The Blame Game

It’s time to play the blame game—hey, not you, Democrats! You just keep your traitorous traps shut. It’s time for the president to play the blame game. The “frustrated, sometime angry and even bitter” Bush inexplicably “remains quite confident in the decisions he has made,” according to one of his political friends (whatever that is), in spite of the backlash against those very decisions, as support for the Iraq War diminishes, the bungling of Katrina’s aftermath takes a political toll, and his base revolts against Miers’ SCOTUS nomination. If you can believe this story (and I'm not sure we've any reason not to, considering the number of others of a similar tone that are suddenly finding their way into the press), he sounds like he’s practically on the verge of a meltdown, with his increasingly talked-about temper rearing its ugly head more and more frequently, as it gets directed now even at junior staffers, wild mood swings, and a delusional insistence that “history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.”

But even as he preemptively takes the credit for this imagined legacy of success, he refuses to take responsibility for anything that has gone wrong.

At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.

"The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share."

The vice president remains Bush's most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

Illogical is not only delicate, but kind. The guy is a narcissistic megalomaniac with a paranoiac twist, creating his own grand reality of which he is the flawless star; any perceptions of flaws with him or his decisions are the fault of everyone else. For honor and glory, the buck stops here, but for blame and shame, it stops there … and there … and there … and there. I’m not saying there were mistakes made, but if there were, they weren’t my fault!

The bubble has burst, and the boy inside isn’t very happy at all to be exposed to the real world for a change.