While I have very much enjoyed Zeke Miller’s articulate and engaging three-part series on President George W. Bush ‘68, I confess to being puzzled about how and why Garry Trudeau’s cartoonist’s credentials (albeit with a Pulitzer imprimatur) translate into Jungian acumen for assessing the psychological motivation of President Bush as a student and statesman.

Trudeau was in the Yale College class of 1970, whereas President Bush was in the class of 1968. Trudeau was not close to Bush; yet Trudeau’s quotes suggest an intimate, “fly on the wall” discernment of what made Bush tick as a Yale student. In the same way Bush is blessed with an illustrious father, so was Trudeau. Taking the same armchair psychological privileges as Garry Trudeau, I can’t help wondering whether, when speciously belaboring Bush 43’s supposed rivalry with his father, the cartoonist is possibly betraying something of his own sense of inadequacy in contrast with his own father?

As my mother always said, “You judge others as you live your life.”

Albert H. Black
Jan. 23
The writer is a playwright and the guest services manager and concierge for The Courtyard by Marriott at Yale.