Sheer Incompetence.

Everyone today (well, not everyone, just politics nerds) is writing about former Bush speechwriter' Matt Latimer who has a new book out about the final days of the Bush presidency, and GQ did one of them publicity stories about it. One anecdote Ezra Klein pulls out below, that more or less sums it up:

It begins in the moments at the bottom of the financial crisis, when serious people were saying things like "the economy is about to collapse." George W. Bush needs to do something. So he does...something.

After Chris, Jonathan Horn, and I learned about the president’s $700-billion-bailout proposal and drafted the remarks announcing it to a stunned nation, Ed said the president wanted to see us in the Oval Office. The president looked relaxed and was sitting behind the Resolute desk. He felt he’d made the major decision that everyone had been asking for. That always seemed to relax him. He liked being decisive. Excuse me, boldly decisive. The president seemed to be thinking of his memoirs. “This might go in as a big decision,” he mused.

“Definitely, Mr. President,” someone else observed. “This is a large decision.”

The problem is that Bush didn't understand his own proposal. He thought it bought low to sell high. He wanted that in the speech. Instead, it bought high to recapitalize failing banks. Eventually, this is explained to him. And he replies with a line that should serve as the epitaph for his presidency. “Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” he asked.

Helluva question, Georgie.