Bush 'Genuine' in His Responses, Praised by Supporters -- HUH??

Sure, the last debate was Bush's best performance -- but it was a performance -- as artificial, poorly done, and ultimately, as empty as his promises.

Bush accentuated the lines he'd been told were important (either by God or Karl Rove) with clumsy, high-school theater club type grimaces and eyebrow waggles...

It was like a bad sitcom ...

"That's one of his ... (pause for effect, give a quizzical smile) ... exaggerations."

And I finally could only conclude that his followers are so completely conditioned to watching bad sitcoms, that's what passes for sincerity among them ("Once you learn how to fake sincerity, the rest is easy.") As long as he hits the code words -- "liberal" (boo, negative frowning face) "freedom," "liberty," "democracy," "faith" (smile with inner calm and satisfaction), etc.

I agree with Richard Cohen that in the last debate, Bush's weird routine of making a dumb joke, then giving a little snickering laugh most closely resembled a bad actor playing the mad bomb-maker who is getting even with some injustice or other (forced early retirement, job outsourced to Bangladore, etc) in an action-adventure film.

I think Bush is, and possibly has been for some time, completely insane, which is why it's such a burden for him to appear in daylight in front of anyone but cheering fans, why he seems totally unable to brook any disagreement. (Cheney, on the other hand, just couldn't appear in daylight at all until very recently, when vampire-safe Sun-Bloc PDF 10,000 became available.)

The difference between Bush and Osama ben Ladn? Not much.

Both had daddies who bought them countries to run -- Osama got Afghanistan and the Taliban, Bush got the USA and the GOP.

Both think it's acceptable behavior to terrorize and kill bystanders in some foreign geographical location where each one tinks the local point of view is a personally-directed insult.

Both are momma's boys who turned against their fathers in classic Oedipal acting-out.

Both recruit their followers from deeply frustrated people with laser-narrow focus on one or two issues, people who claim to be religious but really have just opted to play with an ultimate-authority invisible friend since they can't seem to reason out any argument for their point of view but the absolute: "Because GOD said so, that's why!" (To be clear, I distinguish his vocal followers from people witha sincere religious faith that is an actual source of personal and private revelation and sustenance, rather than a club with which to beat others down. Bush's "faith-based" followers seem to be vindictive, craven, greedy -- in other words, about as Christian as Pontius Pilate. And for Ben Ladn's followers, substitute "Because ALLAH wills it, that's why!" and the rest is mirror-image hypocrisy to the Christian version.)

Both have destroyed and/or are in the process of destroying the religious and political structures that allowed them to rise to a position of power.

Both make people who are part of those groups deeply ashamed of what is being done in their name.

Both need to be taken gently by the hand and led to a comfy rubber room where they can spend the rest of their lives contemplating their crimes. It's not exactly "putting them out of their misery," perhaps more like putting them INTO their misery, but it's the one they created for themselves (even if they thought they were creating it for others).

Life without parole may be cruel, but at least it offers the opportunity for repentance.

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