Thanatos

Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Chronicle pens an interesting column, entitled How do we survive Bush's march to self-destruction?

The Greeks and Sigmund Freud had a name for what may ail President George W. Bush: Thanatos. The death wish.

Thanatos was the Greek personification of death, which Freud later expanded to describe man's "death instinct," or the unconscious wish to abandon life's struggles and return to a state of quiet repose.

That would be the grave, as Freud envisioned man's endpoint. But for Bush, perhaps the metaphor extends only as far as a nice, quiet ranch in Crawford, where, as Yeats once put it, "peace comes dropping slow."

How else to explain this administration's inexorable march toward political death?

The final throes of Bush's journey toward self-destruction may have found expression with the apparent sale of operational rights to six of our nation's largest ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Approved by the Bush administration against all reason, the $6.8 billion sale includes the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

Despite bipartisan condemnation, the Bush administration has defended the sale to Dubai Ports World as not only safe, but prudent. The UAE, which incidentally served as a financial and operational base for the Sept. 11 hijackers, is an important ally in the fight against terror, we're told.

Of course they are. And Colombia is an important ally in the war against drugs. And Mexico is an important ally in the fight against illegal immigration. Perhaps, given that much of our illegal drug supply and immigrant population come from Colombia and Mexico, respectively, we should reconsider our strategy.

Reminds me of Bill Maher's New Rule from a few month's ago after the Katrina fiasco, where he observed that Bush would welcome a recall. As he said then: "I kid, but seriously Mr. President, this job cant' be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army, and now darn the luck the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare, helping poor people." (See George of the Bungle)

Just in case, as Parker concluded:

In the more likely event that Thanatos truly is at the helm of our ship of state at this titanic moment, we can't afford to let Bush's death instinct subsume the national imperative to survive.

Survival now depends on fitter minds.