Bush: Just Actin' Like a Texan

I kind of had this theory last week, but I'll let Gerald from "The Cafeteria is Closed" say it:

I think [the Miers backlash from the base] makes Bush even more resolute. It's the other side of consistency - stubbornness. Critique, especially from intellectuals, only makes him more resolved. He was already peeved when the Alberto Gonzales trial balloon was shot down. It wouldn't even surprise me if the Miers nomination is a result of the snub his friend got.

I think this is exactly right. "You don't want me to nominate Alberto? Fine, I won't nominate Alberto. [The president's lips set in a hard line.]" I really think this, because I personally am as stubborn as a mule bred from a stubborn horse and a stubborn donkey, but also because I've had a strange experience since moving to Canada. At home, I really did not have much of a Texas accent at all, and I didn't use colloquialisms that much. However, living in Canada, especially when there was a lot of anti-Americanism last fall during the U.S. election, my accent has come out and I have really started using turns of phrase that were in my mind, even if I wasn't using them. And it gets even stronger if, say, we're in line at a coffeehouse and I hear people denigrating the U.S. (which has happened more than once), or if we're on the bus in Vancouver while visiting the in-laws. At least I live in Alberta - I'm sure it would be a thousand times worse in Ontario.

The point is - if you think Texans are backwards and annoying, well, I'm not ashamed to be Texan, and I'm going to be even more full-on Texan just to show you. Easterners, especially, think that if they just register their dislike of Texan "loudness", then we'll tone it down, because we want to be liked just like they do, right? Well, um, wrong. And GWB, for all his patrician background, really is a Texan. He feels disrespected by his base over the whole Gonzales thing, and I have a feeling - only a feeling, but a very strong, instinctive feeling - that he just decided to put his foot down and demand loyalty on whoever he chose from the "herd of cats" that is the Republican base. The more people get upset about it - whether well-known writer, famous activist, or just a guy who plants yard signs - the more stubbornly Bush is going to cling to his "pit bull in size 6 shoes". I'd like to be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.