Stark Raving Mad Presidents
I found a discarded copy of this in paperback form. The headline over the cover is: “What Would Happen if the President of the USA Went Stark-Ravind Mad?” A political thriller circa 1965, perhaps worth a read, perhaps not… I really don’t know. It’s worth a gander, I suppose.
But… we kind of have the answer now. It predates Nixon. We had the answer to the question with Nixon. Kissinger took the fabled button away from Nixon, and in the final days of the Nixon Administration, everyone in the administration was under the order not to follow through on any bizarre orders from the president. Problem solved.
But… what would happen if the President of the USA went stark raving mad? Well… Nixon. Take two.
According to Daily News, “Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss’ wrath. ‘This is not some manager at McDonald’s chewing out the help,’ said a source close to the White House. ‘This is the President of the United States, and it’s not a pleasant sight.’ The spectre of losing Rove, his only truly irreplaceable assistant, lies at the heart of Bush’s distress. But a string of political reversals, including growing opposition to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and Harriet Miers’ bungled Supreme Court nomination, have also exacted a personal toll. Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the ‘blame game’.
They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency. At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.” One “Bush insider” is quoted as saying, “The president is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about. Andy (the chief of staff) gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share.”
Actually the funny thing about this article is that this is the most credible source for a type of news item that had been peeking its way through such Internet sites as the Capitol Hill Blue, not particularly credible sources, describing erratic behaviour on the part of the president.
But… Stark Raving Mad? We’ve arrived at a milestone of 2,000 American soldiers dead on the fields of Iraq. A number that does not tell the story: it’s a narrow definition — if you get the soldier out of Iraq and he dies in a VA hospital — it doesn’t count. (And never mind the wounded.) It’s… relatively small number, I… guess. Certainly World War Two had a much greater block of casualties. But there is the rub, which exposes a great myth of American’s historical attitudes toward war: Americans accept great numbers of casualties, and their approval of wars are unwavering… IF IF IF they feel the war is just. It just so happens that such wars are the exception to the rule. (Hence, we need the Powell Doctrine… get in quick, don’t lose lives.)
But I haven’t gotten to the “stark raving mad” part of the equation. Which is: Iraq is the Central Front of the War on Terror. There was a decision made to make Iraq “the Central Front of the War on Terror.” Iraq the place is arbitrary in the equation. We may as well have made Norway the “Central Front of the War on Terror”. We move in and conquer some piece of middle east land FULL OF INNOCENT PEOPLE… terrorists move in.
“Flypaper Strategy” works just as well against IRAQI CITIZENS as it does against American citizens.
Interesting how that works, isn’t it?
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(OH. We could also go back to the Woodrow Wilson Administration, and a president incapicated and becoming sicker by the day. In that case, his wife was defacto president. I don’t really know what the case was with Reagan and his early stages of Alzheimers — perhaps he had delegated away enough responsibilities that it simply didn’t matter.)