The Washington Post notes George Bush's increased tendency to use the word "unacceptable" in describing events at home and abroad. It is seen as an indication of the rise in his frustration level and the decrease in his influence around the world. The behavior of corrupt House members of the GOP has scandalized the nation. The mounting death toll in Iraq runs into numbers that Bush would like us not to believe. One time allies on the military front and Bush's ambitious Faith Based Initiative program have turned into bitter critics. Understandably all this has contributed to G.W.B.'s sense of losing control. That has to be a bitter pill to swallow for a man who is used to getting his way. And he finds that "unacceptable."
"President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."
In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.
[A] survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.
In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes "unacceptable" or "not acceptable" as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001.
Through a spokesman and then in a televised statement, he declared North Korea's claimed nuclear test "unacceptable" before and after it occurred Oct. 9. But he could also be heard on Jan. 9 lecturing students at an elementary school in Glen Burnie, Md., that their recent scores on math and reading proficiency tests were "unacceptable."
Having a president call something "unacceptable" is not the same as having him order U.S. troops into action. But foreign policy experts say the word is one of the strongest any leader can deploy, since it both broadcasts a national position and conveys an implicit threat to take action if his warnings are disregarded.
Bush's use of the term "reflects in some ways his frustration with a world that doesn't seem as amenable to his policies as he would like them to be," said Stanley A. Renshon, a political scientist at the City University of New York. Bush "has strong views; he believes in doing what is right. All of those things give an emotional force to his response" to events he often sees and describes without nuance.
Renshon, who wrote a mostly-favorable book in 2004 about Bush's psychology, said the president's declarations are in keeping with his apparent self-image as a Jeremiah, "railing against the tides" and saying what "people ought to be doing something about."
It's also the only way that he can register his displeasure with all our troops stuck in Iraq. Sadly, it's making him - and the US - look powerless, while actually decreasing the power of the word "unacceptable"...
Posted by: Archana | October 15, 2006 at 06:32 PM