paul discuss economics – as it happened
05.01 No alternative to austerity
05.15 IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone
05.14 Noam Chomsky on:
• WikiLeaks, Obama’s Targeted Assassinations and Latin America’s Break From the U.S. [video]
•
Occupy Wall Street "Has Created Something That Didn’t Really Exist" in U.S. — Solidarity [video]
•
Palestinian Hunger Strike a Protest Against "Violations of Elementary Human Rights" [video]
05.14 INFOGRAPHIC: Gas Spending Around The World
05.14 Graphic: Products of Slavery
05.14 Israel warned of volatile situation as Palestinian hunger strikers near death
05.14 How Right-Wing Extremists and Islamists Are the Same
05.14 Guatemala's land grab and massacre
05.11 U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam
05.11 Thousands of British police join anti-austerity protest
05.10 China Investment Corp. Stops Buying Europe Government Debt on Crisis Concern
05.09 Inside Syria's crackdown: 'I found my boys burning in the street'
05.03 “We Did Not Choose This War” and Other Hypocrisies
05.03 Jobless Rate Reaches New High in Euro Zone
05.02 Collapsing Afghanistan & Pakistan Refuse to Cooperate with Obama Photo Op
05.02 Free the torture report
05.01 What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?
05.01 Quebec students ignite the popular imagination
05.01 Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in Resurgence
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PERSPECTIVE:
Bush's Disdainful Presidency
Animal House in the West Wing
So, when U.S. News cited “a top insider” describing how Bush likes to fart in the presence of junior White House staffers as a joke on them, the item was given the boys-will-be-boys title: “Animal House in the West Wing.”
According to U.S. News, Bush was just “a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can’t get enough of fart jokes. He’s also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides.” Bush was described, too, as someone who “loves to cuss [and] gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him.” [U.S. News, Aug. 20, 2006]
But Bush’s behavior could be viewed in a less sympathetic light. Given his famous thin skin whenever he feels slighted, his eagerness to demean others could be interpreted as a sign of his dynastic authority, a modern-day droit du seigneur in which he can humiliate others but they can’t return the favor.
Indeed, this tendency to assert his superior position over others by subjecting them to degrading treatment has been a recurring part of Bush’s persona dating back at least to his days as an “enforcer” on his father’s presidential campaigns.
Later in the campaign, when Newsweek ran a cover story with the image of George H.W. Bush on a boat with the headline, “Fighting the Wimp Factor,” a furious George W. Bush enforced a year-long punishment of Newsweek by barring the magazine’s reporters from access to key campaign insiders.
As Texas governor, Bush would mock people on Death Row. In a famous interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, Bush imitated condemned murderess Carla Faye Tucker’s unsuccessful plea for clemency. “Please don’t kill me,” Bush whimpered through pursed lips, mimicking the woman he had put to death.
In another example of Bush’s put-down humor, the Texas governor lined up with a group of men for a photo and fingered the man next to him. “He’s the ugly one!” Bush laughed, before realizing that the incident was being observed by a reporter. [NYT, Aug. 22, 1999]
Other times, Bush showed how prickly he can be when facing criticism. During a campaign stop in Naperville, Ill., Bush groused to his running mate, Dick Cheney, about what Bush considered negative coverage from New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. “There’s Adam Clymer – major league asshole – from the New York Times,” Bush said as he was waving to a campaign crowd from a stage in Naperville, Ill.
“Yeah, big time,” responded Cheney. Their voices were picked up on an open microphone.
During a presidential debate in 2000, Bush was back to making light of Texas executions. While arguing against the need for hate-crimes laws, Bush said the three men convicted of the racially motivated murder of James Byrd were already facing the death penalty.
“It’s going to be hard to punish them any worse after they’re put to death,” Bush said, with an out-of-place smile across his face. Beyond the inaccuracy of his statement – one of the three killers had received life imprisonment – there was that smirk again when discussing people on Death Row.
At a press conference at his Crawford ranch on Aug. 24, 2001, Bush called on a Texas reporter who had covered Bush as governor. Bush said the young reporter was “a fine lad, fine lad,” drawing laughter from the national press corps.
The Texas reporter then began to ask his question, “You talked about the need to maintain technological ...” But Bush interrupted the reporter to deliver his punch line: “A little short on hair, but a fine lad. Yeah.”
As Bush joined in the snickering, the young reporter paused and acknowledged meekly, “I am losing some hair.”
Bush’s joy in mocking bald men didn’t stop with reporters.
At a joint White House press conference May 16, 2006, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Bush slipped in a couple of zingers about Howard’s bald head and supposed homeliness.
Bush joshed, “Somebody said, ‘You and John Howard appear to be so close, don’t you have any differences?’ And I said, ‘yes, he doesn’t have any hair.’”
Getting a round of laughs from reporters, Bush moved on to his next joke: “That’s what I like about John Howard,” Bush said. “He may not be the prettiest person on the block, but when he tells you something you can take it to the bank.”
Howard played the role of gracious guest, smiling and saying nothing in response to the unflattering comments about his physical appearance.
In a generally flattering portrait of Bush in the 2003 book, The Right Man, former Bush speechwriter David Frum acknowledged that Bush often used sarcasm to dress down his subordinates as well as his political opponents.
Bush is “impatient and quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill informed,” Frum wrote. When referring to environmentalists, Bush would call them “green-green lima beans,” according to Frum.
Other times, Bush’s harsh humor has complicated U.S. foreign policy, including the tense relations with North Korea. During a lectern-pounding tirade before Republican leaders in May 2002, Bush insulted North Korea’s diminutive dictator Kim Jong Il by calling him a “pygmy,” Newsweek reported. The slur quickly circulated around the globe.
While many Bush backers find his acid tongue and biting humor refreshing – the sign of a “politically incorrect” politician – some critics contend that Bush’s casual insults fit with a dynastic sense of entitlement toward the presidency and toward those he rules.
In a round-table discussion on Dec. 23, 2001, Russert joined New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and First Lady Laura Bush in ruminating about whether divine intervention had put Bush in the White House to handle the crisis. Russert asked Mrs. Bush if “in an extraordinary way, this is why he was elected.” Mrs. Bush disagreed with Russert’s suggestion that “God picks the President, which he doesn’t.”
This hagiographic treatment of Bush might have been intended to boost his confidence in the face of a national crisis. But the flattery instead seems to have fed an egotism that devoured any remaining self-doubts.
The swelling of Bush’s head was apparent in his interview for Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, which took a largely flattering look at Bush’s “gut” decision-making but reported some disturbing attitudes within the White House.
“I am the commander, see,” Bush told Woodward. “I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”
So, Bush had come to see himself as beyond accountability, much as ancient royalty viewed their own powers as unlimited under the divine right of kings. In the traditional droit du seigneur, a nobleman had the right to deflower the bride of a male subject on their first night of marriage.
Now we’re told that George W. Bush has another way of demonstrating his supremacy over subordinates: when new White House aides are brought in to be introduced to the President of the United States, the President farts.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on August 28, 2006.
