During his Sixty Minutes Interview

This guy also actually expected Americans to believe the following:

PELLEY: Did you see the video of Saddam Hussein's . . .

BUSH: I saw some of it.

PELLEY: . . . execution?

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: What did you think when you saw that?

BUSH: I thought it was discouraging. You know, obviously could have handled this thing a lot better. And I knew it'd be, you know, one of those incidents where it would call into doubt . . . it would create further skepticism. You know, it's important that-- that chapter of Iraqi history be closed. They could have handled it a lot better.


PELLEY: I wonder if there was also some sense of satisfaction. You've had this guy in your sights for a long time.

BUSH: Not really. Not really. I was satisfied when we captured him. I'm just not . . .revenge isn't necessarily something that causes me to react. In other words, I'm not a revengeful person. I'm glad he received the justice that was due.

...

BUSH: Somebody showed me parts of it. Yeah. I didn't wanna watch the whole thing.

PELLEY: Well, you keep saying "parts of it." What do you mean you didn't wanna watch the whole thing?

BUSH: I wasn't sure what to anticipate beyond the yelling and stuff like that. And I didn't . . .

PELLEY: You didn't wanna see him go through the trapdoor.

BUSH: Yeah. Yes. I didn't.

This is the same guy who casually put 131 prisoners to death in Texas in a way that “defined him, unforgettably, as shallow and callous.”

(Via CommonDreams and originally Published on Saturday, June 17, 2000 in the New York Times)

Texas Executions:
GW Bush Has Defined Himself, Unforgettably, As Shallow And Callous
by Anthony Lewis

BOSTON-There have been questions all along about the depth and seriousness of George W. Bush. They have been brought into sharp focus now by a surprising issue: the way the death penalty is administered in Texas. In his comments on that subject Governor Bush has defined himself, unforgettably, as shallow and callous.

In his five years as governor of Texas, the state has executed 131 prisoners -- far more than any other state. Mr. Bush has lately granted a stay of execution for the first time, for a DNA test.

In answer to questions about that record, Governor Bush has repeatedly said that he has no qualms. "I'm confident," he said last February, "that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts."

That defense of the record ignores many notorious examples of unfairness in Texas death penalty cases. Lawyers have been under the influence of cocaine during the trial, or been drunk or asleep. One court dismissed a complaint about a lawyer who slept through a trial with the comment that courts are not "obligated to either constantly monitor trial counsel's wakefulness or endeavor to wake counsel should he fall asleep."

This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush's time. It made chilling reading.

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who -- based on a hypothetical question about the defendant's past -- predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical.

Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his credentials.

Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt" in every case. The defendants, he said, "had full access to a fair trial."

There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care.
...

The guy who is infamous for mocking an executed Texas woman in an interview with “Talk” magazine, saying:

" `Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me.' "

These are not the actions of a compassionate man.

These are the hallmarks of a sadist who has lived his entire sheltered, gold-plated life with a singular and smirkingly cavalier attitude towards the death and suffering of others. Who has never given a shit about anyone but himself and who's empty heart and placeholder soul is only barely rouged over with words of fake empathy by his handlers when he has to be wheeled in front of a camera to woodenly stutter out whatever Dick Cheney or Karl Rove tell him to say.

Who is, as Richard puts it in “The Lion in Winter”, "incomplete": the human parts of him are missing.

So small wonder that I find it infinitely more plausible that the Crawford Dauphin watched the video of Saddam’s hanging 117 consecutive times, Clockwork Orange-Style



In a soundproofed White House play room,

With Don Karleone basting his eyeballs with Halliburton-brand “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Compassion!” glycerin-saline-peyote drops (“Now Act Like You Care With ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Compassion!’: Facsimile Emotion for All Occasions.”) every few seconds to keep them lubricated,

While he knocked back a couple or three "milk-pluses",

Brayed the whole time in pure, simian ecstasy,

And then burbled feverishly on and on through the night and into the morning about Sweet Baby Jebus and the Glorious End Days that are always only a fleeting friedman or two away.