GEORGE IN FANTASY LAND

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Jim Hightower:

George W has so many fantasies that they're even affecting the First Lady's grasp of reality.

Laura Bush recently castigated the media for not reporting that "many parts of Iraq are stable now." She then added: "But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

Gosh, should we tell her? Yes, let's. There are some 185 attacks in Iraq every day, Laura. At least 3,000 Iraqi civilians have died in these attacks this year alone. Seventy-three U.S. soldiers died just in the month of February.

But, for flights of fantasy, no one is in George W's league. On President's Day, he ventured out for a photo-op at Mount Vernon, where he stood at the grave of George Washington. There – in a jaw-dropping moment of raw megalomania – Bush compared Washington's principled resolve during the Revolutionary War to his own intransigent stupidity in Iraq! "In the end," said Bush, "General Washington understood that the Revolutionary War was a test of wills, and his will was unbreakable," slyly inferring that if Big George were alive today, he would side with Little George's mulish insistence on battling those uppity insurgents in Iraq's civil war.

Gosh, should we tell him? Yes, let's. Washington and the soldiers of the Revolution were the insurgents, George. They were battling an arrogant and bumbling empire from afar that was occupying their land. And, guess what? The insurgents won!

While we're at it, let's tell George W another thing: It was Big George who rejected the mantle of king when the founders were creating our new government, and he also believed that executive power should be strictly limited by checks and balances, with congress and the judiciary being equal to the presidency.

This is Jim Hightower saying... Bush keeps saying that the public's disapproval doesn't phase him, because history will be his judge. On that, he and I agree.