I was reminded recently of the time that I met our current president, Dubya. It was while he was governer of Texas. I was part of a film crew working on a piece for a non-profit educational organization that just happened to be a darling of Dubya's mom, Barbera. Anyway, he strolls in the room where we were set up to do the interview in that affected cock of the walk manner that he has and goes around glad-handing everyone, making sure to look each one of us in the eye, telling us what a wonderful thing it is we're doing and so on and so on. Well, he seems friendly enough, and makes small talk with the crew all during the time we are shooting. Mostly the small talk is of baseball, golf, hunting, etc., you know, subjects that he seemed to know something or other about. Of course, there is not a word of politics, as we(being the somewhat jaded film crew) were told not to bring up anything that might be contraversial or disagreeable. Anyway, we get through with the interview and Dubya leaves. And, as he exits the room, he again makes sure to make the rounds of the room to glad-hand everyone. I recall coming away from that encounter thinking that he really didn't impress me as someone that posessed the substance required of the governership but rather he reminded me more of the rich kid frat boy that hung out by the beer kegs and greeted all the prospects at the freshman rush parties trying to sell his particular fraternity. You can imagine my shock and dismay when the guy actually became president. Unbelievable!! Well, it turns out my appraisal of Dubya hits pretty close to the mark. In the recent Rolling Stone there is a quite interesting interview with Gary Trudeau(Doonesbury) who happenned to be at Yale at the same time as Dubya. Here's a small taste.
Did you know Bush as a student?
We both served on the Armour Council, which was the social committee for our residential college. Nobody in my freshman dorm knew what the council was. But I apparently had shown some leadership qualities in the first three or four days of school, so I was elected unanimously. George Bush was chairman. Our duties consisted of ordering beer kegs and choosing from among the most popular bands to be at our mixers. He certainly knew his stuff -- he was on top of it [laughs].
Even then he had clearly awesome social skills. Legend has it that he knew the names of all forty-five of his fellow pledges when he rushed Deke. He later became rush chairman of Deke -- I do believe he has the soul of a rush chairman. He has that ability to connect with people. Not in the empathetic way that Clinton was so good at, but in the way of making people feel comfortable.
He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable. He was very good at all the tools for survival that people developed in prep school -- sarcasm, and the giving of nicknames. He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation.
I recommend checking out the whole interview for more nuggets from Trudeau.
Regards for now,
Derek-boy(my imagined Bush nickname)