Clueless Defector-in-Chief

By: Scott Davis

When the first plane slammed into the World Trade Center, Bush was reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to young school children. This was during a weekday business hour when the rest of us were already hard at work. Instead, Bush was having fun engaging in a symbolic duty better suited to a First Lady. More Queen Elizabeth than Tony Blair. More E! than C-SPAN.

When the FBI was tipped off in August by an alert flight school that Zacarias Moussaoui was trying to learn how to fly jumbo jets without yet earning a basic pilot's license, Bush was on his month-long vacation in Texas. No one gets a month off after only 6 months on the job, except if you're Bush, the executive in chief, who orders his own vacation. He rapidly tried to quell the public disapproval by calling it, oxymoronically, a "working vacation". He cleared brush and banged nails for a charitable housing cause, but those activities only took 15 minutes a day. While his entourage could replicate some of the access to information he could have had in Washington, it had to be a poor substitute.

When foreign intelligence was warning that the next terrorist attack on the US would involve planes flying into big buildings, the federal government was advising airport security to loosen standards, to make travel more convenient for passengers. When the federal government learned that bin Laden recalled his operatives, advising them to leave the US no later than September 9, the President did nothing. The Gore report warning of airliners and terrorism was forgotten in a file Bush never opened. Just as in the National Guard, Bush has, time and again, deserted his post.

While a diligent public servant, such as Gore or McCain, or practically any other candidate in memory, could have caught the clues that pointed to September 11, Bush lacks any degree of diligence. His foreign policy is left over from his father's time, just like his advisors. It is unreflective of current realities, and displays both the ignorance and the ideological rigidity characteristic of an uninquisitive and lazy mind. The current war on terrorism was entered into as though it were a game. Winning the war is all that matters, not whether the Northern Alliance will present as many long term problems for Afghanistan as the Taliban, or whether the world will actually be safer, given the responses to our actions by Muslims and others.

Bush has learned time and again that his name and family wealth will carry him. No need for hard work. One of the first things the press corps learned about Bush's style was that they needn't stay late. Unlike Clinton's administration, Bush's turned in early. Bush has no intellectual interests. His hobbies are baseball, video games, and workouts.

He treated the presidency as he treated his last office. He neglected his duties and kept a light schedule. The governorship of Texas is a part-time job; it's legislature meeting only once every two years. It left plenty of time for his signature jogs and naps. His previous position as one of owners of a baseball team, is something rich people take up as a hobby, among their other social elite functions, not a profession. In the world of work, Bush cashed in on his family connections and even then he lost investors' money.

Ironically, the same kind of mandatory testing he advocates in public schools would have made him a better man. Harvard and Yale's names are sullied for having awarded their diplomas to him, no matter how fattened their endowments became as a result. Bush Senior has given $100 million to Yale. The University of Texas, a lesser school but with some integrity, refused Junior's admittance.

He lacks the knowledge or the motivation to acquire the knowledge necessary to do his job and we all suffer. He continues to show his ignorance even of basic geography, asking Charlotte Church recently where the city of Wales is located. He displays a knowledge of the world only a barfly would be proud of. The teachers who gave him passing grades at Andover should be ashamed.

The meritocracy completely failed in the case of Bush. Instead, the same forces of wealth and influence that got him his position continue to fabricate a complimentary image of him. Their stories of his activities during September 11 change through time and contradict each other. The American people who had their peace and prosperity ripped from them must eventually see through this charade. It takes saturation coverage of a bin Laden to make Bush look good.

September 11 wiped the smirk off Bush's face, but cannot undo the shallowness that comes from 55 years largely directionless, mostly drunk, and shielded from adult responsibilities. September 11 happened on his watch. He is to blame. If he had been at work in the Oval Office, he would have been briefed on the threat. If he took his job seriously, he would have taken the trouble to become better informed about what the government already knew of bin Laden's plans. He should have taken steps to prevent the carnage. Instead, he relaxed at his Crawford ranch.

So, while valiant firemen rushed to the rescue at their peril, showing the greatness possible of government employees, and our loved ones jumped to their deaths to escape those towers of flame, school children were entertained that morning by our defector-in-chief.