Talk:Georgeland

This article is about delusions of self, and of self image. The Bush regime delusions article is about his delusions of the world around him. --Maynard 18:07, 25 Mar 2004 (EST)

"Georgeland" is about his delusional characteristics; not his deceptions, gaffes, environmental assults, and the whole warchest of other atrocities, stupidities, and misfortunes. Just the self delusion and personal fantasy. Accordingly, I removed the following contribution because it seems to me to be not too relevant here, and perhaps likely more relevant elsewhere:
 * Jimmy Breslin, He molests the dead, Newsday, March 6, 2004: "In his first campaign commercial, George Bush reached down and molested the dead. ... That is only the start of the Bush campaign. He has plenty of money and unlimited personal cheapness."

The argument can be made that everything he thinks is self-delusional, but it's not a very good one, or solid. Nonetheless, the 'Georgeland' article should be more about his delusions, rather specifically, rather than a depository for all the examples and consequences of his delusions. It may not be a clear line of distinction; but it should serve to avoid content which would be more of a distraction than a clarification or amplification. The Breslin article is about something other than GWB delusion, such as GWB reliance upon 911 to define his [self-]esteem, or a PR idea which backfired, or a continuing callous disregard for the families of 911 victims; so it should be filed in one of those places; and perhaps that repository could be linked from the Georgeland article.

Lots of small, specific, linked articles is much preferable to big cumbersome, diffuse compilations which fail to make a single clean and specific point, in my opinion. -M

Georgeland Discards

 * "Washington Whispers," "Team Bush lends a hand to a brand-new TV show," U.S. News, April 12, 2004 (edition): "And Washington officials are expected to give free advice and even play cameo roles; Bush and DHS Secretary Tom Ridge are featured in the show's trailer. Heruth-Waterbury says that when she recently told Bush about it, 'he was just like, Yeah, yeah, it sounds good. ' Some call it The West Wing--Bush style: more butt-kicking, less hand-wringing."


 * "After an excruciating delay, chickens are finally coming home to roost for George W. Bush. For over a year, critics have been pointing to the president's systematic misrepresentations of everything from Iraq to education to budget numbers. But the charge hasn't stuck, until very lately." American Prospect, February 5, 2004.


 * "David A. Kay may have started the great ball rolling downhill by being the first person to break through a widespread belief here that every act of this President in regard to Iraq was done because a truly satanic human being had truly satanic weaponry at his command and was somehow truly threatening our country satanically." Tom Dispatch, February 12, 2004.


 * U.S. National Debt Tops $7 Trillion (February 17, 2004).


 * "But I have absolutely no doubt that there has been a profound mood-change in the country toward president Bush. Some of this is a result of the Democrats' dominating the media during primary season. But much of it is also due to the president's extraordinary drift, incoherence and - at the same time - cockiness. That's a lethal combination. People have registered that the WMD issue has undermined one argument for the war. But instead of acknowledging this forthrightly and making a strong case for the war's morality and the importance of Iraq's democratization, the president has fallen back on self-satisfied platitudes. People know that public finances are in a terrible shape. But the president first denied the problem, then minimized it, and then argued that tax cuts would cure it. No one is buying it. There has been little coherent defense of the education bill, or of the administration's environmental policies. There is, in short, no argument for a second term. Instead, we're told that the re-election theme will be: I'm a strong leader in a time of change. But leading where? We don't know. If the president wants to get re-elected, we should." Andrew Sullivan, February 19, 2004.


 * Richard A. Clarke testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (March 23-24, 2004).


 * John Nichols, "Is Bush Ready for Real Democracy?," The Nation, March 9, 2005.


 * Sheila Samples, "'Butt prints in the sand...'":


 * "Face it. Bush gets away with murder for just one reason -- because the media allows it, encourages it, and spends big bucks producing it. Bush's war-on-evildoers-turned-war-on-terror-turned-regime-change-turned-crusade-for-freedom-and-democracy is a media-orchestrated production, complete with banners, flag backdrops, bells and whistles. In case you haven't noticed what the rest of the world knew at the outset -- the illusion of Bush as a strong, principled leader is also a media creation. Totally."


 * Robert Kuttner, "What rise in freedom?," Boston Globe, March 9, 2005.


 * "FREEDOM IS breaking out all over, so it seems. To hear supporters of George W. Bush, it's all due to the president's courageous decision to risk his presidency on the Iraq War. ... Wow! If this picture is true, let's nominate George W. Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize. ... The only trouble is, the picture isn't true."


 * "He is unreachable. He’s got his own world." attributed by BuzzFlash to Seymour Hersh at New Mexico State University (Las Cruces) on Tuesday, March 29, 2005.


 * "Shameless Photo-Op," New York Times, April 7, 2005:


 * "Imagine this: On his next trip to Japan, President Bush visits the vault at the Bank of Japan, where that country's $712 billion in United States government bonds is stored. There, as the cameras roll, he announces that the bonds, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, are, in fact, worthless i.o.u.'s. He does the same thing when he visits China and so on around the world, until he has personally repudiated the entire $2 trillion of United States debt held by foreigners.


 * "Mr. Bush rehearsed just that act on Tuesday, when he visited the office of the federal Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, W.Va. He posed next to a file cabinet that holds the $1.7 trillion in Treasury securities that make up the Social Security trust fund. He tossed off a comment to the effect that the bonds were not 'real assets.' Later, in a speech at a nearby university, he said: 'There is no trust fund. Just i.o.u.'s that I saw firsthand.'"


 * Ed Naha, "BushMath: 1 + 1 = minus $1.7 Trillion," M. Kane Jeeves, April 7, 2005.


 * Mel Seesholtz, "An Introduction to American StupidSpeak," Counterbias, April 6, 2005: "If you're living in the American theocracy under the reign of King George the W, learning American StupidSpeak (ASS) is an unfortunate necessity. But the process is quite easy and requires no thought, just an empty mind."


 * Re question on intelligent design, Howard Dean turned it into a comment on Bush and how he ignores facts:


 * "'it never pays to ignore facts. Reason we're in trouble in Iraq? The President didn't care what the facts were. The reason we have an almost $8 trillion national debt? The President didn't care what the facts were. The facts matter. The truth is you can't run a business, a state, a country or a family if you don't care what the facts are.'" --Howard Dean, Face the Nation, August 14, 2005.


 * Tom Engelhart, "Catapulting the Propaganda. The President, Cindy Sheehan, and How Words Die," TomDispatch.com (Common Dreams), August 29, 2005.


 * Sheila Samples, "The mothers are coming!" The Smirking Chimp, August 31, 2005.