We know Bush didn't get his world view from actual experience of the world. Before he had an army that could attack it, he never showed much interest in the rest of the world, having traveled less by the age of 50 than your average college student taking a summer trip through Europe.
So, absent actual experience with actual foreigners in actual foreign places, how did he form his impressions of the world? Blog Left found an essay that offers some compelling speculation that Bush formed his relationship to the world based on the Bible, comic books and movies:
- In addition to the overtly religious blessing of nationalistic zeal, the Captain America complex has given shape to superheroic mythologies that now seem to enthrall even our president. The popular culture that seems most apt for grasping President George W. Bush's populist style of leadership in international relations comes to us in three important movies: Independence Day (1996), Air Force 1 (1997), and the Rambo film First Blood (1982). Independence Day and Air Force 1 are the most successful films ever made about American presidents, real or imaginary. The Rambo character elicited the president's approval in a bizarre incident that occurred in Germany this year. What can these blockbuster films tell us about public taste and the presidential state of mind?
Click here to find out.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
More typical cheap liberal bullshit. This is just a pseudo-intellectual way of repeating the usual "Bush is dumb" mantra which has been disproven a hundred different ways. Your argument boils down to saying that Bush is too stupid to read a real book, so he gets all his information from the funny papers. Hey, George W Bush has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Do you?
I could just as easy put up some stupid crap that Bill Clinton got his worldview from watching Animal House and reading Freak Brothers comics. It would be just as legitimate a criticism, which is to say stupid.
It is you and the authors of the Captain America book that are obsessing over the cheap end of pop culture. President Bush, on the other hand, has a country to run.
You seem to think that if you just keep repeating the same lies about Bush being stupid and illegitimate that it will make them true. It won't.
2 - the Rev Nick
Hmm.. Bush getting his ideas from Captian America- a living symbol (in the make believe world, now), who believes in the spirit and ideals of his country, in freedom, liberty, and justice, and is willing to give his life in his country's defence. Maybe you should've bothered to actually READ some Capt. America comics first, huh Mr. Fleming?