"I do a lot of crying in this job"

Or, can George Bush be even more pathologically narcissistic?

The above passage is from a new book, Dead Certain by Robert Draper. In the book we find that Dear Leader does indeed shed tears - of course, whether he sheds those tears over thoughts of the victims of his criminal activities or over the destruction of the Republican Party as a viable political force is perhaps a moot point.

Too much has been written about Bush's narcissism, his penchant for being so shallow as to be all surface. He doesn't read the papers (Andy Card had to burn a DVD of news footage in order to jar his boss into action after Katrina) and he sleeps far too well at night. He doesn't appear to be troubled by conscience, and he admits to no mistakes.

So he went to Anbar yesterday, to take tea with our erstwhile enemies (who'll take up arms against us again if we stop paying them $385 a crack) and talk up the Petraeus Report (which will be written by the White House anyway, and won't tell us anything new). Only one helicopter pilot dared to tell the Empty Suit the truth that the deployments are straining the military.

The pilot's probably flying fire missions without backup now, a victim of President Pollyanna's refusal to face reality.

But, we are assured, the President does a lot of crying. I suppose that's calculated to make us feel better about the 3750 dead Americans and tens of thousands of dead Iraqis.

Guess again, Bush.