George W. Bush’s big mistake (listen up, Cheney!)

Chris Matthews: "To admit that Dick Cheney was - Yes!!! - the joker in the deck would bring down his whole house of cards."

Let me finish here.

George W. Bush.

Do you know how your parents told you to spend your time with the right people? “Don’t go hanging with the bad ones. They’ll get you in trouble.”

Someone should have told this to George W. Bush.

As a candidate for president, he said something very good about foreign policy. He said he wanted to see more “humility” in our foreign policy. You know, know your limits. Don’t push people around.

I thought he was onto something.

Then, he let Dick Cheney onto his team. Cheney’s job was supposed to be finding a vice president for him. Cheney saw his chance and got “himself” picked.

Didn’t Bush see this happening?

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Or, better yet, how many times must he have looked backward and said, “How did I let him get ‘that’ one over on me?”

This was his father’s predicament after he picked Dan Quayle as vice president. He wrote in his diary what a terrible mistake it was but said he couldn’t admit it.

Is this a problem specific to the Bush family? Is coming to the Presidency through their high-born status some American version of divine right, where the gimmick is to really believe in it, make it come true through force of will, and then – damn it! – you have to believe it; therefore you can never admit you’re wrong because that would mean abdicating the whole “divine right” thing, the whole notion you were born to the ruling class in the first place?

It’s the best I can come up with. Why on earth – using common sense – hasn’t George W. Bush come to the basic reckoning that Dick Cheney pulled the wool over him time after time… picking Rumsfeld, picking Wolfowitz, moving him into a war that bore no relation whatever to 9/11, moving him to do whatever Cheney would have were he formally in charge?

I have a healthy suspicion that the former president knows precisely what I’m talking about and yet to admit that Dick Cheney was – Yes!!! – the joker in the deck would bring down his whole house of cards.