BUSH'S HEART DOESN'T BELONG TO DADDY

I find this excerpt from the New Yorker article in which Brent Scowcroft is quoted as critical of the president's forieng policy very telling, character-wise:

Goldberg talks to the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, whose book, "The Case for Democracy," came to national attention when George W. Bush told the Washington Times, "If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book." In the book, Sharansky criticizes Bush's father for a speech he gave in 1991, in Ukraine, opposing a break with the Soviet Union -- a speech critics labelled "Chicken Kiev."

Sharansky tells Goldberg that soon after his book was published, he was invited to the White House to see the President. He says, "So I go to the White House and I see my book on his desk. It is open to page 210. He is really reading it. And we talk about democracy. This President is very great on democracy. At the end of the conversation, I say, 'Say hello to your mother and father.' And he said, 'My father?' He looked very surprised I would say this."

Sharansky went on, "So I say to the President, 'I like your father. He is very good to my wife when I am in prison.' And President Bush says, 'But what about Chicken Kiev?'"

It's long been clear that 43 has some real issues regarding his father, 41. It's often the case of an under-achieving son of a super-achiever father that the younger harbors resentment, jealousy and a sense of inferiority in regards to the elder. This tale seems to suggest at least a wish and an effort on the part of Dubya to see one of his heroes, Sharansky, disparage George H.W., and surprise and disappointment when he did not. The fact that he did not simply accept Sharansky's expression of appreciation of 41's graciousness but questioned, "What about Chicken Kiev?" indicates a desire to convince the Russian dissident that it is HE, 43, who deserves his good opinion, not his father, by reminding Sharansky of his previous critical statements about 41.

Dubya's entire dumbed-down, cowboy presidency seems to be a futile crusade to prove he's "better" than his father. What a joke. He's never succeeded on his own at anything in his life, and if he'd been any other man's son he'd never have been governor or president. Yet he still can't acknowledge his debt to his dad. What a heartbreak for GHWB. Among his other failings, he has to count failed fatherhood among them.

Tags: Bush, Sharansky, Scowcroft, fatherhood, New Yorker