The Sky Pilot

The President only seems to meet with reliably right-wing true believers, but those who meet with him are frequently impressed with his eerie serenity. With his policies and programs in ruins all about him, he seems untroubled by self-doubt or any other kind of doubt.

Glenn Greenwald reflects on that, and on NYT columnist David Brooks' recent membership in such a group:

As George Bush has become more and more isolated, and as his presidency has collapsed around him, he has increasingly arranged White House events where like-minded admirers come and gather around him and genuflect to his greatness. As The Washington Post's Peter Baker recently reported, these events are attended exclusively by small groups of right-wing pundits, "journalists" and neoconservative theorists and activists who sit around the President and both soak in and bolster the Rightness of his choices.

NYT columnist David Brooks was fortunate enough to have been invited to the most recent such gathering -- also attended by Event Regulars Rich Lowry and Kate O'Beirne of National Review -- and Brooks came away so impressed that he wrote a homage to Bush -- headlined "Heroes and History" -- that would even make Ultimate Bush worshipper John Hinderaker blush:

I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency.

All this will be taken as evidence by many that Bush is delusional. He's living in a cocoon. He doesn't see or can't face how badly the war is going and how awfully he has performed.

But Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq. After all, he lives through the events we're not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead. . . .

Self-confidence is a necessary trait in a leader, and, when combined with a certain genius, can lead to the remarkable accomplishments of an Alexander the Great. More frequently, of course, it is combined with the hubris of a nut like Jim Jones, David Koresh, or perhaps Osama bin Laden.

Greenwald, I guess, believes that Bush belongs with this latter group of sky pilots.

This has been the great unexamined issue of the Bush presidency -- the extent to which Bush's unwavering commitment to Middle East militarism is, as Bush himself has made clear, rooted in theological and religious convictions, not in pragmatic or geopolitical concerns. That Bush's foreign policy decision-making is grounded in absolute moral and theological convictions and therefore immune from re-examination or change is an argument I examine at length in A Tragic Legacy because it is one of the principal -- and most dangerous -- forces driving the Bush presidency.

This fact, thinks Greenwald, makes Bush immune to the usual considerations of political advantage, logic, and reality. That is why middle-way appeals like that of John Warner and Richard Lugar are completely wasted on Bush.

If you are doing God's work, how can you be bothered with the namby-pamby ditherings of some old men? Or, for that matter, little details like the law and the Constitution.

That is why -- even in the aftermath of a shattering midterm election defeat for his party and the wrist-slapping of the Wise, Bipartisan Consensus Baker-Hamilton Report -- Bush not only stayed in Iraq but announced we would escalate. And nothing stopped him. He could not have cared any less about those standard Washington influences or even the limits of reality.

And if Bush believes -- as he almost certainly does -- that a military confrontation with Iran is necessary, nothing will stop him there either, no matter how many solemn David Broder columns and Fred Hiatt editorials or public opinion polls oppose it. After all, as David Brooks quoted him:

"It's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn't exist."

Bush told us back in January 2002 that he believes Iran is Evil, and just as was true for his identical statement about Iraq, he meant it. The religious views of our political leaders matter and ought to be open much more to examination and questioning. That is particularly true when they continuously tell us, even if we don't want to believe it, that their beliefs and decisions are grounded in theology and religion and moral absolutism, not politics or pragmatism.

Is this the reality? I'm not sure, but it seems like as plausible an explanation as any. If so, it's scary as hell.

It's also one more reason to believe that compromise and half-measures are hopeless. Impeachment looks like the only option.