Are President Bush's Personal Demons Hurting Us All?

That's the viewpoint offered by this piece by Nicholas F. Benton in a Falls Church (VA) paper and I believe there's some truth to it. However, I suspect the president simply isn't that thoughtful about personal demons, regardless of how much they may indeed run his life and ruin ours:

In the on-going saga of the Worst President in the History of the United States, two catastrophes of almost equal import in recent days showcased the fanatical, apocalyptic personal world view that informs George W. Bush.

The current deepening crisis in the Middle East and Bush’s veto yesterday of a stem cell bill passed by Congress belie an integrated, if frighteningly insane, internal mental map. It’s one that as maintained by an otherwise dysfunctional street corner bum with a bullhorn and sandwich sign proclaiming the imminent end of the world is relatively harmless. But as it instructs the most powerful leader in the world, it’s truly scary. People had better start to look at this more seriously.

First of all, with regard to the Middle East, no one is more responsible for the escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel than Bush. Contrary to decades of U.S. diplomacy dating almost from the establishment of the State of Israel after World War II, this administration has practiced five years of stubborn, malicious neglect.

Now, as thousands of innocent civilians on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border are being killed, maimed, uprooted and rendered homeless, the Bush administration continues to sit on its hands, refuses to step in and insist on a cease-fire, and while standing on the sidelines, cheers on one side against the other.

What we are witnessing is not passive disregard by the Bush administration. It is the exercise of a kind of “passive aggression” that advances a vicious and dangerous agenda. This is another step in the Bush Armageddon policy.