Presidential Pique

[A]ccording to Steven Kull, a political psychologist who directs the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, [s]ome people deal with failures . . . "by intensifying an authoritarian posture and insisting that their preferences are equivalent to a moral imperative."

This from a Washington Post piece, Bush Confounded by the 'Unacceptable', which reports that:

President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

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Bush's decision to lay down blunt new markers about the things he deems intolerable comes at an odd time, a phase of his presidency in which all manner of circumstances are not bending to his will: national security setbacks in North Korea and Iraq, a Congress that has shrugged its shoulders at his top domestic initiatives, a favorability rating mired below 40 percent.

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

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Bush's use of the term "reflects in some ways his frustration with a world that doesn't seem as amenable to his policies as he would like them to be," said Stanley A. Renshon, a political scientist at the City University of New York. Bush "has strong views; he believes in doing what is right. All of those things give an emotional force to his response" to events he often sees and describes without nuance.

Funny thing is, that's just what a majority of the people in this country (and the rest of the world) think about Bush:

Unacceptable!

Tags: Politics, Bush