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PSYCHO_REGIME

                                             December 10, 2006
                                             February  7, 2007
                                             March    22, 2007
There's a strange need
many people have to       Or at least,
believe they know all     it seems          ALL_WRONG
about Bush Junior's       strange to me.
mental processes.
                                  Maybe that's
                                  the really      MOTIVATIONAL_BIND
    It might be fun               strange thing
    to list all of
    the Bush
    mental-models
    I encounter...                  The late Molly Ivins took him seriously
                                    as an upper-class Texan: the
                                    religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and
                                    tough guy posturing are really what he's
      o  Silver spoon cowboy        about. She suspected that he sincerely
                                    does not understand the damage he's
                                    doing, and in general has no grasp what
                                    life is like for the lower classes --
                                    e.g. he was governor of Texas for 5
                                    years, but knows nothing of how bad it
                                    is in South Texas.

                                       [ref]

      o  Profiteer                                         On the other hand,
                                                           other people like
                             When Bob Woodward was         to accuse him of
      o  Religious fanatic   hassling Junior about         being a phoney
                             why he wasn't talking         Texan, e.g.  Ann
                             to Senior, he responded       Richardson's joke:
                             something like "he's          "They put me up
                             the wrong father to           here so you could
                             look for leadership".         hear what a real
                                                           Texas accent sounds
                                 One explanation           like."
                                 of the Iraq war:
                                 when he said
                                 "crusade", he
                                 *meant* crusade.

      o  The chair warmer

           A place-holder, a man put into office
           on the strength of his name by backers        The identity of the
           who remain only lightly concealed.            backers varies a
                                                         little with
           The man himself then is a                     different tellings:
           frightened, alcoholic burnout who
           knows he's in over his head,                  The oil industry.
           doing his best to fake his way                Cheney/Halliburton,
           through public appearences                    The Israel Lobby.
           without too many Q&A sessions.


      And more to
      come, I'm sure...        There are obvious
                               combinations of the
                               above, of course:
                               they're not distinct
                               scenarios.

The question with me:

Can you work without a
psychological model of       PEGGED_AT_ZERO
the regime?

What does it get you
to feel like you've
got Bush's number?
                                          A thought from:

                                          THE_LONE_HEAD_OF_CEREBUS

                                              (And it's an interesting
                                              point that a Groucho
                                              dictator would genuinely
                                              be a fearsome character:
                                              the meaning of every
   VORTEX                                     little quip he makes is
                                              both crucially important
                                              and impossible to
                                              determine.  No one could
                                              ever know what to expect
                                              from him...)


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