I wish I could claim credit for that definition of George Bush. It sounds like something created by the gurus of the anti-Bush movement (there are so many afterall) but interestingly enough, it comes from within. The author, Victor Gold, is actually a close friend of George H.W. Bush and the Cheney family. His new book has a lot to say about the President and his allies and none of it is good.
From The Washington Post:
"For all the Rove-built facade of his being a 'strong' chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times," Gold writes. "Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots."
Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. "A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control."
For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, "Men do not change, they unmask themselves." Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests -- but he says he did not see it at first.
"He was hiding who he really was," Gold says. "He was waiting for an opportunity."
In many ways, Gold's tale of disillusionment is a familiar one. There are plenty of veterans of Reagan and Bush 41 around town who believe Bush and Cheney trashed the institutions and party they helped build from the wreckage of the Goldwater campaign.
But there aren't many who have been on a first-name basis with those they believe are doing the trashing. There aren't many like Vic Gold.
Vic Gold may have been disillusioned, but we here in the reality-based community saw this coming all along. There was nothing to be unmasked, it was just waiting to come out and wreak havoc on our country. To be fair to Victor, it is great to see that he discovered who he was truly working for.
His new book, "Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP" is a cleverly titled expose for his fellow Republicans to read and absorb. I am afraid that despite his status, this will just be another member of the old GOP falling off the speeding train with no brakes. So many former confidantes have been scorned after coming clean by the right. Although their numbers are shrinking, they continue driving that train straight towards the cliff.
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