SPECULATION ABOUT PRESIDENT BUSH GIVING UP GOLF
IF ONLY HE WAS REALLY SO NOBLE
Recently it has been reported that President Bush has sacrificed his love of golf because he feels it sends a wrong message to everyone in a climate of war.
Bush Says He's Not A Golfer In Wartime
 President Bush on the golf course in 2002. He said he gave up the game the following year because playing in wartime "sends the wrong signal." (By J. Scott Applewhite - |
By Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 14, 2008; Page A02
President Bush said yesterday that he gave up golfing in 2003 "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq, concluding that it was "just not worth it anymore" to play the sport in a time of war.
"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," Bush said in a White House interview with the Politico. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."
If the President mean what he says then I would salute him.
However, given his track record when it comes to personal sacrifice and telling the truth it is difficult if not impossible for me to take him at his word.
Note the following:
His relatives are all golf fanatics.
Many men in our day and age have a 'thing' about golf.
Handicaps are considered by many men to be a test of their manliness.
President Bush is highly competitive.
Then there is the question of the President's psychology.
Before I speculate about the President's psychology let me discuss my observations about the game of golf.
I have played golf and like it. But it can be exceedingly frustrating to say the least. A person can be strong, have a natural swing, knows how to compensate for distance, wind, hazards and the likes but may fail at being a good golfer. The key to a low score in golf is the ability to be consistent. To be consistent a golfer must be able to tolerate tension and pressure. A golfer has to be able to shake off the inevitable bad shots that will be made, the blown puts, the hooks and shanks, the one inch from the hole that the ball just misses making.
To be consistent a golfer has to be able to tolerate increasing pressure due to anxiety, tension, fear, failure, losing and the likes.
Now back to speculating about the President's psychology.
The President is an ex alcoholic. As a psychoanalyst having worked with many addicts I know that the core issue underlying their addiction is an initial inability to tolerate frustration and other so called negative affects. Learning to tolerate frustration automatically leads to an integrated self. Failure to do so results in a personality that is likely to cave or take the easy way under poressure.
The President also suffers, I believe, from being dominated by black/white thinking. Such dichotomous thinking perceives inner and external reality in overly simplified terms. They believe there is either absolute perfection, or absolute imperfection, all powerful/ all weak; all good/all bad; a winner or a loser.
Now for the crux of my speculation.
I don't believe for one second that the President has the capacity to stay the course (pun intended) when the pressure to compete for the best golf score or even matching his own best scores is concerned.
I think it would be interesting for some reporter to see if he could get a hold of the President's actual golf scores over time both between himself and himself and between himself and his competitors. One such competitor would be his father. My bet is that over the long pull the President just didn't measure up. So if I am right a face saving way to wiggle out of his failure to look like a winner and avoid looking like a 'wheeny' is to stop playing all together and cover it over as a noble sacrifice.
It is interesting that President is consistent in his always putting the best light on his undeniable failures. So much for illusory nobility.
If I am proven wrong by the facts - his actual scores over time - I will a
dont you think he may have stopped golfing because in coincides with the worsening of his knee injury from summer of 2002 to his last round of golf oct 13 2003?
Posted by:weston penfield | May 15, 2008 at 01:41 PM