.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, September 20, 2007

This is your president

The Draper book on the Bush presidency is unbelievable in its look at the small, daily bits inside the White House.
Bush's deployed his fetish for punctuality as a punitive weapon. When Colin Powell was several minutes late to a Cabinet meeting, Bush ordered that the door to the Cabinet Room be locked. ...

Those around him have learned how to manipulate him through the art of flattery. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld played Bush like a Stradivarius, exploiting his grandiosity. "Rumsfeld would later tell his lieutenants that if you wanted the president's support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a 'Big New Thing.'"


Other aides played on Bush's self-conception as "the Decider." "To sell him on an idea," writes Draper, "aides were now learning, the best approach was to tell the president, This is going to be a really tough decision." But flattery always requires deference.

Every morning, Josh Bolten, the chief of staff, greets Bush with the same words: "Thank you for the privilege of serving today."

(Later: Probably should add the A student/C student moment from this morning's press conference.)

3 Comments:

  • Strange how many people buy the down-home folksy guy image.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:45 AM  

  • If all this is true, then the silver-spoon-iness is all still there underneath the down-home-iness.

    Maybe he thinks somebody elected him emperor...

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:58 AM  

  • Anon, It's what they want to believe. Don't underestimate the power of projection. A few carefully placed suggestive clues covered by the drawl....

    That's how magician's do it.

    ....

    Local, Kind of a Napolean style Infant terrible'.

    I added the A student/C student moment to the post as an update, and I think it captures alot of the mindset.

    He's not President because he's a C student. He's a president because his dad was a president. He completely excludes that from his thinking because it doesn't jibe with his self image.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:28 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home