Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Sunday, January 07, 2007
Dr. Phil Counsels George W. Bush?
The situation is an ideal fit for the Dr. Phil Show: Men who Live in their Dad's Shadows (the story of President George H.W. Bush and his troubled son, Little George)
The mix is perfect.
(The photo: JEB Bush waves as his father smiles and hugs him. JEB's mother smiles and applauds. George W. was not around)
The father is a giant of a man. He is a decorated World War II naval officer and combat pilot. The father was amazingly successful after the war and rose to the very top by anyone's measure of success. He was elected President of the United States. As president, he was a man of action. He sent troops into the Middle East and he brought them back home again after he made his point. The biggest enemy of President George H. W. Bush was Saddam Hussein. He disliked Saddam Hussein so much that he deliberately mis-pronounced his name as "Saad-am Hoo-sayn" just to irritate the Iraqi president.
The father's youngest son, JEB, is bright. Everyone in the family, close family friends and now the entire world knows that the eldest boy, George W., is not very bright. He was always a bit slow. He was never expected to do very much in life. As long as he didn't screw things up, the family thought, everything would be OK.
JEB Bush ("JEB" is really just his initials. His true name is John Ellis Bush) attended Andover, a private boarding school for the elite in Massachusetts. He made it onto the Honor Roll in his first semester. When he was 17 he was teaching English in Mexico as part of his school's student exchange program. Later he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas at Austin. Today he is Governor of Florida.
George, the slow one, never did as well. Although the eldest, he was always Number Two in more ways than one. This son had a problem with alcohol in his early days. He was arrested for DUI and his driver license was suspended. To his great credit, however, he was able to rise above that problem with alcohol and put it behind him. He managed to apply himself sufficiently to eventually earn a master's degree in business administration, but he always felt that he was still Number Two, and he was, in his family's eyes.
Now Number Two is President of the United States and all the ugliness is oozing out of him. He is the Number Two son of a powerful patrician father who has risen to the pinnacle of success. Number Two is struggling, not to serve this country, but to resolve unconscious Oedipal issues through his dysfunctional acting-out in foreign countries. This cowboy-boot-wearing imitation of a man even made sure his daddy's enemy, Sadam Hussein, was rounded up by a posse and lynched in front of a cheering crowd, just the way they did it in the good old days.
It was pathetic. Like a cat dragging a dead mouse to his owner's feet.
I feel sorry for the poor generals and admirals at the Pentagon. They are true professionals. Now they are working for a president riddled with pathological issues. It must be similar to what other military professionals have had to endure whenever similarly unbalanced despots have ruled nations. No matter how many times the Pentagon is ordered to collect the scraps and dis-jointed pieces of foreign policy, lay them out, number them and try to assemble them into one meaningful policy ... it always fails because it never made sense in the first place and makes even less sense now.
There is only one way out for George W. Bush and maybe only one way out for our nation as well. Little George needs to come out from behind his daddy's desk in the Oval Office and admit that he is not the caliber of man his daddy is and he will never be.
Here in San Francisco we put a lot of faith in Nancy Pelosi. She may be "new" to the rest of the nation, but she has been our representative in Congress since 1987. We know her very well. She has remarkable talent, but what is needed to deal with George W. Bush and his War is not the Speaker of the House or anybody else in Congress. The problem is not political. It is pathological.
We need Dr. Phil!
He was born in Oklahoma, attended Shawnee Mission North High School in Kansas and then went on to get a bachelor's, then a master's and finally a doctorate from the University of North Texas. He now lives in California. He's the perfect fit. He is a very smart man who can speak easily to simple folk.
Maybe Dr. Phil can explain to Little George that sending so many people to die just so that Number Two can look like a smart leader to his daddy is ... well ... insane.
Forget about providing George W. Bush with counseling. After he leaves office (and who knows what mess he will create before then) the whole country will need recovery therapy!
3 comments:
Dubya is the eldest son.
Thanks for the correction.
Forget about providing George W. Bush with counseling. After he leaves office (and who knows what mess he will create before then) the whole country will need recovery therapy!
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