There's no denying that for all his tough talk, GW doesn't have much stomach for hand-to-hand combat. After all, the guy was a cheerleader. Anyway, Josh Marshall made this point recently with a column that came after longtime Bush advisor Karen Hughes (who Bea Arthur will have to play in the movie..) attacked Kerry. Here's what Marshall wrote:
"What's the signature pattern of the president's life?
When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, he lets his family and friends bail him out, do his fighting for him. You see it again and again through failed businesses, legal scrapes, the whole matter of ducking service in Vietnam and then getting help cleaning up subsequent unfortunateness while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard.
It's even come up again and again on the campaign trail. George W. Bush has faced three opponents (McCain, Gore and Kerry) since he came onto the national political stage -- each served in Vietnam, though each under very different circumstances. He's had his lieutenants attack the service of each one.
So here we have the same pattern again -- no different. The president wants to challenge John Kerry's military service. So he gets Karen to do it for him. You can get tripped in the chutzpah of this because this not only throws light on an earlier period when the president couldn't fight his own fights, it repeats the pattern."
Right-O.
Posted by brettdavey
at 8:02 AM EDT