This sort of devil-may-care attitude about the rules is nothing new for Bush. Again, there were other signs of it in his youth.
This photo and the attached caption actually ran in the Yale yearbook. Gary Trudeau, who knew Bush while he was at Yale draws a picture that is disturbing because of its consistency.
"Even then he had clearly awesome social skills," Trudeau said. "He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation."
When you recall all his snide putdowns as president, you realize that he was just continuing the same behavior. This was the president who mocked a blind reporter. This is the alcoholic that was marketed as better suited to be president in 2000, because "he was the kind of guy more people wanted to sit down and drink beer with." Zogby reprised this ploy during the Kerry campaign, so this was no accident. This was the commander in chief who took a characteristically mean shot at Senator Webb, knowing his son had been in imminent danger. This was the guy who met family members of service men and "honored" them a self-aggrandizing token, then half-seriously warned them "Don't go sell it on eBay." This was a guy who went on vacation while his daughter was in the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. When asked about it, his response can only be characterized as bizarre:
My daughter's great," he told reporters, joking that if she cannot join the rest of the family in Florida, "she can clean out her room."
All that pales to what has to be one of the most tasteless jokes ever told by a sitting president, "those weapons of mass destruction have to be somewhere." That's saying a lot when you remember Bush had set the bar for outrageous commentary pretty high with his mockery of death-row inmate, Karla Faye Tucker in an (in)famous interview with Tucker Carlson.
I could go, with dozens of more examples. But I think the point has been made and the pattern is undeniable. Listing more examples of this behavior are more likely to numb the sensibilities than anything else. But that is not where this should end. Calling Bush a sociopath is meaningless if we let it stop at that.
The question needs to be asked:
If a man openly brags about committing a vicious criminal act, and then seeks to profit on their notoriety, should we let that stand? If your name is David Berkowitz (AKA "Son of Sam") the answer is a resounding "NO." Does the same apply if your name is George Bush?
This also raises a challenge for the current sitting president.
Bush's behavior is now a problem for the current administration because no one else has the jurisdiction to prosecute this criminal. It's one thing to say "we need to look forward not backward" when talking about stuff that was in the news years ago. But what happens when it is in the news today? Bush's current bragging of criminal activities raises an embarrassing question that cannot be ignored. If an American citizen brazenly breaks the law is this administration going to turn a blind eye to it, even if it means he has now put American troops in harms way? Are some Americans simply above the law?
The supremely confident sociopath is betting the Obama Administration doesn't have what it takes to call him on this. If history serves as a guide, he is right. That means one thing. He is going to do more damage.
