Not “feels good”!
    PLEASE tell me he didn’t say “feels good”!

The New York Daily News reports that the President was seen on a closed-circuit TV hook-up inside the White House, just before his the Wednesday night declaration of war, pumping his fist, smiling, and saying “Feels good.” Knight-Ridder has a similar account, as does the Philadelphia Inquirer. So far, I cannot find any denial from the White House.

What sort of sociopath “feels good,” and says so, when he is about to give an order, or has just given an order, which, even if all goes well, will lead to the deaths of some thousands of human beings?

Alas, the story, assuming it is true, is characteristic of Bush: the man who made fun of the pleas of a woman who begged him for her life in vain, the man who boasted of the dead enemies “who are no longer a problem to the United States.”

Will nothing teach this moral monster the meaning of any suffering not his own?

I recall, not so many months ago, it being held an enormity that two friends, greeting each other at a memorial service for a third, should smile.

Those who feel, or at least pretend, surprise at how intensely Bush is loathed should reflect on those two atrocious words: “Feels good.”

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com