Oh god, it's his Fisher King moment

The Mahablog has an entry about how Bush seems to be taking a surprisingly timid response to North Korea. It suddenly hit me: Of course he is, because the last time he got into his cowboy suit, he started an ass kicking that hasn't stopped yet, and it's got to have had some effect on him.

It's his Fisher King moment. The story of the Fisher King is about a man who sees the Holy Grail in a fire, but when he reaches out for it, it's gone. Psychologically, it's been interpreted as being about a psychic wound that all men suffer the first time our reach exceeds our grasp.

George W. Bush has shown he's good for exactly one thing, and that is getting dressed up in manly uniforms and talking tough. And now he can't even do that right. Never mind the fact that actually, a bit of "cowboy diplomacy" might be called for in the case of North Korea.

They're a country that actually could be a threat to us-something Iraq never was and never could have been. But on some level Bush must know how badly he's screwed up Iraq (whether or not he'll ever be able to admit it publicly) and now he's once bitten, twice shy.

Sometimes I'm amazed I even have the fortitude to keep trying...