Bush stands alone

In an otherwise real fluffer of a piece, David Ignatius makes a good analogy on the current state of the POTUS' persona. Gone is the snake oil salesman's confident smirk. Bush knows he's been exposed so he's trying at least to look a little more humble. Glaringly absent is the swaggering strut of "the chosen one." In fact he looks tired and old, as every president has by this stage of their presidency, although Bush presents more as an abandoned child who abruptly finds himself alone on the playground, rather than a man weighed down by the hard choices of his position. It's as if after a lifetime of being the center of attention by dint of his inherited good fortune, he's just realized his fair weather friends have disappeared and he's no longer popular now that the family money -- or his case the political capital -- is gone.

Unfortunately, just like most playground bullies, this will not inspire Bush to mend his arrogant ways. Instead, he will stubbornly cling to his past glory and use his remaining power to "prove" he really is a contender. I like the way Ignatius put it:

What makes reality TV gripping is that it's all happening live -- the contestants make their choices under pressure, win or lose. So too with Bush. He is making a vast wager -- of American lives, treasure and the nation's security -- that his judgments about Iraq were right. The Baker-Hamilton report gave him a chance to take some chips off the table, but Bush doesn't seem interested. He is still playing to win. The audience is shouting out advice, but the man under the spotlight knows he will have to make this decision alone.

And he will make the decision based on what's good for himself, alone, rather than what's good for people he purportedly represents. The problem is our POTUS is a man who has never had to face responsibility for bad choices. Every wrong-headed wager he's made has been rectified by his family. The victims of his reckless risk taking were bought off and the mistakes were swept under the rug, never to be spoken of again. But this time, the stakes are too high, the victims too many for Daddy to come to the rescue and we all will pay if our president plays a losing hand.