Like Father Like Son

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has penned one of her signature pieces, in which she riffs on the Bush Presidents, Junior Needs a Spanking . Imagining the elder King spanking the Junior wannabe King, Dowd remarks:

Junior certainly deserves it, with recent attempts to blame his dad for policies that led to 9/11 and the rise of Osama and Middle East terrorism.

As with so many things about this byzantine, Shakespearean relationship between father and son, reunited here at last for a wedding, a christening and a funeral this weekend, it’s an ironic turn of events.

The son was furious when the father was painted as a wimp in the 1988 campaign, and now he and his spinners are painting 41 as a weak leader. W.’s pain at what happened to his aristocratic dad with “the wimp factor” led him to overreact in the other direction when he became president, embracing a West Texas-tough, muscle-bound foreign policy that shunned diplomacy, nuance, compromise, multilateral treaties and allied coalitions as measures that reflected impotence.

And now it has led him to scapegoat his own father, and Bill Clinton, for sending signals of weakness that encouraged the terrorists — even as many Middle East experts say it is W.’s culturally obtuse, diplomatically averse and morally simplistic style that has spurred terrorism and made the world more dangerous.

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Father and son do talk quite a bit on the phone, and sometimes about world affairs. But 41, as one associate notes, “is not the type of guy to say, ‘George, you should be doing x, y and z.’ He might say something more oblique, like, ‘So-and-so says this is happening.’ ”

At this hazardous moment in world history, somebody has got to grab the stubborn, shuttered scion wearing the “43” windbreaker and talk some sense into him, the way Dwight Eisenhower did when he privately dressed down the young J.F.K. after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. And who better than his dad, that 82-year-old still demonically driving his cigarette boat around the Bay of Bushes?

The Carpetbagger Report, in From one Bush gang to another, also notes:

As it turns out, it's probably a good thing Bush is reading Hamlet (or at least pretending to), because as Maureen Dowd noted today, there's a Shakespearean drama being played out behind the scenes.

Increasingly, the current president seems to be blaming Bush pere "for policies that led to 9/11 and the rise of Osama and Middle East terrorism." Indeed, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow recently told reporters that "when the United States walked away, in the opinion of Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion that Americans were weak and wouldn't stay the course, and that led to September 11th." And I think we know who was president in 1991.

Moreover, Bush has personally blamed his predecessors for what he saw as a misguided belief that "stability is more important than form of government." Dowd translated this to mean, "Dad cuddled up to the corrupt Saudi monarchy and other Middle East dictators and let Saddam stay in power and was tough on Israel. I got rid of Saddam to establish a democracy and uncritically sided with Israel, a democracy."

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Dowd suggests Sr. grab his "stubborn, shuttered scion" by the windbreaker and talk some sense into him, but I don't see it. The funny thing about unqualified, incompetent people who get "in over their heads"? They rarely realize it until it's too late. In this case, six years too late.

Then again, Sr. could shadow Jr. a bit, and whisper reality in his ear, but then the Hamlet connection would be a little too obvious, wouldn't it?

Sad but true. Both as to the analogy and to the fact that Senior won't -- either spank him or whisper in Junior's ear.

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Don't come on so cocksure boy, you can't escape your genes
No point in feeling purer boy, your background intervenes
Listen good and listen straight, you're not the master of your fate
To this you must be reconciled, you'll always be your father's child
At times acclaimed, at times reviled
You'll wind up doing just what I've done
Like father, like son
Like father, like son

-Elton John
Lyrics by Tim Rice

(Dowd article also available at Rozius)

Tags: Bush, Politics, Maureen Dowd