Bush isn't a moron, he's a cunning sociopath
By Bev Conover Online Journal
Editor & Publisher
December 5, 2002 - If any of us are to have a future worth having, the
world's leaders, the members of Congress, the US corporate media and people
of all political persuasions who value freedom and democracy had better
start seeing George W. Bush for what he is a sociopath and a passive serial
killer.
Psychiatrists tell us that all serial killers lack the emotions that make us
human; that they have to learn to emulate those emotions in order to get by
in society. Hence, a charming, well educated fellow like Ted Bundy who is
known to have murdered 15 women and may have killed 36 before he was caught.
While Bush is no Bundy, when it comes Bundy's education and acquired charm,
and to our knowledge has never personally murdered anyone, it has been
evident to us that there is something missing in George W. in terms of his
lack of compassion and empathy. As governor of Texas, he set a record in
signing death warrants - 154 in five years. He even made fun of the way
convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker begged for her life.
If we believe the psychiatrists, a sign of a future serial killer is a child
who delights in torturing and killing animals. George W., as a child, did
exactly that. In a May 21, 2000, New York Times' puff piece about the values
Bush gained growing up in Midland, Texas, Nicholas D. Kristoff quoted Bush's
childhood friend Terry Throckmorton "'We were terrible to animals,'
recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into
a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out.
'Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Mr. Throckmorton said. 'Or
we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'"
On Sept. 12, 2000, Baltimore Sun reporter Miriam Miedzian wrote, "So when he
was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them
in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm?
How relevant is a man's childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult?
And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States."
We're finding out, aren't we? While we, in two articles before the 2000
election - Sept. 21 and Oct. 23 - noted Bush's penchant for blowing up
frogs, the corporate media blew it off, just as it had no interest in what
he was trying to hide by obtaining a new Texas driver license and his 1976
drunk driving conviction, or the fact he was AWOL from the Texas Air
National Guard. Instead, they bought into his nonsensical claim of being a
"compassionate conservative" and "a uniter not a divider" who was going to
"restore honor and dignity to the White House."
All through the 2000 campaign and up to Sept. 11, 2001, the corporate media
depicted Bush as an affable, tongue-tied bumbler - the kind of guy Joe
Six-pack would like to have a beer with - turning a blind eye to his dark
underside. It mattered not that he stocked his illicit administration with
the worst of the worst John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Gale Norton, Paul
O'Neill, Harvey Pitt, Thomas White, John Negroponte, Otto Reich and
convicted Iran-contra felon Elliot Abrams who received a 1992 Christmas Eve
pardon from George W.'s father.
Then, despite his peculiar behavior on Sept. 11, the corporate media and his
handlers transformed him into a leader extraordinaire in the mold of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rolled into one.
And as Bush had Afghanistan bombed back beyond the Stone Age to rid the
world of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, then switched to claiming it was the
Taliban that had to go, then declared there was an "axis of evil" and it was
really Saddam Hussein who was the "mother of all evil" and that war with
Iraq was in the offing to get rid of Saddam, the corporate media cheered him
on and to this day continues to beat the war drum. They have yet to consider
that the passive serial killer needs to feed his lust for blood by sending
others to put their lives on the line and do the killing for him.
In his Sept. 12 article, White House insiders say Bush is "out of control,"
Mike Hersh wrote, "Some among Bush's trusted White House staff fear what
they are seeing and where Bush is taking us. His state of mind hauntingly
reminds them of Richard Nixon's Final Days. They fear Bush is becoming
Nixonesque . . . or worse. Although Bush lacks Nixon's paranoia, he may
entertain even more dangerous notions."
But their desperate late night phone calls to trusted reporters has not seen
the light of day in the corporate media. Yet, some of us outside the Beltway
have long had an inkling of what we are dealing with.
More proof lies in Alexandra Pelosi's documentary, Journeys with George.
Pelosi, the daughter of incoming House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was a
producer for NBC when she wangled the assignment to spend 18 months as part
of Bush's campaign press corps.
From the surface, Pelosi's "home movie," as she calls it, seems to be
nothing more than a love fest as George W. works to charm the pants off her
and the rest of the press corps. The striking thing about this George, even
though Karen Hughes is often seen hovering at his elbow, is that he isn't
tongue-tied when he is pumping up his ego, dishing out digs and being
sarcastic and crude.
Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon and professor of media
studies at New York University, who also sees the darker Bush, said in a
Nov. 28 interview with the Toronto Star, ""Bush is not an imbecile. He's not
a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he's
incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and
he's a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged
idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss."
Miller said he did intend The Bush Dyslexicon to be a funny book, but that
was before he read all the transcripts, which revealed, according to
reporter Murray Whyte, "a disquieting truth about what lurks behind the
cock-eyed leer of the leader of the free world. He's not a moron at all on
that point, Miller and Prime Minister Jean Chretien agree."
"He has no trouble speaking off the cuff when he's speaking punitively, when
he's talking about violence, when he's talking about revenge," Miller told
Whyte. "When he struts and thumps his chest, his syntax and grammar are
fine. It's only when he leaps into the wild blue yonder of compassion, or
idealism, or altruism, that he makes these hilarious mistakes."
In a speech last Sept. in Nashville, trying to strengthen his case against
Saddam, Bush's script called for him to say, "Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me." But the words that came out of his mouth were,
""Fool me once, shame . . . shame on . . . you," followed by a long pause,
then, "Fool me - can't get fooled again!"
Said Miller, "What's revealing about this is that Bush could not say, 'Shame
on me' to save his life. That's a completely alien idea to him. This is a
guy who is absolutely proud of his own inflexibility and rectitude."
Another example, Miller said, occurred early in Bush's White House tenure
when he said, "I know how hard it is to put food on your family."
According to Miller, "That wasn't because he's so stupid that he doesn't
know how to say, 'Put food on your family's table' - it's because he doesn't
care about people who can't put food on the table."
Miller told Whyte, ""When he tries to talk about what this country stands
for, or about democracy, he can't do it."
"This, then, is why he's so closely watched by his handlers, Miller says not
because he'll say something stupid, but because he'll overindulge in the
language of violence and punishment at which he excels," Whyte wrote.
"He's a very angry guy, a hostile guy. He's much like Nixon. So they're
very, very careful to choreograph every move he makes. They don't want him
anywhere near protestors, because he would lose his temper," Miller said.
"I call him the feel bad president, because he's all about punishment and
death," Miller told Whyte. "It would be a grave mistake to just play him for
laughs."
A grave mistake, indeed.
If all that has happened since Bush was first mentioned as a possible GOP
presidential candidate hasn't set off alarms, his naming of war criminal,
mass murderer and international fugitive Henry Kissinger last week to head
up the 9/11 investigation should have. And this week another alarm should
have gone off when Bush promoted Elliot Abrams to lead the National Security
Council's office for Near East and North African affairs, which oversees
Arab-Israeli relations.
Bush must be stopped now, before he sets the world aflame. And set it aflame
is what he intends to do, even if Iraq has no "weapons of mass destruction"
or Saddam stands on his head, naked, on the White House lawn.
*****
High Court Ponders Police Questioning Thu Dec 5, 2002
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The case of a grievously wounded farmworker who was shot
five times by police and then questioned by them while awaiting medical
treatment prompted Supreme Court justices to ponder what limits should be
placed on interrogations.
How coercive could questioning be if someone had information that would
thwart a terrorist attack or solve a kidnapping?
Such hypotheticals seem far from the circumstances of a November 1997 police
shooting in Oxnard, Calif., but justices seemed interested in them as they
considered the case Wednesday. The decision could have implications for
counterterrorism interrogations, when building a criminal case may take a
back seat to gathering intelligence.
In the case, California farmworker Oliverio Martinez was shot repeatedly by
police and then subjected to a lengthy interrogation as he awaited medical
treatment. He was never told of his Miranda right to remain silent, and he
says Oxnard police Sgt. Ben Chavez kept questioning him even after he said
twice that he did not want to answer.
Martinez, who was never charged with a crime, was left blind and paralyzed.
He filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Oxnard, which includes
Chavez as a defendant.
The specific matter to be decided is whether Chavez can be sued. A federal
district judge and the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said he could be.
The Supreme Court is considering Chavez's appeal of that decision.
Martinez's lawsuit has been delayed pending the Supreme Court appeal.
During oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether police
could use extraordinary means to get information about a plot to blow up the
World Trade Center.
Attorney R. Samuel Paz, representing Martinez, tried to steer the discussion
toward his client's tragic circumstances.
"The terrorist situation is a difficult one," Paz said. "It's not our case."
Lawrence S. Robbins, Chavez's lawyer, and Deputy Solicitor General Paul D.
Clement told justices that the failure to give a Miranda warning should not
be an issue since Martinez was never prosecuted.
"Miranda concerns in this case are an utter red herring," Robbins said.
The Bush administration, police organizations, the state of California and
more than 50 California cities are siding with Chavez.
At one point Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to agree with Robbins. "No one is
talking about weakening or overturning Miranda," Breyer said.
The Miranda warning takes its name from the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in a
1966 case involving the use of a confession in the rape prosecution of
Ernesto Miranda.
But Paz argued the case is very much about the viability of the Miranda
warning. Chavez's purpose in questioning Martinez was to build a case
against him, he said.
Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer in Los Angeles who
supports Martinez, said police will increasingly fail to advise people of
their rights if the court rules against Martinez. "That's why we have been
saying that the court has to somehow make clear that at least deliberate
violations of Miranda are not constitutional," Wizner said.
The other aspect of Martinez's plight that drew the justices' interest was
whether the questioning was reasonable.
Paz said it was not. "No reasonable police officer can believe the
questioning was reasonable," he said.
Breyer pressed Chavez's lawyer on the same point.
With Martinez lying in agony, asking for help and believing he would die,
why did Chavez continue to ask questions, even telling Martinez he would
receive medical aid after talking, Breyer asked.
"Why isn't that the equivalent of beating someone up?" the justice asked.
Robbins said the officer was trying to elicit critical information because
he believed the man would die.
"I acknowledge there is coercion in this case. We don't blanch on that,"
Robbins said. "But the reality is this This officer was there to find out
an extraordinarily important piece of information under exigent circumstances."
The case is Chavez v. Martinez, 01-1444.
*****
Bush Claims 'Solid' Evidence on Iraq Thu Dec 5, 2002 By BARRY SCHWEID, AP
Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Thursday it possesses solid evidence
that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and rejected Baghdad's denials,
saying they have no credibility.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) declined to say what
that evidence is, but said the United States will provide intelligence to
weapons inspectors.
"The president of the United States and the secretary of Defense would not
assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for
saying it," Fleischer said. "The Iraqi government has proved time and time
again to deceive, to mislead and to lie."
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told ABC News that "we don't have
weapons of mass destruction. We don't have chemical, biological or nuclear
weaponry, but we have equipment which was defined as dual use."
Fleischer responded "That statement is just as false as statements that
Iraq made in the late '90s when they said they had no weapons of mass
destruction, when it was found they indeed did. There is no basis to that."
Bush administration officials expect tricky and troubling deception from
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in response to a deadline
this weekend for listing any hidden weapons and long-range missile programs.
The assumption within the administration is that Saddam wants to hold on to
the weapons and hopes to shift the burden of proof to the United States, a
senior U.S. official said Wednesday. What Saddam is most likely to do is to
provide thousands of documents on such peripheral issues as dual-use
equipment and commercial material of potential military application, the
official said on condition of anonymity.
Iraq is required by the U.N. Security Council to hand over a list by Sunday
of any chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in its possession as well as
a description of any long-range missile program.
The schedule set by the Security Council calls for a full weapons
declaration. In Baghdad, a senior Iraqi official said the list would be
turned over to U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on
Saturday, a day ahead of the deadline.
If the declaration is patently false, the administration may try to rally a
consensus on the Council to explicitly approve using force against Iraq.
Iraq protested sharply Wednesday over U.N. weapons inspectors' surprise
intrusion into one of Saddam presidential palaces, accusing the arms experts
of being spies and staging the palace search as a provocation that could
lead to war.
The harshest criticism came from Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who
charged - in language reminiscent of clashes with inspectors in the 1990s -
that the new teams of U.N. monitors are gathering intelligence for
Washington and Israel. The White House dismissed Iraq's protest as part of
its pattern of not cooperating with international inspectors.
If the Iraqi leader denies having weapons of mass destruction, President
Bush (news - web sites) will be faced with several options. One is to
provide U.S. intelligence to the inspectors to have them disprove Saddam's
claim. Another is for the president to take his case to the Security
Council, several other U.S. officials said.
The resolution adopted unanimously by the Council on Nov. 8 requires Bush to
consult. At the same time, the president has made plain he reserves the
option of using force against Iraq if Saddam refuses to disarm.
Bush said on Wednesday that Saddam "is not somebody who looks like he's
interested in complying."
"This is not a game any more of, 'Well, I'll say one thing and do another,'"
Bush told reporters at the White House. "We expect him to disarm, and now
it's up to him to do so."
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), at a news conference in
Bogota, Colombia, said, "We are absolutely sure they have continued to
develop weapons of mass destruction, and we're sure they have in their
possession weapons of mass destruction."
Powell said if a peaceful solution was not found "the international
community, I predict, will be unified in using force."
But if the outlook is the kind of extended debate that delayed last month's
resolution or if a veto against force loomed, the United States might take
action outside the United Nations (news - web sites) with a coalition of
willing allies, the senior U.S. official said.
The administration is confident it would have the support of many countries
in a war with Iraq - and more of them if a second anti-Iraq resolution is
approved, he said.
Above all else, the United States is seeking permission to use foreign bases
for combat flights and asking for troops to fight alongside Americans, the
official said. Beyond that, there is a need for approval for overflights and
other forms of access.
No country is prepared to make an ironclad commitment, and none has been
requested, the official said. But most countries in the Middle East and
Persian Gulf share the U.S. analysis of Saddam, and the Nov. 8 resolution
has accelerated their willingness to take part in contingency planning, he
said.
*****
Lawsuit against Cheney task force dismissed By Pete Yost
Dec. 9, 2002 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge Monday dismissed a
lawsuit filed by the investigative arm of Congress against Vice President
Dick Cheney's energy task force.
U.S. District Judge John Bates said the case filed by Comptroller General
David Walker against the vice president is an unprecedented act that raises
serious separation-of-powers issues between the executive and legislative
branches of government.
"No court has ever before granted what the comptroller general seeks," wrote
Bates, an appointee of President Bush.
The judge said that the comptroller general, who runs the General Accounting
Office, "does not have the personal, concrete and particularized injury
required" under the Constitution and that "his complaint must be dismissed."
Courts historically have not stepped in to resolve disputes between the
political branches, wrote Bates.
"This case, in which neither a House of Congress nor any congressional
committee has issued a subpoena for the disputed information or authorized
this suit, is not the setting for such unprecedented judicial action," wrote
the judge.
Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan
requested information in the spring of 2001 about which industry executives
and lobbyists the Cheney task force was meeting with in formulating the Bush
administration's energy plan.
As the dispute grew, Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Joseph
Lieberman of Connecticut, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Byron Dorgan
of North Dakota joined the fight, urging that Cheney disclose data about his
industry meetings.
The Cheney energy plan called for expanded oil and gas drilling on public
land and easing regulatory barriers to building nuclear power plants. Among
the proposals Drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge and possibly reviving
nuclear fuel reprocessing, which was abandoned in the 1970s as a nuclear
proliferation threat.
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