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This is one complicated father/son dynamics going on here. Junior has to both thank his Dad for bailing him out of all his lifelong problems, but must paradoxically highly resent him at the same time. He was always measured against his father's accomplishments and came up lacking bigtime. Dad was the youngest WW2 pilot, Jr. was AWOL. Dad was doing serious CIA work at an age when Bush was snorting coke doing not much of anything. Dad ran things...he ran things into the ground.
I think the motivation for Jr. to become President was to show Dad up...prove he was tougher, that he could have a bigger impact (boy was he right...in a really negative way) on American history than his father. He refought the Iraqi's...just so that he could bag the biggest trophy. Mission accomplished. See Dad? I had the guts to do it...you didn't. Along the way, Rove, who couldn't have had a lot of love for Poppy, probably built a wall around George, Jr....isolating him to the point of dependency.
If he loses his brain, I think W is in bigger trouble than most people realize. He's not smart enough or tough enough to fight the political battles that are growing on many fronts. His domestic and international policies are a spectacular failure...he is hated and reviled by most of the world. I think we'll see some serious deterioration in his mental health as he ponders his failures and his future. He's dug himself such a big hole this time, even the old man is not going to be able to get him out of it.
Shakespeare would have loved to have had a crack at writing this tradegy, I think. The Madness of King George (Act 2)
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