What makes Bush tick?

I could never win an argument with Jack, my older brother. He was a staunch conservative and loved to bait me on social and political issues. It always took me awhile to get my thoughts and facts together and by then, the argument was over.

He finally let me know the secret of his success. "When I saw you were ready to pounce, I changed the subject," he told me.

One would think I'd learned that lesson by the time I was fifty but I needed him to tell me. He was always a little smarter than me.

This little vignette might help us understand the character and mode of operation of President George W. Bush. But first, let's review the most common understandings.

Some have been taken in by his abominable use of language and presumed he was not very bright. The man passed courses at Yale and Harvard and flew jet planes so he is not a dim bulb. He used his "dumb" act as cover to tweak the eastern elites and stake out a niche for himself. And he tweaks the educated on purpose by his verbal devices, like "nuculer." I don't think he can change now. I don't think he would ever want to. He feels it makes him sound "common" as opposed to elitist that he is.

The device also gives cover to his agenda. No one expects any high sophistication from him when he comes across as a brush clearing buddy.

Some are sure the President is a front man for VP Cheney and powerful corporate interests much as he was when he was made owner of the Texas Ranger baseball team. He was a delight to everyone as the face of the team while the real Dallas power brokers conducted the transactions that got special deals for the team out of the city fathers. Thus it seems that while he is the face of the Administration, the real power of it lies in the Vice President's office.

That image, though, may also be a smoke screen allowing people to dismiss the real man.

Some look at his background of drinking and drugs and wonder if those chemicals damaged his brain and caused some kind of dissociative disorder in which he could not recognize and respond to reality before making decisions. Michael Moore illustrated that kind of character when he showed the President on a golf course making a strong statement to the press against terrorism and immediately adding as he took his golf club, "Now watch this shot." Then showing the President leaning back in his golf cart with his legs crossed to follow his shot, Moore showed a man completely separated from the tragedy of the war. Who else but a dry alcoholic could seem to completely miss the message of the American people in the 2006 congressional elections?

If that were an act, it would be hard to sustain and actually manage anything. If he were truly dissociative, those close to him (think Laura, Karl Rove, certainly the ultimate cynic and master of expediency Dick Cheney) would have been long gone by now.

Some think the President is an eldest son in rebellion against his father. This one seems to draw the most support because as a Yalee like his dad, the President chose to carry on just the opposite of his dad: cheerleader instead of athlete, Texas "hick" instead of Connecticut privilege, modest grades instead of successful student. The biggest illustration of the rebellion could be seen in the President's refusing to take the Iraq Study Commission's recommendations. Jim Baker, his dad's surrogate in trying to help George Jr. out of the quagmire of Iraq, appears to have unintentionally pushed the President the other way.

One might think, then, that the only way to get the President to act reasonably would be to try to impose something so unreasonable that he would decide to do the opposite! Good old "reverse psychology" might work, if the President is the rebellious son he appears to be. There is no question the President goes against any pressure to do something most people feel is realistic. But is this what drives him?

Some wonder if he has a congenital or environmentally engendered sociopath tendencies where he is immune to conscience or the Christianity that he professes. Could someone who was normal be against stem cell research, be against helping children of the indigent and working poor get health insurance, preside over the death of a hundred prisoners without showing any mercy while governor of Texas, support the use of torture of prisoners of war, and ignore the death of thousands of Iraqi civilians, far more than who died under Saddam Hussein or in the attack of 9/11?

What else could explain such a horrendous record of a leader?

There is at least one other option.

Would you believe he is following a vision of leadership that has a degree of sophistication and acuity that no one person can successfully counter him? Would you accept that he has seen how to establish a politicized executive branch protected by a politicized judiciary that even a legislative branch in the hands of the other party could not successfully challenge?

Consider how effectively he has used my brother's tactic of changing the subject just when it appeared the opposition finally was about to force a change? By use of raising some fearful threat (real or "potential"), by doing something so outrageous that it changed the direction of everyones' thinking, by lying about what is going on, by claiming executive privilege and secrecy to cut off any further investigations, and by just refusing to cooperate without any legal grounds because he knows that justice is slow to come to fruit, our President has successfully put off anyone who got close to stopping him.

The smoke screens well laid, conducting so much business in secrecy, and the strategy of changing the subject working so well, the President has been able to enlist many powerful and financially strong leaders to support his efforts to help them enhance their own well being . . . financially. Manipulation of their greed has given the President a base which will sustain him for his eight years in office.

However, indomitable as his vision has been, two things have eroded his vision.

One is his own presumptuousness that he could keep control. It leaves a trail in the dust that will be traced and studied long after President Bush retires to his ranch. It disillusions many who were close to it as it operated. It demoralizes those who try to stop it. It motivates people of conscience to violate normal levels of loyalty and confidentiality in order to release word of what is really happening inside the Administration. Even the hand-fed mainstream media will sometimes balk despite its fear of losing favor and "unnamed sources." The President's mask slipped when he declared he was the "Decider."

The other is reality. Hurricanes blow or wash away all the covers of incompetence. A bureaucracy is lousy at keeping all things secret. Men and women with even a modicum of integrity are not always cowed by intimidation nor successfully silenced by "Medals of Freedom." Stories of those "on the ground" finally supersede the stories of the "civilians trying to run a war from Washington." Computer data does not just disappear into cyberspace; it is there somewhere - a reality not factored into the vision of governance when it was originally conceived. Even high sophistication has to deal in realities.

An open society has a chance to deal with that high level, misdirected as it is. So highly sophisticated that no one person has been able to stop the President, maybe the whole "village" with its accumulated wisdom and values may finally achieve that. Maybe it already has, thanks to term limits.

Shrewd as the President really is, he will hold on so he can retire in 2008.

What of his legacy?

This President will go down in history as having come the closest to establishing the "unitary executive" leadership pattern in the U. S. or, worse, will provide the model and stepping stone for another to finally succeed.