A Cardboard Cowboy

...ght for anything in his life, is battered and bruised by ever-increasing setbacks to his presidency and is clearly tired. One only had to watch his listless performance at the press conference Tuesday to see that. Or maybe it’s the drugs and booze.

Faced with a war in Iraq that he can’t win, under fire from his own party for uncontrolled spending habits that has sent any form of fiscal control into oblivion and unable to advance his showcase program of Social Security “reform,” Bush has run out of steam. He’s a lame-duck marking time, treading water while the sharks circle.

A compassionate person might feel sorry for Bush but I’m short on compassion when it comes to politicians. Bush boxed himself into a corner, ignoring reality to pursue his cowboy fantasy of another Teddy Roosevelt leading the charge up San Juan Hill (a legend which itself is more fantasy than reality).

The mainstreamers make a big deal out of Bush’s loss of “swagger.” Gone, they say, is the strong, macho image that Bush tried to hard to portray as he struggled to perform a job when he had neither the integrity nor the qualifications.

But Bush’s image was just that – image. No substance, no backbone, no leadership. The President of the United States was, and is, nothing more than a cardboard cowboy, a creation of political spinmeisters and propped up by the extremist elements of Republican Party determined to maintain power at any cost.....