Georgeland

However, as noted by the American Conservative Union in their 1982 article on The Evil Empire, "If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."&mdash;George W. Bush, May 24, 2005, in Greece.

"... what turns Bush on is getting away with brazen lies, and the blood, torture, and destruction of those who are too helpless to resist. ... It's impossible to embarrass this president -- because death is his Viagra, and he's currently in the middle of a raging, international orgasm." --Sheila Samples, May 23, 2005.

"The President actually had an answer for every question [Tim] Russert tossed up. It just happened to be the same answer: 'Tim, let me put that into context for you,' which meant, '9/11 excuses everything I do,' whether it be budget blowouts or dud WMD intelligence. People talk about the disconnect between those in the wider world and those 'inside the beltway', but listening to the President it is clear that there is a whole other sanctum 'inside the inside of the beltway.' He didn't so much answer questions as paint a picture of a place called Georgeland, a special place where he lives and the rules are different and in which everything he does is noble, well-meaning and justified."

This article is about delusions of self, and of self image, by the son (George W. Bush) who was "born onto third base and believes that he hit a triple". There is another article about his delusions of the world around him.

A "War President"
In his February 7, 2004 (broadcast on the 8th), hour-long Oval Office interview with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press, President Bush declared himself as a War President, and reinforced that assertion multiple times throughout the interview. 


 * ... a fanciful delusion by which he refers to his 2003 invasion of Iraq, and his perpetual global war on terror, in an attempted association with former "wartime presidents" and to excuse his policy decisions.

However, outside of Georgeland, it's been his: war on:
 * democracy
 * activism
 * dissent
 * integrity
 * the environment
 * civil rights and liberties
 * free speech zones
 * PATRIOT Act
 * Total Information Awareness
 * science
 * Junk Science
 * The U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, maintains the Politics &amp; Science website as an ongoing record of interference with science by the Bush Administration.
 * A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists "issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels."
 * Some worry U.S. may bend facts for policy

Frequent Vacationing

 * George W. Bush: The War President is Missing in Action

Changing the World
"Recently, your government has been behaving like the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. You want to change the whole world! Like them, you claim that history will show that truth is on your side. You want the world to follow the American dream, and you believe that you know what is best for Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Africa, Liberia, Yemen, and all other countries. Like every revolutionary, you have good ideas, but your problem lies in the means you want to use to realize them. Suddenly you want to bring democracy to the world, starting with Iraq. What happened to this administration, which began with promises and plans for a humble foreign policy and nonintervention?" --Daniel Cohn-Bendit, member of the European Parliament

Acting with "Divine Authority"
This delusion is too disgusting to research. See Dominionism, and the Media Transparency article, How the president has used religion to control American politics.
 * "The goal is a national mood of  spiritual superiority  under the guise of a  just sovereignty . The ultimate irony is that in combating the Islamic extremists responsible for the World Trade Center attacks the administration has crafted, pursued and engendered its own brand of  political fundamentalism , one that, while clearly tailored to a modern democracy, nonetheless functions ideologically in a manner similar to the version offered by the terrorists."

Campaign Stunts for U.S. presidential election, 2004

 * "War not over as 2004 campaign begins. It's being called 'the mother of all photo ops.'," CNN, May 5, 2003: "From the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln last week, [George W. Bush] told the nation that 'the war on terror is not over.' ... it was also a carefully crafted message to set the agenda for 2004."
 * "Bush Courts 'NASCAR Dads' at Daytona 500," Reuters, February 15, 2004: "President Bush on Sunday traveled to Florida to kick off the Daytona 500 stock-car race and court 'NASCAR dads' -- a key voting group in the 2004 campaign. ... 'Gentlemen, start your engines,' Bush told the 43 drivers at Daytona. More than 200,000 people saw the race in person and an estimated 40 million watched on television." However, also see NASCAR Fad, Mother Jones, February 17, 2004.
 * "Bush Upbeat on Economy in Campaign Preview in Fla.," Washington Post, February 17, 2004: "Bush, speaking at a window and door factory in the state that decided the 2000 election, chatted with small-business workers and executives at a talk-show-style forum with 'Strengthening America's Economy' emblazoned on two fake windows that the White House had created as backdrops."
 * "Bush Visits Nat'l Guard Troops" (at Fort Polk, Louisiana), CBS News, February 17, 2004: "Bush's appearance provided a TV-ready opportunity to emphasize his national security responsibilities and leadership of the war against terror, a role the White House wants to emphasize with voters as he heads into a re-election battle."
 * Peter Carlson, "When Elephants Ski. The Publicity Stunt Is an Institution as American as, Well, the President," Washington Post, May 1, 2004.

Georgeland "Presidential" Photo Ops

 * 15 August 2002: "President Talks Homeland/Economic Security at Mt. Rushmore," South Dakota.
 * 22 January 2003: President Bush giving a "speech at a box company in St. Louis promoting his tax cuts as a jobs program--standing in front of a painted backdrop depicting boxes that said 'Made in U.S.' ... The actual boxes in the factory were made in Asia, but those labels had been blacked out with tape." 201k.com March 4, 2004.
 * 1 May 2003: Declaring "Mission Accomplished" while strutting aboard USS Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit.
 * 3 November 2003: Bush delivers remarks on the economy at CraneWorks' equipment warehouse in Birmingham, Ala.. Note the cathedral-like "church and pulpit" affect.
 * Thanksgiving 2003: Bush's "hours" with troops in Baghdad: "In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey."
 * 15 January 2004: "Bush delivers remarks at Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans, La." Note the symbolism of Bush's outstretched arms and cross on wall ... "crucifixion"?
 * 16 January 2004: Bush with Martin Luther King's widow Coretta Scott King placing wreath at King's grave.
 * 20 July 2005: "Bush keeps up push for renewal of Patriot Act." "Bush underscored his remarks by speaking at the Dundalk Marine Terminal, where he got a demonstration of state-of-the-art cargo-screening equipment designed to detect chemical, nuclear or conventional bombs planted by terrorists. ... Shortly after Bush's speech, Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski issued a statement saying the president has not put enough money into port security and that at least $8 billion is needed to effectively safeguard the nation's ports. Bush said he has budgeted $2.3 billion for port security this year. ... 'We don't need port photo ops from the president. We need dollars,' said Mikulski, emphasizing that the site of Bush's speech bore no direct relation to the Patriot Act."
 * 18 May 2006: "President George W. Bush rides in a U.S. Border Patrol dune buggy during a tour of the Yuma sector near the U.S. Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona," White House News Release.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Bushworld


 * Axis of evil
 * Bush administration Orwellian logic
 * Bush administration approval ratings
 * Bush administration fetish for government secrecy
 * Bush lies and deceptions
 * Bush regime
 * Bush regime charades
 * Bush regime delusions
 * "Bush the Victim"
 * Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
 * Compassionate Conservatism
 * George W. Bush's military service
 * I've been to war.
 * Presidential Prayer Team
 * religion and empire
 * September 11, 2001: 4th Anniversary "Freedom Walk"
 * The Bush Theocracy
 * Third Way
 * We will do what it takes. We will not leave until the job is done.
 * Why do they hate us?

External articles
Do a Google search for Bushtopia, as well.


 * Welcome to Bushland.
 * Jerome Doolittle, "Dubya's Creepy Death Wish," Bad Attitudes, September 17, 2002.
 * Harold Meyerson, Is That All There Is? Bush runs out of policy and hews to a narrow political attack, L.A. Weekly, January 23-29, 2004: "Disgruntled travelers who've come back from Bushland . . ."
 * Dick Meyer, Welcome To Bushworld, CBS News, March 11, 2004.
 * Maureen Dowd, 4 April 2004, Mired in a Mirage: There was always something of the boy in the bubble about George W. Bush, cosseted from the vicissitudes of life, from Vietnam to business failure, by his famous name. ...now Mr. Bush is trying to pull America and Iraq into his bubble.
 * Sydney Blumenthal, 23 September 2004, The hollow world of George Bush; The power of positive thinking is the president's shield from reality.
 * Sydney Blumenthal, 23 September 2004, The Bubble Boy lives in a world immune from the realities.
 * Paul Craig Roberts, "Soma Nation. A Threat Greater Than Terrorism," CounterPunch, March 21, 2005: "The Bush administration is the first government in history to initiate a war based entirely on fantasy--fantasy about nonexistent 'weapons of mass destruction,' fantasy about nonexistent 'terrorist links,' fantasy about 'liberating' a people from their culture, fantasy about a 'cakewalk' invasion, fantasy about America's omnipotence. ... Reality has yet to penetrate the Oval Office or America's 'red state' consciousness."
 * Ed Quillen, "Bush's gravitational sling," Denver Post, May 24, 2005: "It was Colorado's own Congresswoman Pat Schroeder who coined the term 'Teflon President' for Ronald Reagan, because no allegation ever stuck to him, whether it was swapping arms for hostages or influence-peddling by Cabinet members. ... President George W. Bush seems to have gone one better - call him the Boomerang President, because whatever is thrown his way seems to come back. And it comes back so hard that we might borrow a term from rocket scientists and call him the Gravitational Sling President."
 * George W. Bush is BuzzFlash "Hypocrite of the Week," (er .. make that century), gophypocrites.com, June 3, 2005: "Calling George W. Bush a hypocrite is like calling a thief a criminal. It's just plain redundant."
 * Atrios, "George Bush's America," Eschaton, June 16, 2005. Re torture at Abu Ghraib.
 * John D. Goldhammer, "Dr. Bush and Mr. Hyde: The Fundamentalist Shadow of George W. Bush," Scoop (NZ), September 19, 2005.
 * "Bush: Condi is smarter, but 'look at who's the president'," Think Progress, September 20, 2007.
 * "Bush inartfully suggests Saddam killed Mandela," Think Progress, September 20, 2007. Note: Nelson Mandela is very much alive.