Unintentionally revealing quotes

In a story from Saturday, AFP quotes Resident Bush as saying Congress shouldn't "test my will" over Iraq occupation funding.

"If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one," he told a news conference at his retreat in Camp David, Maryland, Friday.

"So if they want to try again that which I have said was unacceptable, then of course I'll veto it," Bush said.

So is that what this comes down to? Is that, in the final analysis, what this is all about, at least as far as Our Only President is concerned? Some test of wills? Is it, when all is said and done, just a matter of Bush showing how macho he is, "how much of a man" and I don't mean that in the good sense?

Consider that all the talk about the Congressional bill's reference to "withdrawal starting October 1," even if that's to be taken as a requirement, is unimportant because there is no end date beyond an "advisory" one. Bush could make some token withdrawal to a base in the region and promise more troop cuts "as conditions allow" and be in full compliance because the bill is sufficiently supplied with loopholes and "but ifs" with regard to benchmarks as to allow him to say that they're being met without fear of contradiction or limitation except by an entirely new bill. The short version of that is that Bush could easily sign the bill and still do pretty much anything he wants in Iraq.

So why wouldn't he? Is it really just a matter of ego, of pride, of plain old stiff-necked stubbornness on the part of someone trying yet again to prove his manliness? This was, after all, the same guy who at 26 and often drunk, wanted to go "mano a mano" with his father.

In an article published April 12 at Scoop, an independent news source based in New Zealand, the father-son team of psychotherapist John P., and Professor JP, Briggs write of "The Psychology Behind G.W. Bush's Decision-Making." In it, they argue that Bush "makes hasty, risky, ill-informed decisions in which he relies on his defenses [against feelings of inadequacy] rather than judgment." They describe this as "tar-baby decision-making," which I take to mean that the more things go wrong, the more committed he becomes to a course of action, the better to avoid the feeling of failure. Put another way, once he makes a decision, he's psychologically stuck with it.

To the extent George Tenet's new book is accurate and not simply a "It wasn't my fault!" whine, it illustrates the point with regard to Iraq:

New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti obtained a copy of the memoir, which goes on sale Monday. In an interview with NPR on Friday, Mazzetti said Tenet states in his memoir, "There was never a debate about whether the threat was imminent from Iraq. There wasn't a debate about other options besides invasion."

I think, as I often do about psychoanalysis-at-a-distance, that the Briggs occasionally go too far, making too much out of too little - and sometimes cite ostensibly significant examples of behavior to support the thesis which are actually significant only in the light of the already-determined conclusion. That is, if it hadn't already been decided that Bush is hiding a sense of inadequacy, the "significant" behaviors would not appear significant. Even so, the image of "tar-baby decision-taking" resonates and, if I'm allowed the addendum that the bigger the issue, the bigger the conflict surrounding it, the more this seems to be true, it does seem to describe Bush's pattern.

So in the end, I guess a "test of wills" with Congress is exactly what it comes down to in his mind. It's not about the soldiers, it's not about Iraq at all. It's about getting his way. Period.

We are not governed by incompetents - we are governed by brats.