Bush in the Hole

Reports of this have always popping up from time to time about Bush's hostility to adverse opinion. In the last six months, reports have become more and more frequent of Bush's self imposed exile from the outside world. There have been report after report that Bush has become more and more unbearably hostile to those he works with. Unverifiable quotes from Capitol Hill Blue include:

According to it, the worried White House aides describe Bush as a man on the edge increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home. "It reminds me of the Nixon days," it quoted a long time GOP political consultant as saying adding "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That's the mood over there...

One troubled aide was quoted as saying: "The mood here is that we're under siege, there's no doubt about it. In this administration, you don't have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President." He added that he was looking for work elsewhere to avoid Bush's remarks...

Two weeks ago, Capitol Hill Blue revealed that a growing number of White House aides are concerned about the President's mental stability. They told harrowing tales of violent mood swings, bouts with paranoia and obscene outbursts from a President who wears his religion on his sleeve.

The latest reports are that an large strain has been placed on the relationship between Bush and Cheney over the Libby indictment - Dubya-Cheney ties frayed by scandal - and that he is rarely even talking to Cheney these days.

The reports continued today with Bush in the bunker: Reduces access, rarely speaks to father. We already knew that relations were strained between Bush and his father over his foreign policy decisions. The article reports that Bush has closed himself off to all but four people (first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes) and has even stopped talking to his father because he believes his father was behind the Skowcroft attack on Juniors foreign policy.

Paranoia has been reported and "Bush is living from hour to hour," said a senior Republican source who visits the White House frequently. I don't know if things are as bad as reported, but knowing his dissatisfaction with dissent, I can only imagine. His slow and steady unhingement has been apparent in his public speeches. The confident swagger is gone, replaced by an almost instinctive defensiveness. I really can't condemn his for his growing paranoia. His polls are abismal, his reputation as honest is shattered, and there are actually people out there trying to get him.

If he is ever going to get himself out of this hole, he needs to shake things up and get outside the box. Fresh ideas, fresh faces. He is going to have to get out of the self imposed bubble before he pops.