Bush's 'trifecta' - 9/11, war, recession

[Tsu]

An interesting editorial

Two speech transcripts there show Budget Director Mitch Daniels reporting that shortly after 9/11, while discussing the recession, the war, and 9/11, Bush turned to him and said, "Lucky me! I hit the trifecta."

A trifecta, of course, is racetrack jargon for the big payoff you get for picking three winners.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/103104L.shtml

[Polly]

I would not be too upset if he brought it up once, or even twice, knowing that he is not the brainiest or most sensitive of men, but repeating it so many times to different people in different circumstances just makes me speechless. Could he be thinking in his warped mind that this combination of events is God's indirect endorsement of what he does, could he? Anyway I am too shocked to conjure up anything more mean and nasty to say.

[selfAdjoint]

Here's my reading of that, worth what you paid for it. Bush not only believes he was chosen by God to be president, that belief is central to his personality. It is as if when he converted he made a deal, God would lead him from success to success in return for his faith. If he perceives evidence that God is not favoring him, he reacts to it as disasterous for his ego.

9/11 initially challenged that belief; why would God hit his favored one with such a disaster? It notoriously paralized Bush for several minutes as he went through cognitive dissonance in that schoolroom. But he was able to reconstuct 9/11 as an opportunity, given to him by God, to be not merely president, but a great president. And he acted on this belief with his strong assertive talk to the public. Hence the trifecta.

Now the results of his actions are in and his mental construction is beginning to fray again. If he loses the election, look for him to adopt a conspiracy theory, or stab-in-the-back view of the vote.

[russ_watters]

I think Bush was being flip, while emphasizing the fact that those three things were largely just his bad luck for happening when he was President.