Recognizing that I am being totally presumptuous since I have no formal
qualifications for what I am about to suggest, I nevertheless want to
call your attention to a brain disfunction known as pre-frontal lobe
syndrome as the possible explanation for George W. Bush's strange
behavior.
Whether this disfunction is genetic or the consequence of a
slight lesion or other injury in the pre-frontal lobe area of the brain
is unknown. However, the resulting symptoms and characteristics are
quite specific, albeit hard for an observer to perceive. The main
symptom is an inability to correctly related cause and effect. While
these categories may well be addressed in the afflicted person's speech,
the reference does not reflect an awareness of the connection, except by
accident. The failure to appreciate cause and effect as central to
one's behavior may be a consequence of the brain's failure to accurately
record the sequence of the events stored in the memory. In other words,
the person has no difficulty remembering and does so with great
specificity. The problem arises from the inability to keep the order in
which things happened straight. It also interferes with the events
being linked with the right agent or person. Then there is often
confusion over who actually did what when.
To compound the problem, the failure of sequential memory makes it very
difficult for the afflicted person to recognize other people as distinct
individuals (a difficulty often masked by assigning a different identity
to people by devising one's own naming system, i.e. nicknames). When
subjected to psychiatric assessment, a person with this disfunction is
often mis-diagnosed as having a "borderline" personality--one that has
difficulty differentiating between the self and other people.
Psychiatric assessments also focus on what is perceived as persistent
prevarication. But that assumes that the person is conscious of not
telling the truth. A person whose brain does not store experience in
sequence is bound to have variable and unreliable recall.
Unfortunately, every such recall is then stored again to reinforce the
memory as a true experience, even though it is false (could explain why
GWB cannot let go of the phrase "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction").
It may well be that the lack of a sequence recording function (which
seems to interfere with reading comprehension) is compensated for by an
excellent memory, in the sense of storing and being able to recall (when
prompted) particular packets of information quite prodigiously, an
ability much prized, no doubt, by someone who aspires to be an actor and
needs to repeat lengthy speeches the same way over and over again.
On the other hand, since the inability to recollect events accurately
obviously interferes with the ability to predict one's own or other's
behavior, the individual's brain may well compensate by relating to
others in a prompt/response kind of situation where the person speaks
and acts as an exact mirror of the person with whom he/she is
interacting. Of course, when there are multiple persons present, that
would probably result in all but one being effectively ignored. (This
may be what O'Neill meant when he said that a cabinet meeting was like a
"blind man in a room of deaf people"--meaning that GWB did not "see"
them as individuals and they did not hear that his pronouncements,
although understandable and even relevant, did not make sense as
accurate analyses of a situation, much less a reasonable prediction of
future events.
If a person is unaware of the relationship between cause and effect,
then, while it is possible to make verbal predictions, it is unlikely
that they are going to be consistent with reality. It isn't a matter of
deception or even self-deception such as wishful thinking, if the person
doesn't know that his brain isn't processing information the same way
other people process theirs. And that's true of us as observers, as
well. It is very difficult to see that another person's brain doesn't
process information the same way as our own. It may even be that this
sequential function, of storing information in such a way that the
relationship between cause and effect becomes apparent is not present in
lots of people, no matter how much we emphasise its importance in a
modern scientific society. This memory function is, after all, not
necessary to human survival. In a society where individual behavior is
largely directed by someone else--i.e. what an individual does in any
particular situation is clearly specified by habit or custom or on the
spot direction--it isn't necessary for the individual to have any
awarenss of the expected results of his actions. Indeed, in a tightly
structured authoritarian culture, such independent evaluation and
calculation may well be perceived as a detriment and be "selected out."
I think perhaps the most poingnant comment I have heard from GWB was his
observation that "being President means I don't have to answer
questions." While that's generally been interpreted as a matter of not
wanting to answer questions, I would suggest that on some level there's
a realization that he CAN"T answer questions, or that whenever he tries, the answers that
come out are often perceived by those who are asking him as wrong. That
is the people who ask him end up being dissatisfied and, since he
mirrors other people's reactions, their dissatisfaction (an emotional
reaction) generates his own and what he'd rather be is an optimist--at
least that's what he's been told. GWB is what those around him tell him
he is. He treats others exactly as they treat him. Which would explain
why it has become so important that no negative encounters happen in his
environment.
What does my musing lead me to suspect is going to happen? I think his
poll numbers are going to be allowed to drop low enough, or he's going
to have some "health problem," that is going to justify the selection of
another candidate by the GOP. That would explain, for example, the
gross expenditure of funds on truly worthless advertising--on mistakes
like putting the "approval" at the front of his ads so that when they
are aired following a Kerry ad, it sounds to the inattentive viewer that
GWB is approving what Kerry just said.
Who? Well, if you consider that he wasn't actually intended to win in
2000, but merely, in losing, provide impetus to the Republican cause and
prepare the way for Jeb in 2004, then that may well be whom they'll call
on in August, after the Democratic nominee is finally set. Jeb, of
course, will have the advantage of having been the governor of a
significant state as well as not having been subjected to close scrutiny
for months like Kerry. And then, of course, you're going to have the
sympathy factor if some significant physical impairment is discovered,
like Graves disease or even a brain tumor to explain his mental
disabilities. Impaired Presidents are obviously very convenient for
power-hungry subordinates, but not if they're too impaired.
If there's going to be a bait-and-switch operation, then that would
explain why it was important that the Democratic candidate be weak. I
have long felt that the strategy was to spring some surprise against
Kerry in the waning days of the campaign, but now I think that the plan
is to switch candidates at the last minute. Which will only work if the
Democrat isn't too popular to begin with. That's why Howard Dean had to
be taken down and quickly. And that's why so many of the Democrats have
been provided with Republican monetary support. Each was considered a
"ringer" to keep the eventual nominee weak. It's still going on with
Nader and Kucinich, neither of whom would have any chance against Jeb.
While this hypothesis may be off the wall, give it a minute and see if
anything fits.