Bush: stop all that lawyerin' and go get 'em!

1.) On the evening of September 11, 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he returned to Washington and at 8:30 p.m. addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Following his speech, he met with his senior officials concerned with the crisis in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. According to Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief for both Presidents Clinton and Bush, who was there, Bush entered the room and said, "I want you all to understand that we are at war and will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda." In the ensuing discussion, according to Clarke, "Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution. Bush nearly bit his head off. 'No,' the President yelled in the narrow conference room. 'I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.'"

2.) Bush himself said to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that [sic] was going to do whatever it took to win. No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death, that we're after 'em. And that was not only for domestic, for the people at home to see. It was also vitally important for the rest of the world to watch."

These two quotes are from Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project), with my emphasis added.

I'm trying to understand the deranged psychology of George W. Bush. I find it interesting how he uses lawyers as a substitute for the law in both quotes (the first of which seems to be a paraphrase that might not be word-for-word accurate, but presumably for Clarke to quote it this way, Bush must use that kind of phrasing a lot). I can think of two ways to interpret this.

The first would be that Bush recognizes that he is advocating illegal action, but uses lawyers as some kind of emotional scapegoat to avoid acknowledging his own lawlessness. I'd interpret that as a psychological mechanism he's employing for his own benefit, rather than a deliberately misleading attempt to manipulate his audience. It softens "lawbreaking" into "ignoring lawyers" and everyone hates lawyers so how bad could it be?

The second way to read it is that Bush sees the world through the lens of power. He doesn't see The Law as a manifestation of a social contract, or a set of rules that we're all obligated to obey, and that he's obligated to uphold. He just sees power. Lawyers have power and Presidents have power. Presidents are more powerful than lawyers, therefor Bush can get his way, especially when it comes to (what Bush decides are) important things. Supporting this is how in both cases his lawyer references are associated with puerile ideas about strength, or the image of strength. Bush and all of the neocon goons have this preschool playground idea of power. It's all about kickin' ass and gettin' 'em, and demonstrating our resolve. They're overgrown little boys with wild ideas and the most destructive toys in the history of mankind at their disposal.

Anyway, there's no reason these two versions have to be mutually exclusive, but they're both pretty fucking disturbing.