[Newspoetry] The President on the Couch

[DL Emerick]

The President on the Couch:
Briggs and Briggs on GWB.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011807J.shtml

A movie long ago, the President's Analyst,
Subtly revived in Crystal/DeNiro's Analyze This,
As also fore-played, foretold,
By Freud and Bullitt, writing on Wilson -
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=12187

It was a posthumous work,
which means, most, that it happened long ago,
and yet long after the subject of the study,
and that the study itself was confined and limited,
to the available insights of the times,
even the personal ones of one close to Wilson,
and to the technology of the science of the times,
which psychology somehow erects itself upon,
as a reflection on the major crises,
the intersections that over-define a man,
to make him seem an over-determined being,
and thus unable to act out our nightmares
from daydreams of dignity and decency,
in which we behave freely and rationally,
a paradox of Beyond Freedom and Dignity
(http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/classes/handbook/Skinner.html):
Accept the walls as necessary, but make them soft.

I would have added substance, relating to politics,
To this analysis of Bush, by way of larger history:
Bush is, perhaps, the only president ever to have
A Warrior serving as his Vice President.
Warriors are usually leaders, generals,
And thus they hardly ever serve wimps,
At least not for very long.

Usually, a vice president has his own strengths -
For Veeps are usually domestics,
Concerned with the state of country,
The state of the people in the country,
Leaving to the President the State of the Nation,
As a nation among nations of the world.

For instance, Clinton works on foreign affairs,
(except for her husband's machismo-r-ass-ine stuff),
While O'Bama or Richardson are clearly domestic -
Making possible some excellent pairing -
One that will far better serve America,
At home and abroad, by such a broad leadership!

Bush, in short, is handicapped, mentally,
In a way most presidents never have been:
He doesn't have a vice president working the home front,
To promote the interests of the people against the ways of war.