The Madness of King George

His Majesty, the occupant of the new and improved Imperial Presidency, has been in town for the last two days, causing traffic snarls and flaring tempers both in and out of the UN.

I can't imagine why a man so detested in this city, even by members of his own party, bothers to come here. The only thing he has done for New York is to make as much political hay out of it's misfortune on 9/11 as he possibly can. That's it. Nothing else. To borrow a phrase I learned from a Texan when I was in the Navy, that man "is as useless as teats on a bull."

Well, that's not completely true. His presence has inspired me to write about him. I suppose there's some good in that.

King George is a good ol' country boy, born and bred in America's heartland (New Haven, Connecticut) and educated at the finest schools of the south (Andover and Yale).

But what you really need to know about him is this...

Everything he does, everything he is, everything he thinks, everything he feels (which, I guarantee you, runs the gamut from numb to pissed off), is fueled by untreated alcoholism.

He is, what we in the business refer to as, "self-will run riot."

He often alludes to some nebulous relationship with God, wherein, apparently, he receives daily briefings on the state of the universe directly from on high. But as anyone over the age of 7 knows perfectly well, God does not speak to earthlings on a 1-to-1 basis without the benefit of psychosis. So, what he takes to be divine guidance is, in fact, the lying, cheating, conniving, addictive half of his inner-self telling the childish, grandiose, overly-sensitive, self-obsessed and self-deluded half of his inner-self what that half wants to hear, i.e., that he's special and unique and is being divinely inspired to shove his opinions down the rest of the world's throats, come hell or high water.

King George hasn't lost enough, aside from his marbles, yet. And he probably won't be satisfied until the nukes are falling.

Meanwhile (back at the ranch), he's aided and abetted in his personal insanity by his puppeteers, Satan (Cheney) and Rummy, who recognize a deeply disturbed co-dependent when they see one. They are cynically using the King's madness as an opportunity to indulge their neocon supporters philosophical contentions that it's okay to use all of this nations resources (money, weapons, lives) to create a radical realignment of the Middle East in our favor and that, if necessary in order to garner public support for it, it's okay to sell the project to the great unwashed masses of this nation as being part of some Divine Plan, for which King George is the Lord's mouthpiece.

And the heartbreak is, this show is selling out all over the country. Well, at least between the Alleghenies and the Sierras it is.

We have a long tradition in this country of being utterly enthralled by snake oil salesmen and P.T. Barnum-like con artists.

And we really love it when they come all wrapped up in self-righteous, born-again, salvationist visions of how the world should be.

The World According to US.