Maybe the problem is that George W. Bush has seen one too many westerns. Westerns with Clint Eastwood. Slow, gritty westerns, where the only thing you here is the pre-Lynchian howl of the wind, and sometimes the jingle of Clint’s spurs as he stomps around town. Or maybe it’s just that in that hot, arid state that someone once upon a time dubbed "Texas," where between the heat, the snakes, and the sheriff and his posse, something is always out to get you, people just grow up with a different mentality. Bush seems to come from that mold of so many Texas outlaws before him.

It’s not hard for me to picture Dubya holed up alone in the oval office, a burning cigarette the only visible feature of his face beneath his ten-gallon hat. The drawn curtains let in only a few thankful shafts of light, which W. carefully avoids, as those shafts could bring a sniper’s bullet into the room along with their innocuous sunlight. His sweaty palms grip the gleaming steel of his revolver, and his muttering vows not to be taken alive are the only audible sounds floating about that oppressively dark and hot room.

Indeed, during these early stages of his presidency Bush has continually shown a deep-rooted penchant for doing things his own way. He has repeatedly busted out of his hideout in the White House, guns blazing and spurs gleaming, and it cannot be too long before he encounters the sheriff at high noon in the middle of some dusty street. Should he continually refuse input from his very competent and capable staff, as he has already done with appalling frequency, a public hanging from the clock tower cannot be too far in his future.

Bush’s plans to withdraw from the 1997 global warming Kyoto Treaty are his most recent attempts to forgo all of the United States’ alliances in favor of his own gun-slinging agenda. Despite urgings from his Environmental Protection Agency Chief Christine Todd Whitman that the issue of global warming, and this treaty in particular, was a "credibility issue" for the United States with Europe, Bush paid no heed. Europe is a silly place filled with silly people, said the President, according to one source who had misquoted him. Indeed, European Union officials had been pushing the United States to resume talks on the treaty, which now seems a very unlikely scenario. The United States cited problems particular to the Kyoto treaty, which it apparently did not view as making any progress on the issue of global warming, as the reason for backing out.

However, the reasons for backing out are far less important than the consequences. Whitman had conveyed to Bush in a memo a week ago that she "strongly recommend[ed] that [he] continue to recognize that global warming is a real and serious issue." That strong and public stance was then promptly ignored by the President amidst a flurry of lobbyists from his old friends the coal and oil companies.

The end result is that the President has effectively undermined Whitman and her authority within the administration and abroad. Perhaps Whitman will now be less willing to lobby the President on issues that she feels are important for fear of being embarrassed again. Perhaps our allies will not respect her in the future when she makes statements on the White House’s behalf.

Perhaps those fears and questions will spill over into the President’s other advisors, rendering them less effective than they could and should be.

Bush seems to have a need to prove himself and his own stance to the country and to the world. However, in his attempts to make his policy based on his own agenda, he is weakening the overall power of his presidency. Regardless of the fact that Bush backing out of the treaty has caused an uproar within his own country, his refusal to cooperate with some of the United States’ key allies would have them looking perturbed as well, could a country show emotion.

If there is one thing we have all learned from Risk the game of world conquest and domination, it’s that if you make alliances with players, and then forgo those alliances later to attack those aforementioned suckers, they will come after you in the end with a redoubled vigor behind the rolling dice of attack. Bush clearly does not know how to be diplomatic within the realm of foreign policy. Pissing off allies and enemies alike is not usually the best strategy for navigating the turbulent seas of the global community, yet Bush seems to do just that time and time again. We all know the United States holds a position of power in the world, yet Bush continually looks to flex its (and his) own muscles unnecessarily.