The Astrological Karma of the U.S.A.

Chapter 12:
The Astrological Karma of George W. Bush

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President George W. Bush, perhaps more than any other in recent  history, has polarized our nation into nearly 50/50 opposed camps. Those who approve of George W. Bush and all or most of what he has done and those who approve of little or nothing of what he has done. This polarity in the national psyche reflects what the U.S. is experiencing now in its own Astrological birthchart as a nation. Examination of Bush’s Astrological birthchart reveals that he and our nation are both confronting similar challenges by identifying with our self image at the expense of our true natures.

In this discussion of the Astrological birthchart of George W. Bush I will first look at him as an individual. Behind the social persona of every individual there is a matrix of factors which influence the choices and decisions we each make in the performance of our social obligations. The Astrological factors evident in the birthchart and reflected in the formative experiences in his childhood and later life give a more comprehensive view of this man. I will then review the influence of these factors and others on how George W. Bush functions as President and conclude with the dangers I see ahead for George W. Bush and our nation.

George W. Bush is a Cancer. He thinks he is a Leo. He pretends that he is an Aries. In his childhood he had to bear the influence of the sign Libra. All in a manner of speaking. These are prominent basic Astrological influences in the drama of George W. Bush’s life

As stated earlier, the Sun in a birthchart represents your soul essence. It is who you really are. George Bush has his Sun in Cancer, born on July 6 two days after our own U.S. birthday of July 4th. This means that the soul essence of George W. Bush has developed qualities of caring and nurturing in previous lives. He would be a a good man to represent ‘family values’ and a traditional, patriotic stance. It is this Cancerian part of George Bush which would resonate sincerely with his stated mission of ‘compassionate conservatism.’

I previously explained that the United States is not always in touch with the caring, nurturing potential of its Sun in Cancer. Our nation often tends to identify more with our self-righteous Sagittarian self-image. Similarly, George W. Bush’s Sun in Cancer qualities of caring and nurturing are often overwhelmed by the smug superiority of his self image (Ascendant) which is Leo.

This sign as well as the Sign Aries, his projected image to the world (Midheaven), are both feisty fire signs. Aries on the Midheaven will show a tendency to present oneself as ‘headstrong, willful and dynamic’, with a tendency to appear as ‘hot-headed.’

The self image of Bush is better understood by analyzing Hilarion’s description of Leo Ascendant:

When the sign Leo rises, there will be a tendency for the self-picture to be colored by the notions of elegance, specialness and superiority. A proudness will often be felt internally.... The reason for giving this Ascendant to an individual is to prompt him to think better of himself than he is in the habit of doing when in incarnation. The rulership by the sun thus lends to the individual certain bolstering influences in terms of how he sees himself, which are intended to teach him not to underestimate his own worth and not to feel inferior to others.¹

So, the Leo Ascendant is given to an individual to bolster their self-esteem as a counterforce to their own self-doubt. Thus George W. Bush’s self image protects him against feeling inferior to others so as to appear stronger than he is.

In addition to the Leo Ascendant, Bush has Mercury in Leo in the First House close to the Ascendant, of which Hilarion says:

Mercury here [in Leo]......will aggravate feelings of pride, superiority and arrogance. The thoughts will revolve ever and only about the self, and the person’s life will seem to him to be a magnificent play in which he himself is the main actor, and has written all the parts. The main lesson is to see others as whole persons in their own right, living their own life-plays.²

This Mercury is conjunct to Pluto in Bush’s chart, which indicates that the soul’s tendencies for arrogance and self-absorption have been slated for major transformation in this life. The dichotomy between a caring, nurturing father and an arrogant, smirking, party boy is a basic theme duly noted in all of the biographies I have read about George W. Bush. In his own auto-biography, ‘A Charge to Keep,’ Bush speaks in great detail about the reasons why he refused to commute the death sentence of Karla Faye Tucker, a reformed murderer turned Christian who had asked for the right to live so that she could aid and counsel other young women in prison who had also been led down the path of drugs and violence. She had appeals on her behalf coming from sources all the way up to Pope John Paul himself.

George Bush explained that he did not commute the death sentence of Karla Fay Tucker, while at the same time he did commute the death sentence of an unrepentant serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, because facts revealed that Lucas was  innocent in relation to the specific murder he was convicted of, whereas Karla Faye Tucker had never professed innocence for what she did. He admits being heavy of heart at the time. Indeed, his wife Laura said that she had never seen George so anxious and that he was having difficulty falling asleep. After the execution, however, a journalist asked Bush what Karla Faye’s response had been when CNN’s Larry King had asked her what she would say to Governor Bush if she had the opportunity. Bush mocked and mimicked Karla Faye by saying, ‘Please don’t kill me,’ in a whimpering voice.³ 

Which of these reactions is more truthful? That reported by Laura Bush, or that by the journalist? Admittedly, George W. thought that his comments with the journalist were off the record. I believe that Bush’s caring, emotional, Cancerian Self was sincerely tortured by the death of Karla Fay Tucker on his hands. His inability to access, own, and consistently express that caring emotional side, however, is a major dilemma for him in this life. This is the same dilemma faced by this great nation of ours.

Personally, I see George W. Bush as a rather wounded Cancer. I say this not only because of the dichotomy between his Leo Ascendant/Aries Midheaven and his Cancer Sun, but because all the tension in his chart (three squares) is afflicting his Sun in Cancer. The themes involved in this tension relate to experiences in childhood, his own past life memory, the family unconscious,  and the quality of his mind and belief system.

George W. has the Moon, which represents childhood, in positive aspect to his Venus. This indicates that there was a lot of love and affection in his childhood. This aspect coincides with a close emotional relationship with the mother, which, in George W.’s case by all accounts seems to be true. His Moon is also conjunct to Jupiter, which would represent a positive, beneficent, fortunate, expansive influence in his childhood. The wealth, affluence, and prestige attained by his father, the large family, and the warm-hearted outspokenness of his mother, would all point to this positive influence of Jupiter.

There is a complex of Astrological factors here, however, which would show additional influences at work in the childhood and psychological make-up of George W. Bush. Before I explain these factors, however, I will first describe a major karmic event in the early formative years of George W. Bush. When George W. was three years old his Mother gave birth to a daughter named Pauline Robinson, whom the family called Robin. When George W. was seven the Leo/Aries side of his nature was already giving him a reputation as being quite feisty, a bit bossy, and even somewhat of a bully. In relation to his sister Robin, however, his Cancerian qualities became evident. With Robin his behavior was always gentle, caring, patient, and protective. At the age of seven, however, some intense Astrological ‘transits’ began hitting his birthchart. In February or early March of that year, the elder George and Barbara Bush were told that their daughter Robin had leukemia and would probably die in three weeks. They rushed her to medical specialists in New York and were able to prolong her life for six months until she unfortunately died.

Young George W. knew that Robin was sick, but he was never told that she could die. In his auto-biography George W. says: “I was young enough, and my parents loved me enough, that Robin’s death did not traumatize me.” In contrast,  it has been reported that while feeling betrayed by having the truth kept from him by his parents, George W. cried uncontrollably, slammed the door to his room, and destroyed half of his baseball card collection until his mother stopped him. Later he tried to control his tears, but for years afterwards he would wake up screaming from nightmares. One of George W.’s  best friends in childhood, Randall Roden, remembers sleeping over at the Bush home one night and being awakened by one of George W.’s nightmares, ‘It was one of the most realistic experiences I have ever had about death, and I am certain it had a profound effect on him because it had a profound effect on me.” ⁴

Once again we have another telling dichotomy. Did George W. lie about the more traumatic reactions to his sister’s death or did he suppress them from his memory? In any case, Bush now had to endure the pain of such a tragic loss, with parents who hid the depth of their emotional trauma from their children and continued to live in a situation where it wasn’t really spoken about. George W.’s Moon in Libra being in tension (square) with his Sun in Cancer accurately reflects the tension between the cheery exterior and hidden interior of the Bush family.

For the Moon in Libra Hilarion says:

This sign is ruled by Venus, the planet of harmony, tranquility, balance, love and beauty. The Moon in this sign at birth denotes an early home environment which was characterized by control of emotional excesses, with at least an outward show of tranquility and harmony. Whether the harmony were really there under the surface can be judged from the degree of affliction to the Moon in this position. A heavily afflicted Libran Moon points to a home life which is superficially smooth and tranquil but with a cauldron of unresolved conflict and turmoil beneath the surface.⁵ 

In Barbara Bush’s memoir she admits that she and George H.W. Bush awakened each night in great pain after the death of Robin, while hating the fact that nobody spoke of Robin, as if she had never existed.⁶   

George W.’s brother, Jeb Bush, described this Libran Moon, emotionally controlled atmosphere in their childhood in the following account he gave in an interview with author Bill Minutaglio:

It goes against how we were...it’s just, we are not...it’s not natural for us, for, uh, I think I can speak on behalf of all the family, to get into, to be, to turn on this reflective mode and somehow spill our guts,....We were brought up to basically do the exact opposite...and so I think, naturally, it’s an uncomfortable thing.⁷

 The positive aspect of this Moon to Venus would indicate that a genuine harmony and love did exist in the family. The difficult aspect (square of the Moon to the Sun) would nevertheless show this tendency for things to appear calmer than they were, an aspect of tension especially difficult for George W.’s Sun in Cancer.

It is to the credit of young George W. that he became very concerned about his mother’s well being at the time of Robin’s death, and it is believed that it was at this time that he tried to uplift the spirits of those around him by becoming the family and later the class clown. His sense of wounding and betrayal, however, still festered. The elder George Bush and Barbara kept trying to have another girl. After another three more boys they finally gave birth to their daughter Dorothy. This was a joyous occasion for all of the other members of the family. It has been noted, however, that George W. was somewhat disconnected and even resentful of Dorothy’s arrival:

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I actually hated Doro the first month or two after she was born. No one in the family mentioned Robin’s name any more and it seemed to me at the time that everyone was fawning over Doro like she was the second coming of the Almighty. You have to remember I was young back then and confused in my feelings and emotions, but I don’t think anyone, including my mother, knew that a little of me died with Robin and seeing this new baby sister only served as a daily reminder for a while of my own personal loss.⁸

George W. was fourteen in the year that Dorothy was born. Carrying the weight of Robin’s tragic death in his psyche reflects the propensity of the sign Cancer to become emotionally attached and even possessive of others in relationship. Indeed, part of the karma of a Sun in Cancer person can be met in the following way:

When an individual expends most of his energy in the nurture of others, there is a tendency to feel that without these others remaining in contact, there will be little substance or meaning left to life. The threat of losing the others...can be expanded into a general feeling of great insecurity on the part of the Cancer individual, for which the only antidote is trust in Providence or God. When several lives are lived in the Cancerian pattern, the feeling of insecurity can become a trait in the soul which requires correction through an incarnational pattern in which events are arranged to increase the feeling of insecurity in the hopes that the individual will ultimately turn to an inner faith in something beyond man.⁹

There is an additional rather heavy element in the karmic experience of George W. Bush. He has the planet Saturn in the Astrological sign Cancer and this Saturn is also in the Twelfth House. If I were with a client now, I would normally say at this point, “And unfortunately, everyone has Saturn somewhere.” The location of Saturn in a birthchart indicates where you have to experience karma through a certain heaviness, weight, limitation, or restriction. It is the planet related to the metal lead.

Saturn in Cancer indicates a certain heaviness or restriction in the early childhood. Saturn in the Twelfth House relates to Bush’s memory of his most recent past life.

This is what Hilarion says about Saturn in the Twelfth House:

The placement of Saturn in the twelfth points to a burdened previous life, usually one marked by illness and loneliness. As a result the present personality will bear scars in the subconscious, and these residues may well program him to react to events and people in certain negative ways.¹⁰

At the time of Robin’s death the Saturn in his birthchart was experiencing simultaneous tense transits (squares) from Saturn and Neptune, and a conjunction from Uranus. This heavy Saturnian past life memory was being especially activated at this time.

In another perspective on the Twelfth House, noted Astrologer Liz Greene explains that the Twelfth House represents the inherited family ‘daimon,’ that is the inherited family unconscious which you then somehow become programmed with. My personal feeling is that the past life memory and the family unconscious are both valid interpretations. With his Twelfth House Saturn, George W. was carrying within him this heavy, difficult, past life memory. It was then arranged for him to incarnate into a family where it was known that there would be a similar heavy Saturnian weight in the family unconscious as well.

Suspended above the family table was a portrait of Robin placed by her father. Her presence was always there, but virtually never spoken about. That the elder George Bush suffered greatly from the loss is revealed in a letter he later wrote to his own mother where he said:

I sometimes wonder whether it is fair to our boys and to our friends to ‘fly-high’ that portrait of Robin which I love so much; but here selfishness takes over because every time I sit at our table with just our candlelight, I somehow can’t help but glance at this picture you gave us and enjoy a renewed physical sensation of closeness to a loved one.¹¹

This letter was apparently written before the birth of Dorothy for in it he pines for a little girl, for some, ‘soft blonde hair to offset those crewcuts.’ That the elder George Bush would feel these deep feelings but again, not express them, especially with his sons, would, again, relate to the Moon in Libra’s tendency to have an appearance of calmness masking more turbulent emotions underneath. That these unexpressed feelings were in fact heavy, deep, and painful would resonate with the Saturn in the Twelfth House, ie. Saturnian heaviness in the family unconscious.

On a more positive note, George W. has his Neptune in the Third House of mind and thinking in positive aspect  (sextile) to his Mercury. This aspect would give George W. the capacity to open his mental perspective to the positive aspects of Neptune. These aspects include spirituality and compassion. In addition to being a caring, nurturing Cancer, George W. has, with this Neptune aspect, the ability to express sensitive comments to those around him. These factors also relate to his capacity to open to a religious spirituality. It has been noted that in his childhood his family practiced what has been referred to as a ‘Christianity Lite.’ It was George W.’s encounter with the Reverend Billy Graham which really helped him to access the potential of this positive Neptune aspect. This opening of himself to God in this Neptunian way positively aspecting his Mercury helped George W. to tone down the arrogance and self-absorption of his Mercury in Leo. 

The other factor which would help him greatly in toning down some of the abrasive qualities within his Astrological make-up would be his marriage to Laura. An indication of the destiny for this, by all accounts, happy marriage is Bush’s Jupiter In Libra for which Hilarion says, 'In Libra, ruled by Venus, Jupiter always promises an eventual happy marriage (or marriage-equivalent).'¹²

This happy marriage and opening to spirituality also helped George W. to finally get a grip on another problem which comes under the influence of the planet Neptune. This problem was George W.’s alcoholism. Neptune, it is to be noted, rules drugs and alcohol. Neptune in difficult aspect will bring lessons relating to confusion, illusion, delusion victimhood and martyrdom. This Neptune in the Third House, the house related to the sign Gemini and to mental thinking, would also resonate with George W.’s tendency to mangle the English language and to be himself victimized for that. Additionally, it would relate to his tendency to use alcohol to buffer himself from the rough edges of life. Some say that George W. was not an alcoholic. His wife Laura said he never drank during the day. Yet, in that time period when George W. was asked when was the last day that he didn’t have at least one beer, he couldn’t remember. Later, he has stated that his alcohol imbibing days were simply “When I was young and irresponsible.” His period of being young and irresponsible, however, lasted until he was 40 years old.

This Neptune is in wide conjunction with his Moon in Libra, the Moon in Libra representing that part of his childhood experience where things appeared as calm on the surface even though they were not underneath. The Neptune is also in tension with (square) his Sun in Cancer. Looking at this complex of factors objectively, with no prior knowledge of the biographical details of the subject, factors involving Sun, Moon, Jupiter and Neptune, I would suspect a very complex relationship between father and son, and perhaps between father and mother, and mother and son.

I have stated earlier in this book that when there is an Astrological complex involving difficult aspects to Neptune it will create what I call a victim/victimizer program. A program such that if you don’t want to be a victim you have to be a victimizer. And if you don’t want to be a victimizer you have to become a victim. George W.’s experience of this dynamic is a major Astrological theme in his life and a major concern in his performance as president today. It is a theme synchronous with the Neptunian karmic lessons affecting the United States at this time in its history.

Childhood is where these Astrological complexes are usually first created. We then have to deal with the various ways that we unconsciously manifest these complexes in our adult lives. There is one theme evident in relation to the role of the elder George Bush in George W.’s childhood. That theme is resonant with this difficult Neptune/Sun aspect. Hilarion says Neptune in difficult aspect to the Sun indicates lessons in relation to the individual’s experience of the masculine principle. This lesson normally manifests in some difficulty or confusion in the relationship to the father in the childhood. (The Sun is often seen to represent the father in a birthchart.)

 There is a recurring theme of a certain Neptunian victimhood and vulnerability in George W.’s childhood in his experience of his father. For starters, throughout the years that George W. was growing up his father was gone a lot. At first, when the young family moved from New Haven, Connecticut to Texas and for a time in California,  he was a traveling salesman selling drills to oil rigs, traveling up to 1,000 miles a week. Then he started into the oil business himself, searching for property to buy adjacent to where oil strikes had occurred. For this he would also be away for days at a time. Later George H. W. Bush started his own oil company for which it has been noted that as an independent oilman moving into offshore drilling he traveled even more.  Indeed Jeb Bush reflected: “Even when we were growing up in Houston,...Dad wasn’t at home at night to play catch. Mom was always the one to hand out the goodies and the discipline. In a sense, it was a matriarchal family.”¹³

This had to have been tough on Barbara as the family increased to five children. The Moon being square to the Sun in George W.’s birthchart would resonate with a tension between the parents. Any sense of victimhood experienced by Barbara Bush would, however, remain unexpressed or unapparent because of the Moon in Libra’s tendency to manifest a home life which is: ‘superficially smooth and tranquil but with a cauldron of unresolved conflict and turmoil beneath the surface.’

In looking back Barbara has begun to express more of how she felt at that time:

This was a period, for me, of long days and short years,” she would recall. “Of diapers, running noses, earaches, more Little League games than you could believe possible, tonsils, and those unscheduled races to the hospital emergency room...of feeling that I’d never, ever be able to have fun again; and coping with the feeling that George Bush, in his excitement of starting a small company and traveling...was having a lot of fun.”¹⁴

With George the elder’s absence and the fact that George W. was the oldest child, George W. took on more and more the role of surrogate parent to his siblings and surrogate partner to Barbara.

“I look back on those years in West Texas,” Barbara recalled, “and I wonder how I would have ever made it without my oldest son. There was never any groaning or moaning on his part [although he did call her the ‘Gray Fox’ under his breath when she angered him]. I probably put more responsibility on him than I should have, especially for a boy his age,” she confessed. “But whom else could I turn to, with his father gone so much in those days?”¹⁵ 

George W.’s own relationship to his father was more distant, but psychologically more intense:

“If Mom handled misdemeanors, then it was left to the ‘ultimate enforcer’ to prosecute felonies. “I would scream and carry on,” Barbara said. “The way George scolded was by silence or by saying, ‘I’m disappointed in you.’ And they would almost faint.” Georgie would become particularly upset at the mere suggestion that he might have failed his father. “He could be made to feel,” Georgie’s brother Marvin said, “that he had committed the worst crime in history.”¹⁶

This particularly acute vulnerability to the reality and presence of his father is a major psychological/karmic dynamic with George W. Bush’s experience of himself and life. George W.’s Sun, representing the father in a psychological sense, is in difficult aspect to Neptune, the Moon and Jupiter. Neptune would relate to the sense of victimhood and vulnerability. The Moon would involve the mother. And Jupiter would relate to the elder George Bush having such a major expansive, successful, prominent role in the world around them.

 

When George W. was born his father was already from a prominent East Coast family, a war hero, a baseball star, and member of Phi Beta Kappa at Yale. When they moved to Midland, Texas, the Bushes were the ‘first family’ among the other Yankees who had moved to that area. One former friend remembered how everyone called the elder George Bush ‘Big George,’ and how he “was always the quarterback of the football team, he was immediately in charge and it was so clear that he was the leader of our group, socially and intellectually.”¹⁷  Of course later the elder George Bush became an oil millionaire, a congressman, an ambassador to the U.N. and China, head of the CIA, Vice President and then President. A lot to live up to for an eldest son with Leo Ascendant trying to look stronger than he is.

George W. was often the victim of this difficult comparison with the legacy of his father. He followed in his footsteps but, until much later, never as successfully as his father. This path would take him to Andover, the prestigious preparatory school in Massachusetts his father attended. At George W.’s twentieth reunion at Andover he confessed that during his time there he was terrified of failing because of how much Andover meant to his father.¹⁸

George W. then followed his father’s path to Yale, another of his father’s alma maters, although his acceptance there has been speculatively linked to family influence. This path also brought him into training as a pilot like his dad. Unlike his father, however, he was spared any real combat. His promotion to lieutenant was on the day of his father’s successful election. This path also brought him to the oil business where he never succeeded like his father, and what success he did have was probably, again, due to family connections. 

One of George W.’s ways of dealing with his insecurities was through his overindulgence in alcohol. The negative effects of this in relation to his father manifested one night when he drove home inebriated with his brother Neil, crashing into the neighbors trash can. His father was waiting for him, but rather than listen to his father’s lecture: “W. burst into the room and confronted his father. “I hear you’re looking for me,” Junior shouted, shaking his fist....”You want to go mano a mano right here?”¹⁹  As one biographer has stated: “Maybe it was just the alcohol talking. Or maybe it was the nagging frustration of a young man who had come to realize how hard it was to measure up and come to worry about how easy it was to disappoint.”²⁰

Later George W. claimed that he finally gave up alcohol because it was competing with his affections for his wife and family. These are definitely valid reasons for someone with the Sun in Cancer. Other observers, however, have stated that his motives had more to do with not wanting to disappoint or cause problems for his father, especially as his father started to express ambitions for the presidency.

The experience of the roles of victim and victimizer became more complex in George W.’s relationship to his father when he had to witness the successful, bigger than life George Herbert Walker Bush experiencing his own humiliating defeats and victimizations. He had to witness the abuse and accusations his father had to deal with in his Texan political campaigns. At Yale his father, who supported the war in Vietnam, was condemned by the anti-war students and the liberal faculty. Later George W. took on more and more the role of victimizer of those whom he felt had victimized his father. He was known to be the strong-arm man in his father’s 1988 presidential campaign, letting reporters have a ‘piece of his mind’ if they wrote unflattering or critical articles about his father. Unhappy with one journalist’s comments, George W. accosted the reporter and his family during their dinner in a restaurant and yelled: “You no good fucking son of a bitch! I will never fucking forget what you wrote!”   What this journalist had written was simply that he thought that Jack Kemp was going to get the Republican nomination for president in 1988. He didn’t even mention George Bush in the article. This may seem a minor incident, but I think it is symbolic of a profound psychological dynamic within George W. Bush. It has been conjectured that at least one of George W.’s motivations in running for Governor of Texas was to get back at the incumbent Governor, Ann Richardson, who had stated at the Democratic National Convention nominating Bill Clinton in 1992 that George Herbert Walker Bush was ‘born with a silver foot in his mouth.’ When George W. announced to his mother that he was running against Ann Richardson her first reaction was ‘Go get her.’ 

It is also speculated that George W.’s run for the presidency was, at least in part, to get back at Clinton and the Democrats for what they did to his father in 1992. I am sure that George W. has his own sense of service and duty and it has been noted that there were others who put pressure on him to run. One has to ask in the present political climate, however, what really motivates someone to run for president? And, how will those, perhaps, unconscious motives affect their choices and performance as president? Was George W. Bush’s attack on Saddam Hussein somehow connected with a festering malice resulting from Saddam’s threat to assassinate his father the first President George Bush?

The next section of this chapter will examine how George W. functions as President. The various Astrological factors and formative experiences we have identified can now be observed as they influence the choices and decisions George W. makes. I confess, I did not vote for George W. Bush, and like all humans I am subject to my own biases as I approach political subjects. My skills as an Astrologer, however, have been honed in application to clients whose political affiliation virtually never enters the picture. I have tried to remain as fair and as objective as I can in this analysis of our current president. In this final section of Astrological analysis of George W. Bush I am going to reference the book, ‘The Price of Loyalty,’ by Ron Suskind. It details the experiences and observations of Bush’s former Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neill. He served in prior Republican administrations under Presidents George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. O’Neill worked closely with George W. Bush before being dismissed from the cabinet in 2003. His record of public service and Republican credentials make it difficult to dismiss his account as either sour grapes or as liberal ravings.

I would like to begin with O’Neill’s description of the ‘behind the scenes’ White House buildup to the present war in Iraq.  Ten days after his Inauguration in 2001, Bush held his first meeting with the National Security Council. The first topic was the Arab/Israeli conflict. After a short discussion Bush said “I don’t see much we can do over there at this point. I think it’s time to pull out of that situation.” The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, tried to point out that such a hasty exit would likely unleash Ariel Sharon and the Israeli army on the Palestinians.  O’Neill noted, ‘Bush shrugged. “Maybe that’s the best way to get things back in balance.”

O’Neill described Powell’s reaction as startled.

Bush then turned to Condoleeza Rice and asked what was next on the agenda. She responded, “How Iraq is destabilizing the region, Mr. President.” O’Neill says that several observers felt that this interaction with Rice had been scripted. In the ensuing discussion it became clear that there was a pre-orchestrated decision to weaken or terminate Saddam’s regime. O’Neill points out that the Council members discussed only the hows of the issue and never any of the whys. This meeting, one must remember, was seven months before September 11, 2001. this unilateral decision to undermine an existing nation clearly violated as O’Neill notes, Bush’s campaign promises to be ‘humble’ in our global involvements and to never engage in ‘nation-building.’

A 27 year analyst with the CIA, Ray McGovern, who is part of a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, states that the President made the decision to go to war first and it was then necessary to find the intelligence to validate the need for that decision. McGovern said that CIA analysts resisted incredible pressure from the Defense Department to state that there was evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. He went on to say that the administration had deliberately promoted the false story of Iraq allegedly seeking to obtain uranium from Nigeria for nuclear arms production even though that story was a lie based on a forgery.

Confirmationally, in an article entitled, ‘The New Pentagon Papers,’ published on the internet news and information site, Salon.com, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force came forth with her observations of what was taking place in the build up to the war in Iraq. She states that after having served in the military for 20 years it terminated with ‘10 months of duty in a strange new country...’

She confirms what Ray McGovern stated above. She refers to individuals in the Pentagon appointed by the President who manipulated and pressured the interaction between the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. In her own words:

I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP (Office of Special Plans) usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.²¹

That George W. Bush would effectively mislead or even lie to others could easily relate to the effect of Neptune in his chart. This planet creates the propensity for illusion and deception, including self-deception. Compounding this trait is the placement of Jupiter in the Third House in Bush’s birthchart.  When Jupiter is difficultly aspected, as his is by a square to the Sun, Hilarion states that such an alignment will lead, generally, to a ‘dishonest streak.’²²  Moreover, because this is the largest planet, Jupiter, these traits of illusion, deception, and dishonesty can be acted out on a grand scale with far reaching effects. In correspondence with this grand scale are the plethora of books which deal with Bush’s tendency to give untrue and deceptive statements.

The Neptunian confusion and delusion of George W. Bush are evident in the following quotes from Suskind’s book which I think are quite revealing of how George W. Bush functions as President:

The problem, O’Neill felt, was that this President’s lack of inquisitiveness or pertinent experience....meant he didn’t know or really care about the position of the U.S. government. It wasn’t just a matter of doing the opposite of whatever Clinton had done, which was a prevalent theme throughout the administration. This President was starting from scratch on most issues and relying on ideologues like Larry Lindsey, Karl Rove, and, he now feared, his old friend Dick [Cheney]. Not an honest broker in sight.²³

The President was caught in an echo chamber of his own making, cut off from everyone other than a circle around him that’s tiny and getting smaller and in concert on everything — a circle that conceals him from public view and keeps him away from the one thing he needs most: honest, disinterested perspectives about what’s real and what the hell he might do about it.²⁴

Seeing so much of the policy analysis that was being conducted — in so many realms — left O’Neill befuddled about the real intentions that underlay action.

Was it possible, O’Neill wondered, that the country thought it had elected a centrist when in fact it had empowered an ideologue?²⁵ 

The Neptunian illusiveness of the true character of George W. Bush is evident in O’Neill’s observations of Bush. O’Neill said he could usually grasp the workings of a prospective employee’s mind after a single lengthy interview. Yet after working with Bush for six months, O’Neill felt he still didn’t really understand how Bush’s mind worked.

Reading ‘The Price of Loyalty’ book provided a window into what Astrological/Psychological dynamics are at play at the helm of our nation. Essentially, George W. Bush is an insecure man, with a complex relationship with his father, who has used his Leonine and Arian energies of stagecraft, wit and charm (and a good deal of money) to become President of the United States. His own insecurity,  coupled with his lack of intellectual engagement and preparation for the task at hand, have made him compensate by surrounding himself with powerful and experienced advisors. These ‘handlers’ perpetuate the stagecraft upon which Bush relies, both for a semblance of true self-confidence and knowledge, and to also buffer him from the pragmatic realities around him.

George W. Bush’s entire life has been based upon appeasing strong powers around him to compensate for his own insecurities and inadequacies. These strong powers around him began with his complex relationship with his father. This legacy continues to reverberate in most of George W.’s later endeavors. These strong powers continue to manifest as the political, religious, and financial forces which enabled George W. to attain his own political successes. 

In mentioning the religious powers, one has to look at the power and effect of religion in George W.’s experience of himself. Writers have described the Bush administration as a theocracy, pointing out the heavy reliance upon religious faith and terminology in Bush’s political statements. One can surmise that such statements may prove to be no more than political posturing to appease Bush’s political base within the Christian Right. Personally, I think that George W.’s faith is deeper and more sincere than that —  and more alarming than that.

George W. realized during his conversion experience with the Reverend Billy Graham that he had turned to alcohol instead of God to deal with his problems. Bush’s reliance on God to deal with his problems, choices, and decisions can be a similar kind of ‘chemical dependence.’ It is no accident that Neptune relates to both mystical, spiritual union and to drugs and alcohol. All of these experiences create a dissolving, a surrendering, a freedom from the harsh concrete realities of life. All of these experiences require a strong grounding in concrete reality as it is, for a necessary balance. The positive balance of faith and concrete action will produce someone like Gandhi. A negative imbalance, where religious faith is really a narcissistic ego-inflation or a compensation for insecurity, will produce something along the lines of the Inquisition. It is this kind of danger which scares me when I look at George W. Bush and many of the people behind him.

In the book, Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward, Bush was asked if he had consulted his father before going to war and his reply was: “You know, he’s the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to.”

Now, myself, I also pray to God for clarity and strength in my life. However, for George W. to deflect a question regarding his appreciation and reliance upon his own human father, who had himself served as a president at war with Saddam Hussein, to an assertion of his reliance on God the Father for strength is somehow suspect. This is especially the case when I think of George W’s complex relationship with his father and when I look at George W’s Astrological aspects. In particular, the aspects involving Neptune, Moon and Jupiter in the Third House of mental thinking and communication, in tension with the Sun (representing father principle). The Jupiter/Neptune component calls to mind something Astrologer Liz Greene said about an aspect involving Jupiter and Neptune. She said that such an aspect will create a situation in which  “a sense of absolute moral rightness renders self-questioning superfluous.”²⁶  This statement, in turn, brings to mind some campaign advice given by Bush’s right hand man and mentor, Dick Cheney, to associates when he was White House chief of staff in 1976: “Principle is okay up  to a certain point, but principle doesn’t do any good if you lose.”²⁷

In relating to George W.’s reliance on God for strength I find my sense of being caught in the crossfire of the current ‘culture wars’ taking place in this country at this time being stimulated. On the one hand I, along with the Christian Right, am appalled at the torrent of secular obsession with consumerism, sex, and fame, which has created a moral vacuum in much of our affairs. At the same time, I am appalled at the Christian Right’s abduction of the moral high ground on these issues, with the attendant obsessive allegiance to a narrow platform of fundamentalist ideology. What is ominous is that people can and often do the most abhorrent things when they think that God is on their side. I believe many liberal, and moderate minded people in this country share this same frustration between these two extremes.

It is George W. Bush’s Astrological Karma which has brought him to this position where he must experience the results of his actions. It is the collective karma of the United States of America to have him as our president and to experience the results of his actions.

In the month of the election, November 2004, George W. Bush will have Saturn conjuncting his Twelfth House Saturn by transit. This is the same Saturn which was being aspected at the time of the death of his sister Robin. I am certainly not predicting or hoping that this current transit will result in such a tragic personal loss for George W. It does seem, however, that the time of the election will be a difficult one for him. He will be feeling the heaviness he carries in his own unconscious.  In 2005 Saturn will go over his Leo Ascendant and his Mercury in Leo. At that time I predict that he will be deeply humbled, in some manner. His Leonine flair for arrogance and self-absorption will be brought under the heavy leaden hand of Saturn. I personally hope that this will be due to his having lost the 2004 election and then reflecting on the effects of his regime moving into the mists of history. Otherwise, if Bush has been re-elected, I fear what other forces may cause this humbling of our President. On election day, the choice will be ours. 

¹          Astrology Plus, p. 26.

²          Ibid, p. 40

³          George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage,                                                     Christopher Anderson, p. 193.

⁴ Ibid, p. 38.

⁵ Astrology Plus, p. 18.

⁶   Barbara Bush:A Memoir, p. 49.

⁷     Interview with Jeb Bush with Bill Minutaglio, found in First                                             Son:      George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty, Bill                                                  Minutaglio, p. 23.

⁸    Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American                                                 President, J.H.Hatfield, p. 23.

⁹    Astrology Plus, 6.

¹⁰    Ibid,  p. 148.

¹¹   Found in: W: Revenge of the Bush Dynasty,   Elizabeth Mitchell, p. 35.

¹² Astrology Plus, p. 59.

¹³  George and Laura, p. 48.

¹⁴   Ibid, p. 45.

¹⁵   Fortunate Son, J.H.Hatfield, p. 25.

¹⁶   George and Laura, p. 45.

¹⁷   First Son, p. 36.

¹⁸   W: Revenge of the Bush Dynasty, p. 197.

¹⁹   George and Laura, p. 109.

²⁰ Ambling into History, Frank Bruni, p. 139.

²¹ The New Pentagon Papers, Karen Kwiatkowski,                                                                        www.salon.com, March 10, 2004.

²² Astrology Plus, p. 136.

²³  The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind, p. 126.

²⁴   Ibid. p. 293

²⁵   Ibid. p. 130.

²⁶   The Astrological Neptune, Liz Greene, p. 286.

²⁷   Found on p. 178 in Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, by John W. Dean.

 

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