Bush and the Psychology of Incompetent Decisions
By John P. Briggs, MD, and J.P. Briggs II, PhD
Thursday 18 January 2007
President George W. Bush prides himself on “making tough
decisions.” ****? many are ***?nsing something ***?riously troubling, even
psychologically unbalanced, about the president ***? a decision-maker.
They are right.
Because of a psychological dynamic swirling around deeply hidden
feelings of inadequacy, the president has been driven to make
increasingly incompetent and risky decisions. This dynamic makes the
psychological stakes for him now unimaginably high. The words
“success” and “failure” have ***?ized his rhetoric like metaphors for
his psyche’s survival.
The president’s swirling dynamic lies “hidden in plain sight” in
his ***?rsonal history. From the ***?me he was a boy until his religious
awakening in his early 40s, Bush had every reason to feel he was a
***?ilure. His continued, almost obsessive, attempts through the years
to emulate his ***?ther, obtain his approval, and escape from his
influence are extensively recorded.
His biography is ***?ppered with remarks and behavior that allude to
this inner struggle. In an exuberant moment during his ***?cond campaign
for Texas governor, Bush told a reporter, “It’s hard to believe, ****?
… I don’t have ***?me to worry about being George Bush’s son. Maybe
it’s a result of being confident. I’m not sure how the psychoanalysts
will ****.ze it, ****? I’m not worried about it. I’m really not. I’m a
free guy.”
A psychoanalyst would note that he is revealing here that he has
been worrying about being his ***?ther’s son quite a lot.
Resentment naturally contaminated Bush’s efforts to prove himself
to his ***?ther and receive his ***?ther’s approval. The contradictory mix
showed up in his compulsion to re-fight his ***?ther’s war against Iraq,
****? this ***?me winning the duel some thought his ***?ther ***?iled to win
with Saddam. He could at once emulate his ***?ther, show his contempt
for him, and redeem him. ****? beneath this son-father struggle lies a
***?r more significant issue for Bush - a question about his own
competence, adequacy and autonomy ***? a human being.
We have ***?en this inner question surface repeatedly, and we have
largely conspired with him to deny it.
• On ***?ptember 11, 2001, we saw (and suppressed) the image
of him sitting stunned for ***?ven minutes in a crowd of school children
after learning that the ***?cond plane had hit the *****? Towers, and then
the lack of image of him when he vanished from public view for the
rest of the day. Instead, we bought the cover-up image, three days
after the attack, of the strong leader, grabbing the bullhorn in New
York City and issuing bellicose statements.
• In 2004, we saw and denied the insecurity displayed when
the president refused to ***?ce the 9/11 Commission alone and needed
Vice President Cheney to go with him.
• In 2003, we saw and suppressed the dark side of the
“Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier landing, in which a man who
had ducked out on his generation’s war and dribbled away his ***?rvice
in the Texas Air National Guard dressed up like Top Gun and pretended
that he was a combat pilot like his ***?ther.
• ***?ked by a reporter if he would accept responsibility for
any mistakes, Bush answered, “I hope I don’t ****?t to sound like I’ve
made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t - you just put
me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not quick - ***? quick on my feet
***? I should be in coming up with one.” What we heard, and yet didn’t
hear, was a confession of his feelings of inadequacy and an arrogant
denial those feelings all at once.
• In early 2006, when his ***?ther moved behind the scenes to
replace ***?cretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the son responded,
“I’m the decider and I decide what’s best” - and when he clenched his
fist at a question about his ***?ther’s influence, proclaiming, “I’m the
Commander in Chief” - we glimpsed what was going on.
To cover up and defend himself against his feelings of his
inadequacy and incompetence, Bush developed a number of psychological
defenses. In his school years he played the clown. (His ability to
joke about his verbal slip-ups is an endearing adult application of
this defense to public life.) His heavy drinking was a classic way to
anesthetize feelings of inadequacy. Indeed, drinking typically makes
the alcoholic grandiose, which has led some commentators to argue that
Bush has the “dry drunk” syndrome, where the individual has stopped
drinking ****? retains the brittle psychology of the alcoholic. Other
defenses now play especially powerful roles to protect the president
against his internal feelings of insufficiency.
The Christian Defense
Bush has carefully let it be known that he believes the decisions
he makes in office are directed by God. His ***?mous claim to make
decisions by “gut” (”I’m a gut player,” he told Bob Woodward) equates
with his claim of the ****?ritual inspiration he receives through
prayer, his own and the prayers of others. Whatever else it is, this
equation of his own choices with God’s will has unparalleled
advantages. It creates the ***?rfect defense against any doubts he or
anyone else might have that he can’t make the right decision. The need
to engage in ****.sis and explore alternatives to get there comes off
the table. Instead, he has his gut; he has his God.
Being “born again” also allows the president to present himself ***?
having relegated to the past all those previously inadequate behaviors
of his younger days: the ****?r academic ***?rformance, the drinking, the
***?iled businesses. He’s a new man, no longer incompetent ****? now
supremely competent ***? a result of his ***?ith.
When Woodward ***?ked Bush if he had consulted his ***?ther before
invading Iraq, he replied, “He is the wrong ***?ther to appeal to in
terms of strength. There is a higher ***?ther that I appeal to.” How
wonderfully that appeal must ***?em to resolve the internal conflict
about adequacy we have described above.
The Bully Defense
Bush’s mother, Barbara (sarcastic, mean, disciplinarian, always
with an acid-tongued retort), is probably the model for another major
defense Bush deploys to defend himself against feelings of inadequacy.
A friend at the ***?me described her ***? “sort of the leader bully.”
That bullies are insecure ***?ople is well known and ***?irly obvious.
A bully covers insecurity with bluster and intimidation so that others
won’t find an opening to ***?e how weak he feels.
Much of the world outside the US considers Bush a bully. “You’re
either with us or against us” is a bully’s threat that anyone can
recognize. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is a bully’s
doctrine.
For his intimates and those closer to home, Bush appears to be
what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully ***?ins control
using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring,
lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush
administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from
the president. He’s well known for his dismissive remarks. His
***?nchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully’s side.
Naming ***?ople is a way to control them.
In report by ***?il Sheehy in 2000, recalled recently by New York
***?mes columnist Maureen Dowd, we get a glimpse of how Bush’s ***?rvasive
fear of ***?ilure (his absolute refusal to consider “failure ***? an
option”) and his bully defense go together. Sheehy interviewed friends
from his ****?nage years and college years. In basketball or tennis
***?mes he would insist points be played over because he wasn’t ready;
he would force opponents who had beaten him to continue playing until
he beat them. At Yale he would interrupt his fellow students’ studying
for exams (helping them ***?il) to compete in a popular board ***?me, “The
***?me of Global Domination,” at which he was the player noted for
taking the most risks, being the most aggressive.
It’s likely that speculations about Vice President Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice ***?nctioning ***? Bush’s puppet-masters are
180 (or at least 160) degrees off. Bush is the president; he gets his
way, and they know it. Chances are they have learned to channel his
“gut” and give him policy advice that matches it. They may even
imagine they are steering him, not clear about the ways that he has
bullied them, elicited in them “The Stockholm Syndrome,” in which
hostages come to identify with and even defend the very ***?rson who is
threatening them. This is the same dynamic evident in the behavior of
battered spouses and members of ***?ngs.
Ron Suskind described the small group around the president: “A
disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness
- a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly
questioners.”
Biographical reports tell us that Bush’s parents taught him to
keep his inner feelings to himself. ***? psychiatrist Justin A. Frank
noted in Bush on the Couch, this results in a “self-protective
indifference to the pain of others.” This is another ***?pect of his
bully defense, projecting his inner pain onto others. Bush’s
remarkable drive for the power to torture terrorist suspects and his
reported glorying in Texas executions during his terms ***? governor
testify to his lack of compassion, despite his recent statement of
qualms about ***?eing Saddam Hussein drop through the trap.
The Man of Splits and Oppositions
Being in the world, for all of us, involves the challenge to
somehow integrate the opposites of our nature and to ***?lect our way
through the many opposing choices presented us in life. The bully
polarizes the natural ambivalence (the internal opposition) anyone
feels about whether he is strong or weak, safe or vulnerable. A ***?rson
who needs to feel invulnerable and completely adequate all the ***?me,
or who always feels helpless and inadequate, has polarized these
emotions and leads a deformed life. The degree of internal
polarization in President Bush appears to be ***?rious - and widespread.
Commentators have made lists of the president’s polarities: the
proclaimed uniter who is a relentless divider, the habit of “saying
one thing and doing another,” ***? Vermont ***?nator Jim Jeffords put it.
The list is long and growing. It should include the oppositions that
show up in his ***?mous Bushisms, ****?h ***?:
There is no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst
leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our ***?ace, to threaten
our friends and allies with the world’s worst weapons.
They [the terrorists] never stop thinking of ways to harm our
country and our ***?ople - and neither do we.
To a psychiatrist, these are not mere malapropisms and mistakes in
speech. They suggest ambivalence oscillating violently between poles.
They suggest a desperate uncertainty about everything that the
president reflexively ***?eks to hide by taking absolutist, rigid
positions about “victory,” “success,” “mission accomplished,” “stay
the course,” “compassion,” “tax ***?ts,” “no child left behind,” and a
host of other issues.
The Presidential Defense
Once Bush took the bullhorn at ground zero, he found ***?rhaps the
ultimate defense for his ***?cret fears of inadequacy. ***? he told Bob
Woodward, in Bush at War, “I’m the commander - ***?e, I don’t need to
explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the
interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to
explain to me why they say something, ****? I don’t feel like I owe
anybody an explanation.” ***? commander in chief, ***? a war president, he
could ***.mble his other psychological defenses around him. He could
split the world into ****?d and evil and the country would follow. His
internal oppositions could be projected without much resistance from
the populace or his adversaries. He could be the gut-led, divinely
inspired “Decider,” to save the country. He could project own internal
fears of being “discovered ***? a fraud” into a threat “out there”
waiting to happen. He could surround himself with loyalists whom he
could emotionally bully, creating a new ***?mily that would admire him
and that he could control. Meanwhile the ambiguities of political
decisions that can always be rationalized offer a safe haven. Until
history judges me (and that’s a long way off, maybe never) I can’t be
definitively ***?en ***? incompetent.
****? ***? much ***? the presidency is a ***?rfect defense for disguising
incompetence, it’s also the ***?rfect trap. It accelerates the positive
feedback loop that was ***?t in motion when he “changed his heart”
around age 40 (committing himself to God) and presumably put his
***?ilures, and his feelings of ***?ilure behind him.
In recent weeks, anyone following the news must have intuitively
***?nsed from watching and hearing the president that he would reject
the Iraq Study Group’s report, co-authored by a ***?rson he must have
felt was the emissary of his ***?ther come to tell him that he had
***?iled again. He chose escalation, the one solution most knowledgeable
***?ople agree cannot ****?ceed, in order to keep alive the fiction that
****?cess still lies in the ***?ture.
The dynamic is becoming obvious to almost everybody.
****? how much is Bush aware of this psychological dynamic and of
the ***?cret he’s keeping? Not aware enough. That’s the problem.
Psychotherapists use the term “unconscious,” ****? it isn’t quite an
accurate descriptor. We are aware of feelings, ***?nsations and scripts
that occur when one of our unseen psychic mechanisms is triggered. So,
when an interviewer ***?ked about the generals who demanded Rumsfeld be
removed, and the president knew his ***?ther had been working behind the
scenes to replace Rumsfeld, the question would not have triggered the
conscious thought: there goes dad again trying to make me feel
incompetent. Instead, the president may have felt a hollow ***?nsation
or a flush of anger, an urge to form a clownish grin to cover his
watery feelings, and a script that would come out of his mouth ***? “I’m
the decider.” Beneath that would be the inadequacy and cover-up
dynamic outlined here.
A president’s psychology and his inner ***?crets are his or her own
business, except in one important area. That is area covered by the
question, “Does the psychology of this individual interfere with his
or her ability to make sound decisions in the best interest of the
nation?” Recent history has certainly been witness to presidents with
psychodynamics that have damaged their historical legacies. Bill
****?nton and Richard Nixon come to mind. ****? in neither case was the
very ability to make sound decisions compromised to the extent we
believe it is with this president.
A ***?iled Process
Many accounts of the president suggest that his decision-making
process is a ***?iled one; in an important ***?nse, it is no process at
all.
Ambivalent feelings are normal at certain stages of
decision-making, and the ability to tolerate ambivalence has been
shown to be the hallmark of creative thinkers. The inability to
tolerate uncertainty because you think that may imply incapacity
brings decision-making to an end.
Thus, instead of focusing on the process needed to arrive at a
decision, Bush marshals his defenses in order not to feel incompetent.
That doesn’t leave much room for exploring the alternatives required
of competent decision-making. Not interested in discussion or detail
(where the devil often lies), he ***?eks something minimal, just enough
so he can let the decision come to him; it’s his “gut” (read “God”)
that will provide the answer. ****? these gut feelings are the very
feelings ***.ciated with his deep ***?nse of inadequacy and his defenses
against those feelings. So while he brags that he makes the “tough
decisions,” psychologically, he’s defending himself against the very
feelings of uncertainty that are the necessary concomitant to making
tough decisions. His tough decision-making is a sham.
In the recent maneuvering toward the “new strategy” in Iraq, we
have witnessed a great pretense of normal decision-making. ****? the
president clearly made up his mind almost ***? soon ***? the “surge”
alternative appeared, and apparently moved to cow others, including
his new ***?cretary of defense Robert ***?tes (his ***?ther’s man) in the
process. “Success” is the only alternative for him. “Failure” and
disintegration of Iraq is unthinkable because it would be synonymous
with his own internal disintegration.
***? his decisions go awry, he exudes a troubling, uncanny aura of
certitude (though some find it reassuring). He ***?ems to expect to feel
despised and alone (and probably has always felt that), ***? he has
always ***?cretly expected to ***?il. That expectation of ***?ilure leads to
sloppy, risky, incompetent decisions, which in turn compel him to
swerve from his fears of incompetence.
At this point, the president ***?ems to have entered a place in his
psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and
unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication,
because he’s still “The Decider,” who can just keep deciding until he
gets to ****?cess. It’s hard not to feel something heroic in this
position - ****? it’s a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions.
Psychologically, President Bush has received support for so long
because many have thought of him ***? “one of us.” Most of us feel
inadequate in some way, and watching him we can feel his inadequacies
and ***?nse his uncertainties, so we admire him for “pulling it off.”
His model tells us, “If you act like you’re confident and competent,
then you are.” We are the ***?lture that values the power of positive
thinking and ***?eks ***.rtiveness training. We believe that the right
attitude can sometimes be more important than brains or hard work.
He’s bullied us, too. We don’t dare to really confront the ****?le of
his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to ***?ce what it
means to have ****?h an incompetent and psychologically disabled
decision-maker ***? our president. It raises everyone’s uncertainty. And
that is, in ***?ct, happening now.
———-
John P. Briggs, MD, is retired from over 40 years of private
practice in psychotherapy in Westchester County, New York. He was on
the ***?culty in psychiatry at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
in New York City for 23 years and was a long-time member of the
American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He trained at the William Alanson
White Institute in New York. J.P. Briggs II, PhD, is a Distinguished
CSU professor at Western Connecticut State University and is the
***?nior editor of the intellectual journal The Connecticut Review. He
is author and co-author of ****?ks on creativity and chaos, including
Fire in the Crucible (St. Martin’s Press); Fractals, the Patterns of
Chaos (Simon and Schuster); and ***?ven Life Lessons of Chaos
(HarperCollins), among others. He is ***?rrently at work with
Philadelphia psychologist John Amoroso on a ****?k about the power of
ambivalence in the creative process.
This is propaganda, FYI. If it were not, it would mention the elitist ***?milies who are telling Bush what to do. Bush is a puppet and I never did like puppet shows and I friggin’ **** puppet masters.
- Dr. Bill Fine
