Dan Froomkin Peers Inside Bush's Head
It's a sight for the strong-stomached only:
Dan Froomkin - Peering Inside Bush's Head: [I]t sounds like Bush is looking not for answers -- but for rationalizations for his behavior. There is no sign of genuine introspection, no sign of acknowledgment of mistakes, no sign of any significant change of course. In a pattern familiar to anyone who has ever had a drinking problem, Bush appears to be engaged in a furious effort to persuade onlookers that he's fine -- even if he isn't.... [Peter Baker writes] "He still acts as if he were master of the universe, even if the rest of Washington no longer sees him that way." In other words, even while reaching out for advice, he remains firmly in a state of denial. And it's not just about Iraq....
The infamous Bush Bubble seems largely intact. One "senior House Republican who met with Bush recently" tells Baker: "There's nobody there who can stand up to him and tell him, 'Mr. President, you've got to do this. You're wrong on this.' There's no adult supervision. It's like he's oblivious. Maybe that's a defense mechanism.'"
And consider the best example aides can come up with of someone telling Bush what he didn't want to hear: "Aides said they do challenge Bush. White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten had what one colleague called 'a lot of hard discussions' with the president after the November midterm elections to shock him into recognizing that his approach to Iraq had failed. Bolten set up meetings so Bush could hear from critics of his policy and sent him written material to emphasize the need for change, the colleague said. That led to the decision to send more troops."So a concerted effort to convince him of something that should have been obvious leads to a contrarian and potentially irrational response. That's not exactly something to brag about.
The few times Bush actually comes face to face with critics, another coping mechanism emerges: In some cases, Baker writes, "Bush can seem disengaged. When he flew to New York to visit a Harlem school and promote his education program, he brought along New York congressmen on Air Force One, including Democrat Charles B. Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The White House was in the midst of tough negotiations with Rangel over trade pacts. But Bush did not try to cut a deal with Rangel, chatting instead about baseball. 'He talked a lot about the Rangers,' Rangel said. 'I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.'"...
DailyKos blogger LithiumCola marvels at the fact that in [Peter Baker's] entire story, "there is no hint of the influence or even presence of one Richard B. Cheney. It's as though [Jo] Becker and [Barton] Gellman's four-day series on the Vice President's pervasive influence, just last week in this same Washington Post, never happened."...
Robert Draper interviews departing White House Counselor Dan Bartlett for GQ.Draper: "To read some of Karl Rove's recent comments, you'd think the state of the administration has never been rosier. Does anyone provide a reality check for the White House?" Bartlett: "The president's closest advisers are paid to make sure he understands every aspect of the decision he has to make. And I can confidently say that in the five years I've had this job, we haven't walked blindly into decisions. Now have there been missteps? Of course. But I don't buy this notion that Bush lives in a bubble. You can disagree fundamentally with the decisions he makes, but I don't think they are based on a lack of understanding of what's going on around him"...
