The Decider as Master

Bush fires those who are disloyal. Those who are subservient and loyal are never fired, no matter their level of incompetence or corruption. Roughly a month ago, Chuck Schumer went on CNN's Late Edition and called for Gonzales' resignation and, in response, Lindsey Graham said: "I think the fact that Senator Schumer asked for him to step down means he won't."

That is how Bush works. If someone demands that Bush take action, he will petulantly refuse simply to demonstrate that he does not comply with anyone else's will. He is The Decider, nobody else, and nothing is more important than for him to demonstrate that. And loyalty to the Leader is valued infinitely higher than either integrity or competence, which are not remotely required for positions in the administration. . . .

In Bush's mind, the greatest sin is admitting error, or capitulating in any way to the Enemy. Firing Gonzales because Chuck Schumer demands it or because editorialists insist that there was wrongdoing here is exactly the opposite of how Bush behaves.  Greenwald

I am the President.  I am the Decider.  I am the Master.  I do as I will, not as others will me to do. With Bush I really do think that it is this primitive and this simple.  Even Rumsfeld's firing is likely more linked to his wavering on the question of the administration's approach to the Iraq War than to outside pressure to fire him. 

Bush's posturing regarding Gonzales illustrates what I was talking about in yesterday's post: Never submit. To submit is to lose face.  To submit is dishonorable.  In some situations this kind of defiance is an admirable trait, but it's not when it means to persist in egoistic delusion. The difference between virtue and madness is in knowing when to bend and when to stand firm.  Bush seems to have no capacity to make the distinction. I don't know if he's crazy, but at the very least, he has the emotional maturity of an adolescent, and in a sixty-year old man, that's not good.

It will be interesting to see if he actually let's Gonzales go.  It doesn't really matter if he does. (Gates's replacement of Rumsfeld has worked out well, hasn't it?  Things are so much better now.)  Why should Bush fire him?  What motivation does he have at this point?  He doesn't have to run again.  He has no more political support to lose. He has no hope of accomplishing anything in what remains of his term.  His only goal now is to save himself from humiliation. I don't think it's possible to exaggerate how this face-saving intransigence is at the core of White House policy at this point.  It defines the common ground between what we're seeing in the President's intransigence about continuing in Iraq and in supporting Gonzales.

I see Gonzales leaving only if there's a threat that keeping him around will lead to more humiliation revelations that might be avoided if he's is thrown under the bus. Gonzales represents the tip of an iceberg of so much that the administration wants not to see the light of day. It's not clear to me that a Gonzales outside the administration will benefit Bush in a way that keeping him will.  Perhaps he and the revelations associated with him e can be controlled better if he's still kept on the administration leash. We'll see. 

 

Comments

[Matt Zemek]

Jack:

These two spot-on posts--about Va Tech and Gonzalez--show something more fundamental within the notion of what it is to be a master or a slave: namely, the fact--and it pretty much is a fact--that most Americans view strength as something that is only (or can only be) physical.

The notion that strength is fundamentally spiritual is a foreign notion in our supposedly God-believing, "Judeo-Christian," "most-moral-in-the-world" nation that right-wing evangelicals uphold.

Did you read Bruce Ramsey's Seattle Times column this past week? He talked about how Islamic and Christian fundamentalists are very much alike, and should be unified in certain ways instead of wanting to visit death upon the other.

The very story of Sayyid Qutb, the man who gave rise to much of Islamic fundamentalism in the 20th century, proves this.