George W. Bush has a lot of problems lately.

He's got a former administration official self-destructing messily at the World Bank. His attorney general, who presumably had to memorize the occasional piece of information when he was working his way through Harvard Law School, now seems completely unable to remember any conversation or meeting he has ever participated in. And the unprecedented cronyism and incompetence that characterizes all levels of his administration is becoming clearer to the public and to the media every week.

His war isn't going well. Soldiers are coming home in boxes, and there's no end in sight. He's long since lost support for the war effort at home. And it's becoming ever clearer that his legacy, such as it is, will certainly include decades of escalated sectarian violence in the Middle East. It's like he was reading the Road Map upside down.

His party is stumbling around trying to tag someone with the monumental task of bringing home a Republican victory in 2008. They know exactly who they want, but, among other things, there's the small matter of the 22nd amendment. So they have no clear vision, and meanwhile Bush has single-handedly reinvigorated the Democratic Party. It wasn't so long ago that there was no hope for progressives in this country - the Democrats were scattered and there was going to be a "permanent Republican majority." How sad for Bush that he is watching this grand vision crumble before his eyes.

So GWB has problems. And that's just the stuff that he would think is wrong. I could name a few more, but all of this makes me wonder. See, Bush is a guy, a human man. He's the president, but he's also a regular dude. How does he feel about all of this?

We see the swagger, the relentless arrogance unshakable confidence, the decisiveness. But with all of this truly heavy stuff going wrong around him, does a regular dude like Bush maybe, just maybe, have occasional, ahem, doubts about whether he's done the right thing?

Here's the way I see it: Bush is a religious man, or so I'm told. That means that he holds a certain worldview about a man's place in the universe (hint: we're special as a species, but individually we're insignificant). Given that insignificance, can a Christian man truly believe (as Bush would have us believe) that the decisions he makes are infallible? Can a man who believes he is a sinner actually maintain absolute confidence in his own ability to run a country?

I think he can't. And so I think that Bush is privately racked by doubt and guilt. He knows that lots and lots of people are dying because of him. He's not stupid or oblivious. He appears so because of the arrogance of his public persona. But I think he's hurting. I can't point to any particular episode; his public face is as polished as ever, the media machine freshly oiled and humming away. But the man has got to be coming apart on the inside.

I mentioned this to a co-worker and to my wife, and they disagree with me. My wife says that evangelical religions don't encourage doubt or existential questions like this, which I think is true. She says that he believes that he is doing God's work, and that that belief precludes all doubt and self-examination. I see her point, but I don't agree - you can't simply remove doubt from your mind like that, regardless of what religion you are. Even the stories about people who actually were supposed to be real prophets have them questioning themselves once in a while.

My co-worker says that he's spoiled - he's always been privileged and has always been able to avoid responsibility (Air National Guard, anyone?). She says that a life lived like that makes you callous, shallow, and, indeed, callow, and that Bush is simply unable to recognize the consequences of his actions. And I see her point, too.

But in the end I can't believe that religion or lifestyle can free you from normal human emotions like guilt and self-doubt. They don't keep you from soul-searching, or obsessing over hypotheticals, or feeling like you should clean up your own mess. I still think that, behind the Decider costume and underneath the Commander Guy multi-function wristwatch, there has to be some human emotion about all that has been lost.

I guess that makes me an optimist.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 3:41 pm and is filed under News and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.