If any of us are to have a future worth having, the world’s leaders, the members of Congress, the US corporate media and people of all political persuasions who value freedom and democracy had better start seeing George W. Bush for what he is : a sociopath and a passive serial killer.

Psychiatrists tell us that all serial killers lack the emotions that make us human ; that they have to learn to emulate those emotions in order to get by in society. Hence, a charming, well educated fellow like Ted Bundy who is known to have murdered 15 women and may have killed 36 before he was caught.

While Bush is no Bundy, when it comes Bundy’s education and acquired charm, and to our knowledge has never personally murdered anyone, it has been evident to us that there is something missing in George W. in terms of his lack of compassion and empathy. As governor of Texas, he set a record in signing death warrants - 154 in five years. He even made fun of the way convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker begged for her life.

If we believe the psychiatrists, a sign of a future serial killer is a child who delights in torturing and killing animals. George W., as a child, did exactly that. In a May 21, 2000, New York Times’ puff piece about the values Bush gained growing up in Midland, Texas, Nicholas D. Kristof quoted Bush’s childhood friend Terry Throckmorton : « ’We were terrible to animals,’ recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. ’Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,’ Mr. Throckmorton said. ’Or we’d put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.’ »

On Sept. 12, 2000, Baltimore Sun reporter Miriam Miedzian wrote, « So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm ? How relevant is a man’s childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult ? And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States. »

We’re finding out, aren’t we ? While we, in two articles before the 2000 election - Sept. 21 and Oct. 23 - noted Bush’s penchant for blowing up frogs, the corporate media blew it off, just as it had no interest in what he was trying to hide by obtaining a new Texas driver license and his 1976 drunk driving conviction, or the fact he was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. Instead, they bought into his nonsensical claim of being a « compassionate conservative » and « a uniter not a divider » who was going to « restore honor and dignity to the White House. »

All through the 2000 campaign and up to Sept. 11, 2001, the corporate media depicted Bush as an affable, tongue-tied bumbler - the kind of guy Joe Six-pack would like to have a beer with - turning a blind eye to his dark underside. It mattered not that he stocked his illicit administration with the worst of the worst : John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Gale Norton, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Thomas White, John Negroponte, Otto Reich and convicted Iran-contra felon Elliot Abrams who received a 1992 Christmas Eve pardon from George W.’s father.

Then, despite his peculiar behavior on Sept. 11, the corporate media and his handlers transformed him into a leader extraordinaire in the mold of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rolled into one.

And as Bush had Afghanistan bombed back beyond the Stone Age to rid the world of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, then switched to claiming it was the Taliban that had to go, then declared there was an « axis of evil » and it was really Saddam Hussein who was the « mother of all evil » and that war with Iraq was in the offing to get rid of Saddam, the corporate media cheered him on and to this day continues to beat the war drum. They have yet to consider that the passive serial killer needs to feed his lust for blood by sending others to put their lives on the line and do the killing for him.

In his Sept. 12 article, White House insiders say Bush is « out of control, » Mike Hersh wrote, « Some among Bush’s trusted White House staff fear what they are seeing and where Bush is taking us. His state of mind hauntingly reminds them of Richard Nixon’s Final Days. They fear Bush is becoming Nixonesque . . . or worse. Although Bush lacks Nixon’s paranoia, he may entertain even more dangerous notions. »

But their desperate late night phone calls to trusted reporters has not seen the light of day in the corporate media. Yet, some of us outside the Beltway have long had an inkling of what we are dealing with.

More proof lies in Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary, Journeys with George. Pelosi, the daughter of incoming House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was a producer for NBC when she wangled the assignment to spend 18 months as part of Bush’s campaign press corps.

From the surface, Pelosi’s « home movie, » as she calls it, seems to be nothing more than a love fest as George W. works to charm the pants off her and the rest of the press corps. The striking thing about this George, even though Karen Hughes is often seen hovering at his elbow, is that he isn’t tongue-tied when he is pumping up his ego, dishing out digs and being sarcastic and crude.

Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon and professor of media studies at New York University, who also sees the darker Bush, said in a Nov. 28 interview with the Toronto Star, «  »Bush is not an imbecile. He’s not a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he’s incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and he’s a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss."

Miller said he did intend The Bush Dyslexicon to be a funny book, but that was before he read all the transcripts, which revealed, according to reporter Murray Whyte, « a disquieting truth about what lurks behind the cock-eyed leer of the leader of the free world. He’s not a moron at all on that point, Miller and Prime Minister Jean Chretien agree. »

« He has no trouble speaking off the cuff when he’s speaking punitively, when he’s talking about violence, when he’s talking about revenge, » Miller told Whyte. « When he struts and thumps his chest, his syntax and grammar are fine. It’s only when he leaps into the wild blue yonder of compassion, or idealism, or altruism, that he makes these hilarious mistakes. »

In a speech last Sept. in Nashville, trying to strengthen his case against Saddam, Bush’s script called for him to say, « Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. » But the words that came out of his mouth were, «  »Fool me once, shame . . . shame on . . . you,« followed by a long pause, then, »Fool me - can’t get fooled again !"

Said Miller, « What’s revealing about this is that Bush could not say, ’Shame on me’ to save his life. That’s a completely alien idea to him. This is a guy who is absolutely proud of his own inflexibility and rectitude. »

Another example, Miller said, occurred early in Bush’s White House tenure when he said, « I know how hard it is to put food on your family. »

According to Miller, « That wasn’t because he’s so stupid that he doesn’t know how to say, ’Put food on your family’s table’ - it’s because he doesn’t care about people who can’t put food on the table. »

Miller told Whyte, « When he tries to talk about what this country stands for, or about democracy, he can’t do it. »

« This, then, is why he’s so closely watched by his handlers, Miller says not because he’ll say something stupid, but because he’ll overindulge in the language of violence and punishment at which he excels, » Whyte wrote.

« He’s a very angry guy, a hostile guy. He’s much like Nixon. So they’re very, very careful to choreograph every move he makes. They don’t want him anywhere near protestors, because he would lose his temper, » Miller said.

« I call him the feel bad president, because he’s all about punishment and death, » Miller told Whyte. « It would be a grave mistake to just play him for laughs. »

A grave mistake, indeed.

If all that has happened since Bush was first mentioned as a possible GOP presidential candidate hasn’t set off alarms, his naming of war criminal, mass murderer and international fugitive Henry Kissinger last week to head up the 9/11 investigation should have. And this week another alarm should have gone off when Bush promoted Elliot Abrams to lead the National Security Council’s office for Near East and North African affairs, which oversees Arab-Israeli relations.

Bush must be stopped now, before he sets the world aflame. And set it aflame is what he intends to do, even if Iraq has no « weapons of mass destruction » or Saddam stands on his head, naked, on the White House lawn.