{"id":431,"date":"2008-04-28T16:47:41","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T21:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2008-04-28T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2008-04-28T19:52:16","slug":"chaffee-on-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"Chaffee on Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lincoln Chaffee, former Republican Senator from Rhode Island, published the most damning piece I have read<\/a> about his experiences with George W. Bush:<\/p>\n

The man\u2014and by that I mean the inner man, the essential man\u2014seemed unequal to the awesome powers entrusted to him. I was worried about the damage he might do over the next few years, never mind in a second term, which seemed unthinkable at the time.<\/p>\n

…something very disturbing came through for me in his demeanor and attitude in the Oval Office. I want to describe it as insecurity, but even that is not the right word.<\/p>\n

Several times, the president went out of his way to remind me that he was the commander in chief. You don’t have to keep telling me that, I thought. I know who you are. Like others, I have been around people who are good at wielding power. They never have to tell you they are in charge. They just are, and you know it. What I saw and heard that day really unsettled me. I’m the commander in chief… I’m the president… I’m the commander in chief… It was unpresidential.<\/p>\n

That September, as I watched the Twin Towers collapse in smoke and dust, I had a sinking feeling about the president’s capacity to respond wisely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Lincoln Chaffee, former Republican Senator from Rhode Island, published the most damning piece I have read about his experiences with George W. Bush: The man\u2014and by that I mean the inner man, the essential man\u2014seemed unequal to the awesome powers entrusted to him. I was worried about the damage he might do over the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[108,210,136],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-george-w-bush","tag-lincoln-chaffee","tag-september-11"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-6X","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}