Saturday, December 09, 2006
Damage to the dynasty
Eleanor Clift has a web only commentary of the shattering effect of the '94 FL governors loss by Jeb Bush on the family plans for the next Bush president.
That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family’s grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They’d go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won.We all now know the consequences of Jebbie's loss but I think Ms. Clift underestimates the evil influence of the neocons on Our Dear Idiot Child Leader. As weak a leader as ODICL is, he could have made it through with minimal damage had he not been surrounded by a bad crowd. And that is an area where even the less than scrupulous Bush family got snookered. But that is another column for Ms. Clift.
The son who was wrongly launched has made such a mess of things that he has ruined the family franchise. Without getting too Oedipal, it’s fair to say that so many mistakes George W. Bush made are the result of his need to distinguish himself from his father and show that he’s smarter and tougher. His need to outdo his father and at the same time vindicate his father’s failure to get re-elected makes for a complicated stew of emotions. The irony is that the senior Bush, dismissed by Junior’s crowd as a country-club patrician, looks like a giant among presidents compared to his son. Junior told author Bob Woodward, for his book “Plan of Attack,” that he didn’t consult his father in planning the invasion of Iraq but consulted a higher authority, pointing, presumably, to the heavens.
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