He likes to call himself the commander-in-chief, a hypocritical stance since he did everything in his and his daddy's power to avoid going to war during the Vietnam era. Perhaps coward-in-chief would be more appropriate.
He also loves to call himself a "war time president," another blatant use of fantasy since the only war he manages is the one he created himself based on lies and fabricated rationale.
Now he's got a new, self-indulgent title.
Decider-in-chief? A key statement to the arrogance that is George W. Bush.
"I decide what is best," he says.
For Bush the game has always been about power. Absolute power. Dictatorial power.
This is the American President who said: "it would be much easier if this was a dictatorship, as long as I get to be the dictator."
At the time some people thought he was joking. Those who know him knew he wasn't.
"Of all the Presidents I've served or observed, George W. Bush is the least receptive to the opinion of others," says political scientist George Harleigh, who served in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations. "He has no interest in what others think and he doesn't listen to the advice of experts or professionals."
In 1999, while completing a profile of Harris County, Texas, Judge Robert Eckels, I interviewed a number of Texas political observers. Republican and Democrat alike agreed that then Gov. George W. Bush was stubborn, arrogant and used to having his own way.
"He's an a**hole," said Tom Delaney, who worked on Bush's second gubernatorial campaign. "He can smile at you while cutting off your balls."
Dr. Justin Frank, a prominent George Washington University psychiatrist and author of the book, Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, says Bush has a cruel, sadistic streak that goes back to his childhood when a young George gleefully bragged about dissecting cats, cutting them open while they were still alive.
The boy who tortured cats, Dr. Frank says, grew up into an alcohol-abusing bully who strikes out at anyone who opposes him.
All one has to do is confront the President and the bully emerges.
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