I wasn't going to post about this, but...

So Dubya was talking to some German reporters (covered by Reuters here), and they asked him what the best moment he's had in office was. He said, "You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best... I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound (3.402 kilos) perch in my lake."

I'm beyond disappointment or even disgust by now. At this point, I don't really expect a better answer out of him. He could have said, "I farted for 24 seconds straight the other day," and I wouldn't really have been shocked.

But defending this utter idiocy is another matter because it shows a) a total lack of critical faculties and b) a severe neurotic impulse to rationalize that should probably be considered pathological.

Here is what Joe Malchow says about it:

What might he have said to please critics? Nothing, really. It’s always nothing, but in this case it is especially nothing. Because this isn’t a president who’s seen anything wonderful—we decided just nine months into his term, in fact, that we didn’t want and could not use a president who would be the type to embark on wonderful designs while distinctly unwonderful enemies tore us up in search of their superlative—glory. Bush has seen heroism, and that’s wonderful, and he’s provoked heroism, and that’s wonderful. But the work itself, both what he does and what he orders others to do, is the farthest thing from wonderful. No one who receives the daily briefings George Bush does can call his job wonderful. The most diplomatic thing he could say (and he did) is that it is “busy”. So it is. And so it goes that when he’s asked to search his recent memory for a pure, true, pastoral, wonderful thing, he comes up with a seven-and-a-half pound bass. That sounds about right.

Joe is breaking new ground in the areas of sycophancy, doublethink, and cretinism all at once here. He wants us to believe that the President is so beleaguered by the hordes of his critics that he could not, in five years, have accomplished a single thing he'd be proud enough to stand behind, a single law or decision that he could say, unequivocally, "that was my best moment." It matters very little whether his job actually has bad parts to it; it is his job to create good parts.

If someone asked me what, in my three years here at Dartmouth, was my best moment, and I answered something like, "Mmmmm.... that time I sank the last cup in the championship round of DFP pong," I think I should probably resign from humanity. I have enough autonomy to make something of my life that far and away transcends a totally meaningless accomplishment like a pong victory or a fish caught, and so does the President. To blame his unprecedented record of failure (which he, stunningly, must be somewhat aware of) on his critics is the vilest form of unscrupulous spin I have possibly ever encountered.

Sorry for the rant; I am just incredulous that even Joe could come up with this tripe.