Conversations with Nero

I just read the transcripts of the recent Scott Pelley 60 Minutes conversation with the great Decider. Whoaaa, heady stuff. We have a man in the White House so shallow, so insulated, so assured without any collateral, that you have to keep reminding yourself that you aren't reading a parody of a presidential interview. Check out this gem:

PELLEY: You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?

BUSH: On what issue?

PELLEY: Well, sir . . .

BUSH: Like the weapons of mass destruction?

PELLEY: No weapons of mass destruction.

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400.

BUSH: I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha.

PELLEY: The perception, sir, more than any one of those points, is that the administration has not been straight with . . .

BUSH: Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course ... [give some lame explanation not worth transcribing]

And this one is (I guess) a bit of the reality-creating of which this administration is so fond:

BUSH: ... I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that... That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

Maybe 600,000 dead, no jobs, no electricity, no clean water. What's not to like? Damn those ungrateful hadjis. Or how about this plum:

BUSH: The vice-president's been a great vice-president. And Don Rumsfeld did a really find job as Secretary of Defense. Quite the contrary, I feel like this country is blessed to have those kind of people serving.













A man at peace with himself in a cosset of delusion.