George W. Queeg


Meet George W. Queeg -- is something amiss in our voyage towards a stable foreign policy?

The New York Times has a must-read column today: meet George W. Queeg.

"Aboard the U.S.S. Caine, it was the business with the strawberries that finally convinced the doubters that something was amiss with the captain. Is foreign policy George W. Bush's quart of strawberries?"

For years I've told the story a journalist experienced on the campaign trail with Bush Jr. (Apologies for the lack of a URL here -- I have it on the tip of my mind, and will add it as soon as I have located it. I know this story was repeated among some fellow journalists, and is archived in a mailing list on my hard drive.) While in TX, she missed the chance to interview Bush for a particular article she had to submit that day. Since he was familiar with her, and wanted to make sure to get in his two cents for her paper, he invited her to ride with him back to the governor's mansion and talk to him while they road. She had an affable interview with him; described him as charismatic, if slightly disjointed when confronted with any foreign policy questions, but overall a typically outgoing politician with a polish on the outside. Then they arrived at the mansion. Suddenly Bush leaned forward, rapped on the sliding window for the driver, and ordered that the driver pull up a few more inches to the front-door walkway. The limo pulled up three inches or so. Then Bush demanded it go back an inch. Then forward an inch. This went on for some time, with Bush becoming ever more insistent but never losing his cool -- she described it as eerily compulsive. Finally satisfied that the limo was precisely positioned where he wanted it for the front walkway, he exited the vehicle and strode away without a word of goodbye.

Obsessive-compulsives have similar behavior. I'm just pointing it out, really. No comment from my corner of the universe, but I increasingly feel like saying, "I told you so." I said he'd act like this -- and look at it now.

Speaking of which, anyone notice that he's also acting like he wants to be the first president since Truman to use the Big Bomb? He'll show everyone, for sure, then, that he's really in charge -- to be taken seriously. Not that he has anything to prove, no no. Not to his family. Or his dad. Who, it has been reported, often treated his Jr., at least in public, as if he were the family member voted to be most likely to vomit in public.

Whoops, dad already did that. My bad.

But back to the matter at hand. Since I heard about the campaign trail story, and since watching the "election" process that "voted" in our (P)resident, I've told everyone close to hand that this is a guy who wants to "make history." Tying the compulsive behavior with the obsession to prove himself as the biggest boy on the block, and with the desire to prove himself to be the "elect" of his particular brand of Christian God, leads to a couple of scary scenarios. And the easiest one I can think of (Occam's razor, here) is for Bush to want to be the first president to get to use the Briefcase, and punch in his codes, and blow up Bagdad. He'll be really big and strong and in charge then, by golly!

I hope someone can tell me later than I was wrong with this prediction.

I wasn't when I predicted he would win the election, even if he didn't win the votes legitimately.

I hope I'm stone-cold wrong this time.

Posted: Fri - March 14, 2003 at 07:39 PM        

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