It's Official: Bush Has Founded His Own Cult.

Plaid Adder

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Thu Aug-17-06 02:04 PM
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It's Official: Bush Has Founded His Own Cult.

So, you've all seen the opinion piece in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal about the debacle in Lebanon. (It's on the DU front page; you can read the whole thing if you are willing to sit through an ad for Visa.) Blumenthal mentions a number of things that might lead one to believe that Bush has gone, as they say across the pond, round the twist:

* Bush appears to be surprised to hear that Shiites in Iraq have been demonstrating in solidarity with Hezbollah. Apparently, the only form of political expression any Iraqi Shiite should be capable of, in his universe, is demonstrations of gratitude and loyalty to the U.S.

* In fact, Bush apparently has kind of a thing about public Iraqi expressions of gratitude, as in he really, really, really wants to see some. Blumenthal quotes from Bremer's memoir about his time over there, in which Bremer recalls Bush telling him that "It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq" three times over the course of the same meeting.

* While on vacation at Crawford, Bush has taken to cajoling/browbeating/harassing his staffers into joining his "hundred-degree club," which you apparently enter by jogging for 3 miles in 100-degree heat in Texas alongside Bush, who is riding his bicycle and yelling at them and at himself. Yelling things like, say, "Air assault!"

OK.

Now, in the past, people have occasionally spoken of the "cultlike" atmosphere surrounding Bush and his inner circle. I think now that we've been introduced to the 100 Degree Club, we can finally take off the "like," and just go ahead and call them a cult.

After all, what is the point of getting his staffers to do something like this? Bush apparently doesn't need the company, as Holland (the most recent inductee of the Hundred Mile Club) reports that Bush told him he likes to ride at the head of the group because "when I'm riding and seeing straight ahead with my I-Pod plugged in, I feel like I'm alone". If he merely needs to establish that he is more physically fit than the rest of his cronies, I would think that going on the ride alone while they sit it out would take care of it. And I cannot imagine that this was the staffers' idea. I don't know if you have ever been in Texas in August, but I have, and you could not pay me any amount of money to walk three miles in 100 degrees of Texas heat, let alone run them while chasing the National Idiot and his pack of humvee-mounted security guys. Seriously, in Texas at this time of year, walking out your front door feels almost exactly like walking into a hot oven. They're only doing this because he's managed to make them do it through some combination of bullying, humiliation, or raw personal magnetism.

So, you have a (to some people; I don't get it myself) charismatic leader with a well-advertized commitment to a fundamentalist faith and an apparent lust for expressions of loyalty and love from large crowds of strangers putting a group of his followers through a physically gruelling and (for those who drop behind or drop out) emotionally and psychologically humiliating ritual which is going to leave them exhausted, dehydrated, and probably just about seeing visions. This is the kind of thing cults used to do to initiate new members back in the 70s, as cult leaders realized that when people have been kept up all night, exposed to public humiliation, and physically exhausted day after day, it becomes a lot easier to convince them to adopt some totally insane view of the universe that you came up with at a bar one night after a half-dozen Tequila Sunrises. And once they've done that, it's but a hop skip and a jump till they hand over their pocketbooks, brains, consciences, and whatnot to the great enlightened one.

No wonder this government is in the shithole it's in. Not only is Bush insane, he's making everyone else around him share his madness. And who the hell knows what Cheney's cult looks like. Probably there's no 100 degree club, but I wouldn't rule out a little feasting on the blood of the living on the night of the new moon.

Scared now,

The Plaid Adder