George W. Bush Visit the Photo Place

Eight billion mysteries stump the little man in the big white house

Date published: 9/2/2006

GUADALAJARA--I'm wondering. Help me wonder. Either Georgie Bush is the minor, depressing, witless ferret I think he is, or I am. It has to be one or the other. If things don't start looking up pretty soon internationally, I'm going to be pretty sure which.

As best as I can tell, what the Maximum Cipher lacks, among an inexhaustible list of other things, is a hop toad's understanding of how people work. Here we have the explanation of just about everything he does. He's dealing with a world full of people, but has no idea what people are. He probably couldn't recognize one. So he doesn't take their predictable behavior into account.

Think about it. When he went braying into Iraq, he thought people would roll over, throw flowers, and have a democratic revolution. This would start a domino effect that would make all the other Muslim countries want to be democracies, too. They would climb over each other to be democracies. They would love us because democracies love each other. He just knew it.

This makes perfect sense if you have no flipping idea how human beings work.

Of course, if you have read any history, which Bush hasn't, you will have noticed that people do not like being occupied by force. They don't like having their cities bombed. It galls them. It can, under certain circumstances (such as any circumstances) make them hostile.

If you think in terms of abstractions too simple for Reader's Digest, you might reflect as follows: "Democracy good. Iraqi people, love'm democracy, so love'm us. Urrrg." Then you might be real surprised when their gratitude was exiguous after you remorselessly wrecked their cities, killed their army (which consisted of other people's husbands, brothers, and sons: Ever think of that?), groped their women when you didn't have time to rape them, and left them without water and electricity.

I'm not saying the Iraqis ought to dislike these things, only that pretty reliably they will dislike them. The Afghans, too. It's how people are. Ungrateful.

Bush has no idea how people are.

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Date published: 9/2/2006