'We Are Going to Wipe Them out!'

Not long after that, the President "launched" what an evidently bewildered Sanchez politely describes as "a kind of confused pep talk regarding both Fallujah and our upcoming southern campaign [against the Mahdi Army]." Here then is that "pep talk." While you read it, try to imagine anything like it coming out of the mouth of any other American president, or anything not like it coming out of the mouth of any evil enemy leader in the films of the President's -- and my -- childhood:
"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin Powell's tough talk. 'If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!'"
Keep in mind that the bloodlusty rhetoric of this "pep talk" wasn't meant to rev up Marines heading into battle. These were the President's well-embunkered top advisors in a strategy session on the eve of major military offensives in Iraq. Evidently, however, the President was intent on imitating George C. Scott playing General George Patton -- or perhaps even inadvertently channeling one of the evil villains of his onscreen childhood.

From the moment the attacks of September 11, 2001 gave him his "calling" as a "wartime" president, he has been deeply embroiled in acting out his cartoonish version of the role of the century. In fact, he has often seemed like little more than an overgrown boy plunged into his own war movie and war-play memories.

Let's remember that, soon after 9/11, this President launched his "crusade, this war on terrorism" with an image of a poster from some generic Western of his childhood. ("Bush offered some of his most blunt language to date when he was asked if he wanted bin Laden dead. 'I want justice,' Bush said. 'And there's an old poster out West I recall, that said, Wanted, Dead or Alive.'") For years, he visibly glowed when publicly dressing up in a way that was redolent of the boy version of war (that is, doll… er, action figure) play. While Abraham Lincoln never put on a uniform and an actual general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, put his in the closet in his years as president, Bush uniquely and repeatedly appeared in public togged out in military wear, looking for all the world like a life-sized version of the original 12-inch G.I. Joe action figure -- whether "landing" a jet on the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and stepping out in a nifty flight suit, or appearing before massed hooah-ing troops in specially tailored jackets with "George W. Bush, Commander In Chief" carefully stitched across the breast. (In fact, more than one toy company did indeed produce G.I. Joe-style Bush action figures.)


Evident above all, from September 14, 2001 -- when he climbed that pile of rubble at "Ground Zero" in New York City and, On Demand Recruiting Software & Staffing Software - Bullhorn in hand, to "USA! USA!" cheers, wiped out the ignominy of his actions on the actual day of the attacks -- was just how much he enjoyed his role as resolute leader of a wartime America.

A rivulet of telling details about his behavior has flowed by us in these years. We know from Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, for instance, that, after 9/11, Bush kept "his own personal scorecard for the war" in a desk drawer in the Oval Office -- photos with brief biographies and personality sketches of leading al-Qaeda figures, whose faces could be satisfyingly crossed out when killed or captured. In July 2003, frustrated by signs that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq wasn't going away, he impulsively offered this bit of bluster to reporters (as if he were the one who would take the brunt of future attacks): "There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."


In those moments when he spoke or acted spontaneously, there are plentiful clues that Bush took deep pleasure in finding himself in the role of commander-in-chief, and that he has been genuinely thrilled to do commander-in-chief-like things, at least as once pictured in the on-screen fantasy world of his youth. He was thrilled, for example, to receive from some of the troops who captured Saddam Hussein, the pistol that the dictator had with him in his "spiderhole." Back in 2004, TIME Magazine's Matthew Cooper reported: "'He really liked showing it off,' says a recent visitor to the White House who has seen the gun. 'He was really proud of it.' The pistol's new place of residence is in the small study next to the Oval Office where Bush takes select visitors."

On and off throughout these years, you could glimpse just what a cartoon-like white-hat/black-hat persona he imagined himself to be playing. This was true whether he was in his blustery tough-guy mode, as when, in September 2007, he arrived in Australia publicly proclaiming that the U.S. was "kicking ass" in Iraq; or when, as commander-in-chief, he regularly teared up with genuine (movie) emotion as he handed out medals, some posthumous, for bravery; or even when he discussed his own wartime version of "sacrifice" -- he claimed to have given up golf for his war. As he told Mike Allen of Politico.com: "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has pointed out that even Bush's callow sacrifice of golf wasn't real -- he kept on playing -- but that hardly matters. What's crucial is that all this real life play-acting still moves, even thrills, him. Recently, for instance, he gave a graduation speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he once again compared Iraq to World War II (and so, implicitly, himself to President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a bust of whom he has kept in the Oval Office all these years).

In all this, you can sense a man in his own bubble world, engrossed in, and satisfied with, his own performance -- both as actor and, as in childhood, audience. What Gen. Ricardo Sanchez has added to this is the picture of a man who, even in 2004, was already dreaming Vietnam disaster ("This Vietnam stuff We can't send that message."); who, perhaps sensing that his blockbuster was busting, like Richard Nixon before him, proved willing to mix the white-hat and black-hat codes of his movie childhood in remarkable ways. Under the strain of a failing war, in private and among his top officials, he didn't hesitate to take on that "guru" role and rally his closest followers with a call to kill, kill, kill!


A confused pep talk indeed. Even if Bush is still exhorting his top officials not to "blink," Americans should. After all, there are almost eight months left to his presidency, and a man of such stunning immaturity, who confuses fantasy with real life, and is given to outbursts of challenge, bluster, and bloodlust should be taken seriously. Nixon's "mad mullah" stayed private until transcripts of the Watergate tapes and memoirs started coming out. For us, the question remains, will this President be able to take a final turn on-screen before his term ends, playing the "mad mullah" in relation to Iran?