For a while, it was good to be king.
Although he was born into privilege and had the advantages of access and wealth, George Bush had been a mediocrity at everything he did.
As a last resort, his father hired Karl Rove, an up and coming Republican operative, to tutor this smirking son of the oil patch on the nitty gritty of politics. Rove worked his magic, the son was elected governor of Texas and then as had the father himself, president of the United States — if only by stealing an election.
It was so good to be king that when terrorists flew jetliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a farm field in western Pennsylvania eight months into his reign, there was a groundswell of support for him not seen in the land since the Pearl Harbor attack. While the younger Bush had play-acted being presidential, he had done nothing of substance since his inauguration, but that didn’t matter. The homeland was under siege and he was given a mandate akin to that granted FDR as America entered World War II.
It has been all downhill from there. And while the Great Unraveling of the Age of Bush should not be surprising when you understand the man, his motives, his handlers and their motives, the slow-motion collapse of his presidency has been extraordinary.
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