As I think about Bush's press conference last night, it occurs to me that what we were watching was a weird hybrid: a cold, contemptuous dad crossbred with a sullen teenager.

Bush's message to the world certainly was that of a tyrant dad: "Why? Because I said so, that's why." But that was mixed with the attitude of a fifteen-year-old boy slumped in the backseat of Mom's SUV, consumed with exasperation because he isn't allowed to drive and isn't allowed to get a tattoo until he’s eighteen and isn't allowed to do anything. Old Europe, and Turkey, and protestors, and reporters, and Americans and Brits who support war only if there's a second resolution -- they all get to be at the wheel, singing those gross embarrassing hippie songs from the sixties and being totally lame. And Bush is not talking back, he's not raising his voice -- he's deliberately not raising his voice. He's explained a million times why he's right. But we're not listening.

You know, as soon as he can, he's going to do exactly what he wants, and nobody's going to stop him.

But for now, he can't. It's so unfair.