George W. Bush has revealed in his memoir, due out this week, that he seriously considered replacing Vice President Dick Cheney with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in the 2004 Presidential campaign, due to the image that Cheney was really making the decisions as the President, and that Bush relied on him too heavily. Therefore, replacing Cheney would improve Bush’s image as the “decider”!
This shows how insecure Bush was and is, that he would be concerned what the American public thought of him, and that he might be considered by them as not qualified for the Oval Office! His upset that Kanye West called him a racist for his slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina is further evidence of that fact!
Compare this to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and the image is VERY different!
Many might say that Obama is not qualified to be President, but only the right wing talk show hosts really spread that propaganda, and Obama has a strong enough self image that he does not spend a minute worrying about that assertion! And if he was to be upset over every character assassination which has been visited upon him by critics, he would be totally unable to function! But Obama is very secure in his own skin!
Joe Biden is playing a very important role for President Obama, and they get along splendidly, but there is no sense of rivalry between the two men, no self doubt on the part of Obama that he can do the job!
It goes to show that we need to have a better way to judge a candidate’s mental health, as that is an important part of what makes him able to handle the pressures of the Presidency!
It is clear that we have had Presidents, particularly Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, who based on their mental state, should not have been President, as they harmed the country in many ways because of their own insecurities!