Al Capone vs George W. Bush

[Darth Wong]

Question: if the mind of Al Capone were transferred into George W. Bush at the beginning of his term, would his administration have behaved any differently?

I was thinking about American politics and it occurred to me that virtually everything the Bush Administration does may seem strange, reckless, or insane for a political organization or a national leader, but it actually seems perfectly in character for a mobster.

Think about it: violent cycle of retaliation, even if innocents get killed as a result. Cronyism on an unprecedented scale. "Forget about it" nonchalant response to the courts telling them they have to stop what they're doing. Smirking cover-ups. Sheltering of friends from criminal prosecution. The use of torture, with the same smirking response when the courts tell them they're breaking the law.

Just a thought, for your amusement or consideration. I found that the Bush Administration's history suddenly became a whole lot more comprehensible to me when I started thinking of them as mobsters.

[Academia Nut]

Somehow I get the impression that Al Capone would have done far better than Bush, and if nothing else would have America running as a successful and profitable racket. Plus there never would have been the stupid invasion and insurgency, it just would have been a grand kneecap breaking with everyone else told, "Stay in line or you're next".

Man, you know politics are bad when you would prefer a known mobster in power rather than the current group because it would decrease the body count and increase respectability.

[Flagg]

Aside from not killing his political rivals, there's definatey somewhat of a paralell.

[Pelranius]

Hey, that's not fair! Capone worked hard to get to where he was in the world.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is there a possibility that Capone might use the military for the old "attack a country, sack it and raid the treasury" that sort of thing?

[Big Phil]

Al Capone was surprisingly generous toward the poor and immigrants (particularly Italian immigrants), doling out money to the needy, paying for soup kitchens, etc. Contrast that with Bush, who has fucked over the lower and middle classes, and it's no contest - Capone, is far better than George Bush in many ways.

[Vaporous]

Think about it: violent cycle of retaliation, even if innocents get killed as a result. Cronyism on an unprecedented scale. "Forget about it" nonchalant response to the courts telling them they have to stop what they're doing. Smirking cover-ups. Sheltering of friends from criminal prosecution. The use of torture, with the same smirking response when the courts tell them they're breaking the law.

Just a thought, for your amusement or consideration. I found that the Bush Administration's history suddenly became a whole lot more comprehensible to me when I started thinking of them as mobsters.

It's spelled "fughedaboutit".

I think I read an interview a without Noam Chomsky that expressed the same idea. He said that the administration has "a very mafia perception of the world" in which "you do what we say or else. That's why the Iran situation is developing like this. People that defy us have to be punished."

I think the analogy works in that sense, and even farther- this tight knit group of long time "business associates" thats very secretive, and plays by its own laws.

[Superman]

with the same smirking response when the courts tell them they're breaking the law.

In the world of psychoanalysis, a smirk is a sign of a sadist.

Both of them may have similar psychological traits (even being able to kill with no remorse), but I think Capone had a natural talent and intelligence Bush lacks.

As a youth, Capone was an uneducated thug who had a knack for running scams and fighting. Eventually a wiseguy capo took notice of him, and his ascent to power and corruption began. With muscle, business savvy, and a brilliant sense of timing, he turned all his rackets into multi million dollar enterprises. He was probably the most successful criminal in America's history. At the height of his power, few state criminal jurisdictions were beyond his influence. It took a specialized federal task force to nail him on a technicality.

Bush has a history of one failed corporate venture after another. It seems that he's run one business after another into the ground, and now he's doing it to the country. If Bush had half of Capone's ability to administrate and empire, we would be in much better shape.

[Big Orange]

Plus there never would have been the stupid invasion and insurgency, it just would have been a grand kneecap breaking with everyone else told, "Stay in line or you're next".

That's kinda of what happened in real life, except Bush has made a pig's breakfast of everything. I can see the irony of a infamous crime boss doing a better job of running the country than the current US President...

[Scottish Ninja]

You'd think Capone would also be one to support heavier industry regulation; he did, after all, first introduce and then get Congress to make law expiration dates on food (milk at least; I don't know about food).

Actually, when I think about it, Capone would make quite the socialist president, if only for his own (and the government's) gain. Throw in his actual social responsibility and it would be quite interesting indeed.

Just another president, however, not to get on the bad side of...

[Elfdart]

Bush's thugs went after Joe Wilson's wife when they couldn't argue his findings. Mobsters in Capone's day usually didn't go after people's families.

[Galvatron]

The comparison is an insult to Al Capone.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Sorry mike, but at least Alphonse understood most of the lessons from "The Prince" (while goerge the monkey seems to think it's a book about a kid living on the moon). However I do think that the monkey took his playbook from some banana republics.

[Durandal]

Even the mob doesn't go after cops and DA's. The Bush administration has no problem turning its guns on US attorneys.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Question: if the mind of Al Capone were transferred into George W. Bush at the beginning of his term, would his administration have behaved any differently?

I was thinking about American politics and it occurred to me that virtually everything the Bush Administration does may seem strange, reckless, or insane for a political organization or a national leader, but it actually seems perfectly in character for a mobster.

Think about it: violent cycle of retaliation, even if innocents get killed as a result. Cronyism on an unprecedented scale. "Forget about it" nonchalant response to the courts telling them they have to stop what they're doing. Smirking cover-ups. Sheltering of friends from criminal prosecution. The use of torture, with the same smirking response when the courts tell them they're breaking the law.

Just a thought, for your amusement or consideration. I found that the Bush Administration's history suddenly became a whole lot more comprehensible to me when I started thinking of them as mobsters.

For starters, after we knocked off Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we would have put a Shia dictator in charge and quickly left, which would have vastly better consequences than the current democracy-building clusterfuck.

I imagine Afghanistan would be much more stable as we would have restored the old King who actually had some popularity and legitimacy to his rule, and not tried to force democracy on them, and already left the country to the royal army to smack down on the remaining Taleban however they pleased.

And drugs would be legalized and turned into a state monopoly, with all the proceeds from the state monopoly being laundered to Al Capone's cronies, but he would actually be able to have campaigned in 2004 on the grounds of a massive reduction in crime by ending the war on drugs even as he racked in tens of billions of dollars in personal profit to his swiss bank accounts from massive corruption of the new programme.