It's not the drugs, and it's not senility--Nice Rant

My friend Lana sent me this. Don't know who Inland is. A blogger I suppose. But I thought it interesting especially since folks have sent me the dry-drunk and brain-disease theories before. Here's a new take on why Bush sounds like an idiot most of the time. Take it for what it's worth.

"Why Bush Can't Talk:

It's not the drugs, and it's not senility.
by Inland
Aug 24, 2006

Bush's press conferences and unscripted remarks are so painfully bad, it spurs the question: what is his PROBLEM?

People have remarked that he wasn't that way when he was the Governor of Texas, and therefore theorize that he has deteriorated due to premature senility or a lifetime of drug use.

I think the reason George Bush stumbles, ends sentences midway through to jump to another thought, rattles off non-sequiturs, and makes up words, is that George Bush is breaking under the strain of lying almost all the time about almost everything.

It's because lying is hard work, and he's trying to hold several different false scenarios in his head while not blurting out what he's really being told behind closed doors.

Bush looks like a person stumbling over the easiest things, but in fact, he's not a person unable to relate simple facts. He's a person trying hard to NOT relate simple facts. He's a person trying to avoid the pitfalls of saying what's on his mind, and trying to keep his stories straight.

As I lawyer, I see people trying to construct false scenarios all the time. But you don't remember lies the way you remember truth. It's easier to remember how fast you were driving than it is to remember the exact lie you told the police officer about how fast you were driving. People who lie have to put a lot of energy into keeping their lies consistent with each other and, well, consistent with undeniable facts.

My grand theory is that Bush's entire presidency, from the beginnings of his campaign until now, is based on his taking public stances that at least obscure goals and positions shared secretly. He and his Roves have always accepted that the majority of the country wouldn't want him if they knew the promises he made to the right-wing Christians and the rich, if they knew the actual effect of his tax cuts, if they knew the evidence behind environmental damage, etc. Now he's hiding the entire foreign policy fiasco: whom he is holding incognito, whom he's spying upon, what he knew before 9/11, and many other secrets.

If you had so much to hide, you too would only use canned speeches, carefully vetted by speechwriters who don't know the real story anyway, to keep it all straight, and you would stumble and hem and haw in all other circumstances.

Which explains why his problem wasn't so evident as Texas Governor. Bush's brand of crony capitalism and piestic christianism went down well in Austin, at least for a governor with no real constitutional authority: Bush only had to repackage himself for the national race, essentially submerge his real persona and his real ideas and his real goals and pretend to a compassionate, not-asshole conservativism.

You know how they tell you, on a date, just to be yourself? And how you think, no, I don't want her to meet that guy just yet? Bush and Rove have been saying that for six years, and Bush has been schizo, trying to send signals and winks and nods to his fundamentalist Christians and send money to his corporate sponsors while slinging a load of bull at the nation. Add to that all the bodies he has to keep buried, and you've got a guy who is in a state of flop sweat every time he has to open his mouth in public.

Bush isn't senile or drug addled. He's a lying asshole. And it's hard work. Only truly gifted and intelligent sociopaths like Rove and Cheney can rattle it off.

Bush can't."