1 Boring Old Man

• The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
• Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

Right now, we’re watching this phenomena play out in our two leaders, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Both men are locked into monotonous patterns of behavior that seem impervious to any input from the outside. Neither of them seems capable of learning from their mistakes. Neither man seems capable of coming up with any new solutions in response to new information. But worse than that, they both appear to be enslaved by their personalities. It’s apparent to even the most casual observer that what we’re doing in Iraq isn’t working. Even their most ardent supporters see that. But they don’t budge. They’re throwing away money and human lives at an alarming rate, but continue to rale about Democrats being big spenders. Worse, they both are unwilling to listen to anyone else, so they reflexly resist Congress, advisors [like the Iraq Study Group], popular opinion. They both have a quality that is characteristic of what is called Narcissism – they believe their own thoughts are correct – absolutely. When they are questioned, they both immediately go into a defensive mode and start looking for ways to counter their critics, rather than listening to what the critics are saying. It’s automatic. And they both sneer on the way…

But, there are some differences between the two men – at least that’s how it appears to me. Dick Cheney seems to have no moral compass – no bedrock attachment to the truth. In the Valerie Plame Affair, he immediately responded with political skullduggery. In the buildup to the war, he immediately jumped on the slimmest hint of intelligence about Hussein and dogged the C.I.A. until he had his reasons to justify invading Iraq. His [now] Chief of Staff, David Addington, seems to work full time making up rationalizations for him to do whatever he wants to do. In the recent series in the Washington Post, there were example after example of hasty rationalizations that he jumped on, even though they turned out to be disasters – like the massive Salmon Kill in the Northwest. When there’s something he wants to accomplish, he begins to look for a way to do it, a loophole or rationalization, never looking at the fact that the things in his way are there for a very good reason. His contempt for oversight has become legend.

Not that George W. Bush is any moral giant. But he doesn’t seem to me to be so dark a figure as Dick Cheney. He strikes me more like a spoiled brat who wants his way and surrounds himself with people who help him get it. Whatever the case, I don’t trust either one of them to act responsibly to new challenges. They are both enslaved by their personalities. The best predictor of their future behavior is their past behavior. Their insanity is doing the same things over and over, claiming that there will be different results.

I doubt that they’ll do anything to change the course of events in Iraq. I expect they’ll continue to "stay the course" to the end unless Congress finds some method to make that completely impossible. I doubt that they’ll do anything about the fact that we currently have no effective Federal Justice System in our country right now. They’ll keep nickle and diming Congress to the bitter end and leave Alberto Gonzales exactly where he is. I’m skeptical that they’ll do anything about their decimation of our military forces and our abuse of our own troops. They are going to continue to inflict their disordered personality structures on the American people until they can no longer exert any influence – and they’re good at it. And they’ll continue to make "the sneer" the face of America.