There has been much comment on Bush's behavior -- highlighted in F/911 -- when he learned of the WTC attacks while reading to young students in a Florida classroom.
What was he thinking? Moore asks. And then proceeds with a litany of sinister possibilities.
But perhaps the president, who says he wanted to project a sense of calm, was simply contemplating the story he was reading, The Pet Goat.
The Pet Goat
by Siegfried Engelmann & Elaine C. Bruner
Lesson 60, page 153
Reading Mastery 2, storybook #1
SRA (Scientific Research Associates)
McGraw-Hill, 1995
ISBN# 0026863553
“The girl had a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her goat in her house. She played with her goat in her yard. But the goat did something that made the girl's dad mad. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate cakes. He ate cakes and he ate cats. One day her dad said, that goat must go. He ate too many things. The girl said, that if you let the goat stay with us, I will see that he stops eating all those things. Her dad said he will try it. So the goat stayed and the girl made him stop eating cans and cakes and cats and cakes. But one day a car robber went into the girls house. He saw a big red car in the house and said, I will steal that car. He ran to the car and started to open the door. The girl and the goat were playing in the back yard. They did not see the car robber....
The storybook apparently breaks off at this point, leaving the ending up in the air -- much as the real events that began that day are still playing out.
What are we to make of Bush's interest in this tale with its subtext of sexuality and banditry? Perhaps Bush identified with the goat, which chewed and ate and put things in its mouth, inciting anger in the girl's father. Does Bush identify with the oral fixation so manifest in the goat?
Perhaps it's the goat's destructive nature that Bush finds so intriguing. Or is it the redemptive aspect of the story that holds his attention?
Will the goat rescue the girl from the robber, thus "correcting" the father's mistake and showing him the error of his ways?
A goat, of coarse, is an ancient erotic symbol. Is this some dark masturbatory fantasy for the President? Or is it more overt? Bush has certainly displayed a love affair with deadly violence throughout his public career, flaunting a streak of sadism most brazenly with his mocking of Karla Faye Tucker. ("Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me.")
In any event, the story is certainly rich in possibilities. M2 |
