12
Jan
Prediction
I am betting that the Bush press conference, which is playing live right now, will be a youtube classic in no time, in particular the portion where he answers the question “What did you do wrong” and then debates whether or not his real failing in the Katrina debacle was not landing Air Force One in Baton Rouge.
Also, Jake Tapper is apparently now part of the WH press corps, sitting front row and center (next to Helen Thomas, of all people), so I predict four years of questions about Obama’s smoking habits.
As to Bush- he just looks old and worn down and really just wants to get out of there. He really looks like a broken man.
dmsilev
I can’t imagine why. After all, he said that his moment of greatest anxiety as President was…
and he’s had 7 years worth of brush-clearing vacations to recover from that awful experience.
-dms
Colonel Danite
The man is delusional! He actually thinks he did a fine job and that only the "elites", whoever they are, disapprove of his presidency. I want to throw my size 10 at the man!
dr. bloor
Bush will be looking chipper again after a solid round of post-Presidency coming home parties, power breakfasts discussing his memberships in various corporate and conservative machines, and a few rounds of speed golf.
The country he leaves us with, however…
Colonel Danite
ARGHHHHH! President Bush absolutely refuses to take responsibility for any of his mistakes. He just said that he doesn’t wallow in self-pity because the financial crisis happened under his watch. It’s as if his policies and governing philosophy had nothing to do with it.
R-Jud
I wonder if folks from Arbusto and Harken Energy who knew W back when he was losing them money or costing them their jobs are watching this, and what they’re thinking.
Probably "Same asshole, bigger stage."
Zifnab
@dr. bloor:
Will be fucking ecstatic. Like finally quitting a job that’s been quietly strangling you for a decade or kicking an alcohol addiction or punching a really obnoxious baby.
January 20th STILL can’t come soon enough.
Incertus
Y’all are watching that? You couldn’t pay me enough—okay, that’s a lie, since payday isn’t until Friday, but no one is offering, okay and I ain’t doing it for free.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Now that we have seen what a real president looks like, watching Bush is more painful than ever.
Every word out of his mouth is self-serving and disrespectful of the interests of the people.
He’s an embarrassment to the country, and will not be missed.
Neue Internetprasenz
A giant cane should appear about a half-hour in and yank him away from the podium.
The Other Steve
Since I have no TV… I shall have to wait for youtube.
Face
Jake Tapper makes a great pr0n name.
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Not fade away?
[...] || navigator.userAgent.indexOf("WebTV")>= 0) { document.write(‘’); document.write(‘’); } Prediction 12 Jan Not fade [...]
kay
The conventional wisdom was that Bush spoke like a normal person, so normal people understood him. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t know anyone who speaks like Bush.
Obama speaks like a normal person. His facial expressions (and eyes) match what he’s saying, he pauses and searches for the right word: you can tell he’s flipping through them. There’s a gap between question and answer, where his thought process grinding away is almost visible. Something’s clearly going on, between questioner and queried. That’s how "folks" talk, in my experience.
I don’t know what’s going on here. It seems to have something to do with President Bush, but he’s not all that interested in it.
Jennifer
Anyone else notice what we’ve not been hearing about Bozo?
Ever since Reagan left office, there has been intense media attention to what the former president will do after leaving office. Working on their libraries and going on the million dollar speaking engagement tour are the default settings.
With W, we’ve heard nothing lately about a library, and apparently there’s no speaking tour planned – perhaps because they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to hear any more out of him at any price. All we’ve been told is that the fake ranch is going up for sale and the Chimp is retiring to a tony McMansion neighborhood in Dallas.
Which really, when you think about it, fits perfectly with his character. It’s not as if anyone expected him to find any creative use for his time. No, lazing away in suburban comfort, running out the days of his life in idleness is exactly what you’d expect from this guy. Though all evidence indicates that keeping him idle is in everyone’s best interests.
sgwhiteinfla
Isn’t it ironic that just after Bush referred to people who criticized him on his torture policies and the Iraq war as "elites" and people who "hate Israel" he turns around and says he didn’t do any name calling?
Does this man have any self awareness at all?
calling all toasters
Bush’s greatest success was that he didn’t get a blowjob while President. That’s why he looks like a broken man.
Comrade Dread
He should.
If it were two hundred years earlier, he’d have a mob of us peasants marching on Washington (and possibly Wall St.) with muskets, torches, and pitchforks.
TenguPhule
When he’s on an actual Wheel of Pain, then we’ll talk.
kay
@sgwhiteinfla:
I’m not all that surprised. He doesn’t listen to himself, either. You probably have to be engaged to remember what you said 3 minutes ago, and connect it to the next question, and modify an answer.
TenguPhule
No. SATSQ.
Not even 10 years from now, when some Iraqi Exile slits his throat, he’ll still die confused as to why.
Svensker
or punching a really obnoxious baby.
Er, Zifnab, um, any issues we want to discuss here?
As to Bush, he’s not broken enough.
evie
How bizarre was it to hear him talk for nearly five minutes about whether or not he should have landed in Baton Rouge or New Orleans. Is it remotely possible that he believes the outrage was about him landing or not landing in the area?
sgwhiteinfla
@evie
I don’t remember anyone in the press or at all really complaining about Bush going to ground zero after 9-11 at a time when cops who helped with his security were pulled off of other pretty important duties, do you? Mind you I don’t think criticism would have been warranted in either case because the country needs to see its leader to help reassure them in a time of great need. Sadly he only saw fit to address that need during the former and not the latter.
Out of all of the excuses given over time that was the weirdest attempt at justifying his behavior in the after math of Katrina I have ever heard. But expect to hear it parroted by all of his conservative cronies for the rest of the week.
sgwhiteinfla
cue Karl Rove right now on Faux Nooz
woody
Not "broken" enough, by gawd.
Not by half…
How about we jelly his elbows?
Comrade Darkness
Quick, let’s get Mugabe a transfusion from Bush, maybe this too tired to go on being a dictator disease is catching.
JenJen
Fucking Jake Tapper!! I groaned when he was called on, and Bush started in with the collegial joshing. I wonder if Jakey has ever detected cigarette smoke, in that hound-dog reporter way of his, on the clothing of the current First Lady? It’s a compelling issue of great national significance and I would like an answer, goddammit.
Chuck Todd made his WH Correspondent debut, as well. Hmmm. Love the guy, but he could use some work. He was a little nervous, and that grey suit wasn’t doing him any favors.
I really was hoping Helen Thomas would get one last zinger in. Wishful thinking that he’d call on her, of course.
All that being said, can’t wait to watch Keith Olbermann tonight, because that presser deserves a thorough take-down, Keith-Style. Especially the Katrina parts… yes, Mr. President, we realize the helicopter "drivers" rescued 30,000 people from rooftops, and that’s noble as hell, but when speaking of the slow federal response, we’re referring to the fact that those 30,000 people were unceremoniously dumped onto overpasses, bridges, and the notorious Convention Center. Watching our fellow Americans go thirsty, hungry and miserable for days upon end while you did nothing is what we’re talking about, you miserable SOB.
I was also shocked that purely political decisions are "mistakes" while epic policy decisions are "disappointments." And what about his whiny-act? "Waaaah, the financial meltdown happened on my watch!" Jesus, I almost fell off the couch.
Eight days really is a long time.
gbear
Oh, I have a friend in Dallas who hears LOTS about the library from his northern friends. We’re also wondering if the streets will be painted blood red for his return (in lieu of a red carpet).
Amen to that. I wish on him one exquisite moment of clarity that makes the rest of his life unbearable.
South of I-10
Jesus H. Christ this pisses me off. This is very personal to me. I have close friends who lost everything. What a flippin idiot. What traffic would have been disrupted coming out of N.O.? There was no traffic because it was under freakin water. The Coast Guard and LDWF were pulling people off of their roofs. The "Cajun Navy" loaded up their boats and went to N.O. and pulled people out. FEMA did jack while people died.
Maybe he forgot, but all the damn helicopters working to save people had to be grounded for his little fly by.
ricky
Jake is more likely to set off some international incident by determining Obama played some sort of "card" by misinterpreting his comments, just as he did with "Obama
played the race card." He is stupid, self possessed, and dangerous.
maya
I understand all WH reporters were required to remove their shoes before the press conference.
Shoe me once, shame on you.
Shoe me twice….........
Rainy
Jake Tapper? He better not be apart of the press corp when Obama gets in. I despise him. He used to be a gossip columnist.
r€nato
beat me to it.
actually I’m hoping for solitary confinement at The Hague or wherever war criminals are imprisoned.
Broken man? Feh. Try being tortured at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib for years. THAT is what breaks a man.
I wish I had watched the press conference. I hear the assembled press weren’t exactly wishing him a fond farewell.
Zuzu's Petals
@sgwhiteinfla:
They’re good at that kind of stuff.
I remember a few years back when Ann Coulter was being interviewed on Bill Maher’s show. Her response to his point about GWB sitting dumbstruck on stage for those seven minutes while the country was under attack: "What was he supposed to do, run around like a scared little puppy?"
Yeah, because that was the ONLY alternative.
Zuzu's Petals
That’s too bad. I’d missed the beginning and was hoping that maybe he’d brought back the tradition of calling on her first…parting on a graceful note and all that.
Too much class to hope for, I guess.
wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian
Soon he can start drinking again. As he descends into alcoholic irrelevancy, accompanied by the odd, slurred soundbite, we can remind ourselves of what exactly we did to deserve him and his gangster pals.
Fuck him now and forever. I only hope he develops a conscience so he can spend the rest of his shitty life teareily boozing away the images of the children he helped slaughter.
Maus
The sad thing is that historians will probably absolve him.
I mean, US public school textbooks ARE written in Texas and at the discrimination of Texans, right?
r€nato
arguing with strawmen is all Republicans know how to do.
arguing with strawmen also makes your rhetoric muscles atrophy. This is a big reason why Republicans are in for a long, long wandering in the wilderness. They have forgotten how to articulate their philosophy to Americans (or whether they even have a philosophy). All they know how to do is smear the messenger.
JenJen
Just took a glance at Huff Post and in the enormity of absorbing that cocky-as-hell news conference, had forgotten about this Final Bush Presser EVAH! comment:
"I inherited a recession, now I’m ending on a recession."
If that kind of glib statement doesn’t make your jaw drop, then there’s something wrong with you. It was delivered with a sort-of "So What? Totally Not My Problem" detachment that, even after eight years, was jarring.
Of course Bush provided us with seven years of unprecedented growth and job creation after the devastating Clinton Recession. Also, Bush kept America safe after the devastating Clinton Security Lapses which allowed (if not encouraged) Bin Laden to attack America with airplanes. Nobody could have predicted that because of Clinton’s Awful Presidency, Bush’s legacy would get a bad rap! Fuckin’ liberal media.
Oy. Eight more days of this.
gbear
MPR was broadcasting the press conference over lunch today. I really tried to listen to it but I kept having to shut it off as if I was an overloaded circuit breaker. The man is so arrogant and clueless, shrugging off any serious question with banal all-purpose talking points (‘I want a sustainable cease-fire in the middle east!’) and shifting the blame for every problem onto someone else. He should have been shoed (because, you know, we have the freedom to do that).
TenguPhule
May you join him.
TenguPhule
Fools, this means they can now throw their used socks at him.
Death by Biological Irony Weapon.
DBrown
@Maus: Just like all those murdering terrorist cowards that supported the confederacy – Lee, Stonewall, and Jefferson Davis and their like. Look how American history books treat them instead of the NAZI murdering slavers they were whose only desire was to keep 95% of Southern whites in near slavery (and like repubs current stupid masses, they never caught on) and all blacks in complete and total slavery as these pigs raped their slaves and called for States Rights … which reminds me that the repub-a-thugs still use that as their slogan.
Chuck Butcher
Polite words won’t do for my evaluation of GWB, but there is something to remember, this is the result of 30yrs of Reaganism taken as conventional wisdom and finally unbound…catchy title? Reagan Unbound?
There are limits to what ideological incompetence can achieve and breaking the world’s largest economy is not the business of 8 years. Don’t do the Confederate Party of Republicanism the favor of personalizing the damage of their ideology in Bush. That lets them get away with the idea that it isn’t them, it was the implementation and that’s horse shit.
TheHatOnMyCat
Is it just me, or does eight days suddenly seem like fucking forever?
Jon H
"I mean, US public school textbooks ARE written in Texas and at the discrimination of Texans, right?"
I doubt schools even get to the Clinton era most of the time. I don’t think I ever covered the 70s, and I graduated high school in 1989.
By the time schools cover the 2000s in any depth, Texas will probably be dominated by Latinos, so where the textbooks skew is anyone’s guess. The middle third of the book might be about the rightful defeat of the oppressors at the Alamo.
D-Chance.
Obama makes a MASSIVELY controversial decision in having Gene Robinson deliver the invocation for the inaugural.
I mean… really… an Episcopalian? Couldn’t he have named a Christian instead?
wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian
@TenguPhule:
Best President your country ever had – yours will be the only one that will miss him.
Oh and don’t forget: 285 women and children dead – and counting.
wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian
Oh, btw:
In recent years, experts and rights advocates have argued over whether its use to intentionally harm people violates international conventions.
Major Dallal would not say whether Israel was using white phosphorus, but said, “The munitions we use are consistent with international law.”
Still, white phosphorus can cause injury, and a growing number of Gazans report being hurt by it, including in Beit Lahiya, Khan Yunis, and in eastern and southwestern Gaza City. When exposed to air, it ignites, experts say, and if packed into an artillery shell, it can rain down flaming chemicals that cling to anything they touch.
Luay Suboh, 10, from Beit Lahiya, lost his eyesight and some skin on his face Saturday when, his mother said, a fiery substance clung to him as he darted home from a shelter where his family was staying to pick up clothes.
An eye for an eye.
wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian
This is for Americans. Here’s Bush in his shabbas goy role:
His master’s voice.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....6A5_e514Zw
kay
@wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian:
I’m with you on this one, Wilfred. It’s amazing.
I read the WSJ account of the resolution and was wondering what the back-story was: Rice was behind it, then abstained?
I thought it was some clever procedural maneuver, beyond my ken. Nah. President Bush cut Rice off at the knees. It’s incredible.
TenguPhule
Kiss your ass goodbye for awhile Wilfred if you keep up that shit.
Cole didn’t take this shit from Kos, I doubt he’ll take it from you.
WP as a legal munition is not in question.
Israel’s piss poor choice of targets is.
TenguPhule
And yet you can’t figure out why some Israelis no longer give a shit.
TenguPhule
Wonderful, how far back do we start the body count? Maybe if we lay out all the Palestinian and Israeli dead in a line we can figure out how long its been going on.
Or are we going by brutality of death? Are we only counting guided missiles or do unguided rockets qualify?
What are the rules in your game of Calvinball, wilfred?
wilfred the shoe throwing Norwegian
@TenguPhule:
Came from the NYT story, asshole. Block quotes don’t function very well.
I don’t give a shit about what israelis don’t give a shit about.
scarshapedstar
I guess that intense 3-hour workday, spent at home in Texas, punctuated by Xbox breaks and capped with a 10 pm bedtime, will do that to you. Or maybe it was the stress brought on by trying to race Turdblossom through 968,000 pages of novels* each year (and that’s not including the pages with pictures!) while still making time to read the Presidential Daily Briefings, some of which had up to 10 single-spaced paragraphs. Heck, I’m sure his vaunted CEO-style decision-making process, consisting of reducing every issue to two competing 5-minute arguments and then picking whichever one
Cheneyhe liked better, would give anyone gray hairs. If he actually read newspapers, he might well have had a stroke by now.*according to Karl, who would never lie about such a thing.
scarshapedstar
Wait… I know what it was! The 2004 Presidential debates with John Kerry. He had to wear a top-secret Nuclear Defense Field Generator on his back, subjecting him to god-knows-what form of electromagnetic radiation (clearly, he felt as though death might come at any moment, hence the heartfelt pleas to "I, I, uh—Let me finish—"; with Jesus’ help, his body survived a treatment would have killed any other man, but his heart was broken by the knowledge that stuck-on-stupid America-hating BDS moonbats would don their tinfoil hats and claim it was a radio transmitter feeding him responses. He never did get to reveal the sacrifices he made while probably personally preventing a nuclear terrorist attack, and it pains him to this day, almost as badly as the truth about Saddam’s WMDs that he was never able to divulge to the public because it might have helped America’s enemies.*
*According to Glenn Reynolds circa early 2003.