Bolten said another of his goals ...was to try to get the country to see the likable boss he ... saw in private

And Hitler loved his dog. So what?

And the Republicans talk about Obama's supporters having messianic delusions . . . .

Obama might be able to raise some money to pay for the finishing stages of Bush's War. He could allow people to spit on Bush's official portrait for a small payment to the Treasury.

I'm not sure of the rest of the portraits, but Bush's seemed to be a man not dressed for work. Maybe that's part of the problem; maybe he never saw the Presidency as a job.

Until the world fell apart around him, Bush was actually beloved in both the Village and in huge portions of America for his "smug dishonesty and hapless ignorance". He was a "regular guy" who "knew what he thought and said it". People who didn't agree and pointed out the smugness and ignorance were "pointy-headed elites" who "didn't get it".

He was the Messiah to a large portion of the country long before Obama was accused of same.

But everybody who has actual personal exposure to the president, almost everybody, appreciates what a good leader he is, how smart he is and, especially, how humane he is."

Two problems with Hadley's thinking. First, how many people who came in contact with Bush weren't Republican politicos or heavily screened? How many people who had "actual personal exposure" to Bush hadn't already drunk the kool aid?

Second, there are over 300,000,000 Americans, how many of them can get personal exposure to the president? Except for a rare few, people are going to judge a president on how his policies affect them. Bush was out to lunch on the War, Katrina, the economy. What should Hadley expect?

I have actually known people associated with the Bush White House, and by all accounts he is a charming fellow when you meet him personally. That doesn't make him a good leader. After all few of us will spend any time with him.

It isn't that we misunderstood Bush, it is that he misunderstood his job and failed miserably.

Of course he's charming and liekable in person - he's a politician. Half their job is making you like them, even when you know they are a politician!

Now watch this drive.

You wouldn't want surgeon to operate on you who was incompetent but was a "nice guy", would you? How about a car mechanic who was a total klutz but was "compassionate"? Why can't these neocons understand that competence matters?

I have actually known people associated with the Bush White House

Actually a friend recently met a person who briefs Cheney on a daily basis. Said he's a charming man, very polite, and all that. Didn't know the prime minister of Turkey, but was very polite when corrected. This guy wasn't part of any legacy project, but it's yet more evidence of the capacity to compartmentalize.

I am sorry, but this sounds like Gonzalez not understanding why folks think he is evil. I got to know all I ever needed to know about Dumbya when he publicly mocked the condemned woman whose pardon request he rejected as governor. Understand, I am not commenting on his decision to reject the pardon request, but anybody who than publicly mocks the woman will never be "charming", "Compassionate", "smart" or anything but a flaming a**hole even if he was competent.

"but the extent to which Americans learn about "how humane he is" has no bearing on a simple reality -- the public has noticed over the course of eight years that Bush's policies don't work."

It wasn't only that Bush's policies didn't work. It was that his policies were not humane.

Bolton seems to have really drunk the kool-aid. Having had to live through bush for the last 15 years or so, (I live in Texas) I've noticed that dubya always seems to say one thing but do something completely opposite. So if you take the can't see the forest for the trees approach to this, it stands to reason the Bolton would say this. In private bush probably does say all the right "compassionate conservative" things. It's the real life actions that always seem to betray him though.

Isn't he guy who said he could change reality at will? What happened?

Bolton doesn't seem to understand that "likableness" was what got Bush elected in the first place - it sure wasn't experience or intelligence. The intervening years just exposed Bush as a fraud that no amount of "likableness" was ever going to fix that.

I think the phrase "the more you know, the less you like" is more appropriate.

Likable is as likable does.

The demeaning nicknames for subordinates, the smirk, the "I'm the decider," the "OK, you've covered your ass now" - all these are really signs of Bush's great humility.

I guess that Hadley doesn't recognize that the character traits of an individual who wants to be liked tend to influence people up close but not mean shit to those he is sending out to destroy their lives and health.

I don't care how personally likable he can convince his close associates he is. I don't like the guy who pushed he purposeless invasion of Iraq or who angrily told the Marine Corps to go in and level Fallujah. or who ignored New Orleans and the Gulf Coast when Katrina hit. Since they support his incompetent actions, I also don't like Bolton, Hadley, Karen Hughes, or Mary Matelin.

You wouldn't want surgeon to operate on you who was incompetent but was a "nice guy", would you? How about a car mechanic who was a total klutz but was "compassionate"? Why can't these neocons understand that competence matters?

For arguments sake, let's assume that Bush is all that Hadley and Bolton say he is. So what? It's what he did that counts. The verdict is in, what Bush did was impose disaster after disaster on Americans and the world. We don't appreciate the disasters; we don't care about the personality of the man who created them.

However, George W. Bush had lots of contact with a lot of people I know. Most of them are Republicans. Universally, they say he was a jerk at Andover, he was a jerk at Yale, and he was a jerk while he was running around Midland. It is not true that people who have gotten to know him hold him in high regard. It is also not true that no one could have foreseen how bad his presidency was going to be. I remember the frosty response I got in February, 2001 while quail hunting in West Texas when I passed on the assessment of his former classmates and their prediction that George W. Bush would not only fail as President, he would probably destroy the Republican Party.

Most sociopaths are charming. It's how they allay the fears of their victims. The LA police department said Ted Bundy was extremely charming. Bush launched a war that killed or wounded millions of people; and all for his self-agrandizement. Oh, I'm certain he is very nice to his maid.

If Shruby were half the guy they say he is, they wouldn't have to be shoveling so fast and with such dedicated fervor. Sycophantism is gross. Shrubwit's ass kissing, history denying lackeys have no sense of pride or concept of reality.

This is fun. Letterman Gonging Shrubwit relentlessly for his broken and f'ed up everything:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N8_u1FLu30&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/&feature=player_embedded

Shruby, and everyone around him, is disgusting.

I'm sure Karla Faye Tucker, if she had had a chance to hear Bush's "Karal Faye Tucker cackle" a decade ago, would have found him humane.

It must have been terrible for W to have been such a compassionate and humane guy, but forced to approve of torture, shred the constitution, imprison random people forever and crash the economy. His heart must have broken to have been such a man of the people, yet see how his policies robbed most of the country to benefit the top. It must have been similar to John McCain's pain at having to wage an underhanded and dirty campaign while being, at heart, such a nice guy.

I hope he gets help.

(Well, actually, I hope never, ever to hear from him or his accursed family again)

Arrogance requires a person to feel superior to his limitations.

Perhaps Bush is quite humble and insecure and feels putting on the show of bravado is helpful in some way?

Not that this naked emperor approach is BETTER, even if slightly more aympathetic...

And, someday, in a Broadway musical, a neocon will croon, "Oh, Bush was such a marvelous painter; he could paint a one bedroom apartment in four hours; two coats".

W's "humane" side seems to be situational at best (as if we didn't already know this from his entire history, both before and throughout his time in office). A quick google wasn't enough to find the reference, but I can't be the only one who remembers the story from a younger aide who had to throw up after being reamed by the Pres for being the bearer of bad news? Funny, too, how neither Hadley/Bolten nor the WaPo writer, Abramowitz, seems to bring this up.
Another reminder that Republicans seem to be constitutionally unable to open their mouths without lying.
BTW, this is Bolten, with an "e," the soon-to-be-former White House CoS. Bolton, with an "o," is already the former Ambassador to the UN. Easily confused, esp w/ a post on Bolton just three up the page.

Oh now they are stating W knew exactly what was going on? that the VP did nothing to control anything? Fine, time for impeachment. These bastards never will learn will they?
Even when faced with certain knowledge that what they are doing is wrong morally and lawfully, they cling that because they think what they are doing is right, that makes it right!

I can see two possibilities:

1. Perhaps English is not Bolten's native language, so that he thinks all those words mean something different than what they really mean, or,

2. Pheromones. Bush must emit some kind of neuro-chemical substance that affects people in proximity, rendering them incapable of noticing the smirking, the insulting, and the other crap. (Not everyone has the receptors, of course. I'm pretty sure we could use Angela Merkel for our control group.)

Of course Bush was charming to his subordinates in person. He ruthlessly stamped out any hint of disagreement with whatever he wanted to do so the only ones left were the ones who never disagreed with him. Easy to be nice when no one threatens your ill-informed smugness with inconvenient facts.

What's really distressing is that these supposedly well informed subordinates seem just as blind to the reality of the world post-Bush as he and Cheney are themselves. No wonder they got us in the mess we're in.

George can't read - he is dyslexic.
This latest piece by his staff follows the same fairy tale tht Rove recently spouted.

"He Doth protest too much"

George can't read. He doesn't read the PDB and thus missed 911.

I defy anyone to find a more compassionate warmonger. Sentimental, he turns on those tears with the alacrity of an Oprah Winfrey. He never giggles at Iraq vets with PTSD, high tech prostheses, or glass eyes. In torture, he draws the line at procedures that cause permanent organ damage or death.

Bolten and Hadley shouldn't be published in the WaPo. They should only be published in the prison newsletter.

Apparently the soldiers returning from Iraq with delusions are no worse off than Bush admin. people with delusions.

But, more important, it's a small lesson or reminder to Obama people to notice reality and not to just repeat how wonderful the boss is.