Interesting piece on the growing discontent with Bush among Republicans:
It’s been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush’s news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.
I’m not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who’d previously supported him. She said she’d had it. “I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.” I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: “I took the W off my car today,” it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.
Support for Bush is at rock bottom- around 28% or so according to the latest polls. Years ago, a pundit quipped about a politician (whose name I can not remember) that his approval ratings were “Alfonsian,” a reference to the legendarily low approval ratings of Senator Alfons D’Amato. In the future, pundits may quip that low ratings are Bushian. Who knows?
Regardless, I suspect that even many of those who are in the 28% are, to some extent, merely supporting the President because the “Democrats are worse.” I doubt that there really is a core of strong support ANYWHERE for the President, as I doubt there are that many true believers out there. When I read Red State or Hugh Hewitt or Blogs for Bush anymore, it seems to me like they are more or less going through the motions- and even then they make occasional vocal breaks from Bush.
What I don’t understand is the people who are just now growing disgusted with Bush. Just now? I mean, you were ok with the incompetence, the torture, the Schiavo, the lies, and everything else, but now something has bothered you so much you just can’t take it anymore? In fairness, though, I suspect this is how the liberals who read this site look at me- I did vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004, and only in the spring of 2005 did I finally come to grips with what I had done.
And so it is.
*** Update ***
I erred when I said that there probably is no core of strong support anywhere for Bush. I forgot that every village must have an idiot.
ThymeZone
I think most of us have a lot of respect for you, John.
That’s why we hang here. That’s always been the main reason a lot of us hang here.
Rick
Spring 2005 was 2 years ago, you saw the light. These fucktards still worship shrub, their just sad he sucks so bad.
Richard Bennett
Like you, I turned on Bush as a result of his Schiavo antics, but I know several of the pro-life, pro-Jesus, anti-science crowd who loved them. Since then about all he’s done is nominate Harriet Miers, starve New Orleans, and increase the death rate in Iraq. So I suspect the latest round of Bush defection is linked to the failure of the surge, and his lack of willingness to accept the fact that Iraq is a lost cause.
He was pretty good in 2002, not so much since then.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
John, nobody likes publicly admitting themselves to be an idiot. So, for these dead-enders to renounce Bush they need a graceful way off the bus. For many, it was Katrina. This most recent wave of abandonment coincides with the immigration bill fiasco. When Bush opened his yap and declared opponents of that legislation “don’t want what’s best for America,” that gave many die-hards the excuse they’ve (secretly) been seeking.
Dreggas
Peggy Noonan can take a long walk off of a short pier. She’s one of the most dishonest flacks I can think of. She can just go “savor”. I can forgive those who turned on Bush before 2004 even some who turned after but this “denunciation” of bush is so mealy mouthed that it strikes me as nothing more than sticking a finger to the wind and going with that.
Wilfred
Reminds me of Garry Shandling saying: “I broke up with my girlfriend. She moved in with another guy and, well, I just draw the line at that”.
Everybody has their Bushline.
Third Eye Open
Goldstar…
I have had much the same opinion about many of the administration apologists. IMHO, the biggest factor keeping a full fledged defection, and a tail-spin to the 10-15% “true” dead-end population is the fact that most of these putzen would rather support a failure, than admit to friends and family that they were wrong. While this might be an effort in navel gazing, I think we need to dedicate a smidgen of time to formulating a strategy to allow these self-absorbed troglodites to wash their hands of this failure of a Preznit without having to admit they were wrong. It may be cathartic to see your enemies embarassed before Krul’s feet, but cathartic exercises don’t keep the ladies and gentlemen in the field from taking an IED to the brain-pan.
RSA
“And now all that’s left is the V. . .” Hey, that’s not a bad thought.
jenniebee
Who else here thinks that Peggy Noonan secretly fantasizes about being spanked?
Mike
Noonan isn’t disgusted with Bush for substantive reasons. She’s trying to distance the GOP from him to avoid being dragged down in 2008. Note her article’s lack of policy disagreements, or admissions that any of the evils she’s defended in the past are actually evil. All of her criticisms of Bush are personal ones, that can’t be used to attack Romney or Thompson even if they follow all of Bush’s policies to the letter.
UnkyT
Not in my neighborhood. Everyone that lives within a few miles of me are still hardcore supporters of Bush. Of course, my congressman is Chris Cannon, and my state senator is the famous Chris Buttars.
Dreggas
That’s my father in a nut-shell, he never will admit he’s wrong. He tries to say that his dislike of bush is only because he didn’t kill enough iraqi’s and didn’t bomb Iran yadda, yadda. Hell he even says that the whole Libby thing wasn’t prosecuted by “real republicans” and that it was a witch hunt because Armitage admitted to the leak before Scooter was even questioned.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Concur, which is why it distresses me to see people who have disliked Bush for a long time adamantly opposed to being joined by people who have only recently seen the light. Undoing the damage caused by this idiot will be a huge job, and I don’t think it’s productive to demand ideological purity from those who want to lend a hand.
Dreggas
Don’t get me wrong I’ll take all the help I can get, however in the case of Noonan, no free pass she must do penance…not just spanking and no moving on to oral sex either.
Zifnab
Just swing by Riehl World or Little Green Footballs and you’ll get to step into one of the most perversely distorted views of reality you could hope to discover.
They really do support Bush, kitten eating and all, because some of them just assume if the Republican Party does it, its ok. And some of them are just closeted vile little trolls who have been waiting for the Bush regime to roll in since the end of 1945.
I mean, just look at Jesus Camp. There really are people who worship this man like he was the Second Coming of Christ. Breaking that vision, especially without a draft or a tax hike or a local natural disaster to sell the sin home, is damn near impossible. In ten years, these will be the smucks saying how Hillary Clinton destroyed the US Economy by running up the national debt. These are the people who will be writing the history books about how 9/11 happened on Bill’s watch. And how the minority Democratic position in Congress single-handedly lost the War on Terror.
Some people are just that delusional.
HelenaMontana
Regarding the rock-ribbed Republican lady who became disenchanted with Bush–rock-ribbed is not synonymous for stupid. Bush is no Republican and this lady figured it out.
Third Eye Open
Dreggas…
Perhaps the Pit of Eternal Damnation?
A few nights in Castle Aaghhhh…
Definately no oral sex though; That roast beef is way past fresh.
HelenaMontana
Regarding the rock-ribbed Republican lady who became disenchanted with Bush–rock-ribbed is not synonymous with stupid. Bush is no Republican and this lady figured it out.
Dreggas
Oh and just to crank the outrage knob up a bit more:
White House, Pentagon cite executive privilege to hold up documents on friendly fire victim Tillman
Dreggas
It’s not even roasted it just dried into jerky…
RSA
I’m sure psychologists have some understanding of this; I think the support of the 28%ers is tightly wrapped up with their self-worth. I can only imagine the difficulty of someone admitting that they’ve been actively supporting GWB, in spite of or even because of his criminal incompetence, for the past six years. “You mean most of my views about politics have been completely wrong? That just can’t be!”
Third Eye Open
Goldstar…
I can’t agree more, at this point, I will welcome any ‘con’ they can come up with who will help to end this madness…even if they are destined to vote R in ’08, I just need to know the torniquet is in place, and that I can start to wash this blood of my (our) hands.
Tsulagi
No way I can relate to the first part, but sure can to the second. Saw a few clips of his presser yesterday. Listening to him idiotically ramble all I could think of was a root canal without drugs would be easier to take.
You know, I can understand a vote for Bush in 2000, I know a lot who did, but 2004? Before that election, even with Kerry running as stupid a campaign as he was, it amazed me Bush was even polling in double digits. Bush is the same guy then that he is now.
To those that are just now disgruntled with the retarded spoiled brat they pulled a lever for, something Wanda Sykes said comes to mind. Said sometime after reelection of the idiot, and I believe soon after Katrina…
That may not be verbatim, but it’s the gist. And it’s true. Not ragging on the blog proprietor…too much. We all fuckup sometimes. Sometimes it’s a little faux pas, sometimes it’s a WTF!
cleek
uh. bullshit.
he’s been the Lord and Savior of the GOP for the past 5 years. even now, the Republican congress refuses to buck him.
The Other Steve
What’s interesting about Noonan’s piece is how she talks about this being a bipartisan failure, that no Presidents in recent memory have been up to the task.
By that, she means Clinton.
That’s funny, because this whole country now looks back and admits… Clinton was a good President.
Except for Noonan, she just can’t bring herself to making that apology.
sglover
Uh, yeah, well, I know that’s how a rueful (but not yet appropriately ashamed) GOP would like to believe, but the fact is that in every way that matters, the Idiot Prince is the rightful, logical product of a quarter-century of Republican “philosophy”. He IS the true heir to the sainted Reagan: The contempt for thoughtful analysis, the disdain for ANY kind of public interest, the incessant mockery of any motivation beyond “what’s in it for me?”, the reduction of almost all foreign policy problems to purely military terms — this is the creed that the GOP has been preaching since the “Great Communicator” stepped into his biggest role.
If I were a Republican, I’d sure as hell want to distance myself from the legacy of my brand of politics. More than that, though, if I were (still) a self-identifying Republican, I’d tear up my voter registration, and admit that I am not competent to make decisions about public life. And despite the parent post’s mea culpa, sorry, but if you voted for Bush in *2004*, your head is seriously out of alignment. Please cease voting henceforth — for your country.
Third Eye Open
Dreggas…
That jerky comment just initiated ‘scared turtle’ mode…thanks
tballou
“I found myself Thursday watching President Bush’s news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth”
What about those of us who nearly threw up every time he has spoken for the past six years?
So much of Bush’s actions and those of his followers is comprehensible in the context of John Deans “Conservatives without Conscience”. Bush and his followers are authoritarian conservatives, and Noonans article is inadvertant, almost point by point dissection of all that entails. Some people (evidently about 25% of us) just have a different world view based on domination, authority, etc.
The Other Steve
Well, the Republican party is not what it once was, that is true. But Bush is the shining glory of what the Republican party has been for the past 20 years or so.
It’s Bleeding Heart Narcisism at it’s finest.
Dreggas
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ned Raggett
What about those of us who nearly threw up every time he has spoken for the past six years?
This is part of the reason I stopped actively watching news on TV after 9/11. I thought, “You know, the Net means I can *read* it all without actually having visuals and audio in my head, and there’s more to be found than in just a daily newspaper.”
So not having endless hours of clips of Bush over these last years in my head — just the text transcripts, stupid enough but anyway — has been a relief.
The Other Steve
You suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Did you forget?
ThymeZone
Absolutely. She’s a piece of work. Next to Bill Safire, maybe the biggest and most pathological liar in the media.
Donna
++Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: “I took the W off my car today,” it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.++
I mentioned to my husband this morning that we were seeing fewer and fewer of those magnetic ribbons on cars…we’re in Waco, TX, and I’m not sure why I haven’t noticed it before. I dunno, maybe “war fatigue” has finally come to Waco.
sglover
So what would you call Noonan’s ailment? “I’d better put some distance between myself and every lying word I’ve written for the last six years so I don’t look like a total media whore” Syndrome? Clinically accurate, but kind of cumbersome.
Chad N. Freude
You and I have not been reading the same blogs and you haven’t been watching Fox News). Unless by the whole country you mean those of us who are befuddled by the incredible vitriol still being spewed against Bill Clinton.
zmulls
Read the comments to her article. Plenty of “he’s too tough for you” attitude.
The Other Steve
Insanity. It’s what all those who dreamed up BDS suffered from. An Insane belief that Bush’s critics were wrong.
The Other Steve
I’m talking about the 80% of the country that doesn’t suffer from Insanity.
Cyrus
You know, no offense to well-meaning people like John Cole — hawkish, fiscally conservative, and socially moderate people had a home in the Republicans until the 90s — but either we have to accept that there has been something wrong with the Republican leadership since Nixon or the word “Republican” is every bit as meaningless as the phrase “no true Scotsman.” Bush commuted Libby’s sentence; his father issued half a dozen pardons for Iran-Contra. The difference is not all that big.
Chad N. Freude
Dishonest or stupid? You decide. I think she’s so blinded by her love of Reagan and all that has come after that she’s an honest idiot.
I love his writings on the English language. I just pretend that that’s all he writes.
ThymeZone
I used to, as well, but after a few years of his smoking the bone for these new RepubliTalibangelistNeocon Potatoheads, I can’t read him at all any more.
Tim F.
Paging Andy Sullivan. It always amuses me when people who mostly loved Bush because he made his opponents so mad finally figure out why he made them mad.
Rome Again
Hey, at least you admit it. That takes a lot of ummmm.. little round things made out of cowhide that get thrown and batted about from recipient to recipient.
I think your awakening wasn’t so much late as not quite as jolting as I would have liked it. That’s all. I have to admit though, it was fascinating to watch.
I forgive ya! You woke up long before these crazy bozos who are still asleep in their Bush dreams (such as certain people whose names shall go unmentioned,but have the initials EEEL).
Chad N. Freude
This may explain how the hard-core Bush lovers maintain their belief.
From the Bush Supporters’Creed:
“George Bush is a good Christian man, being born again and all, and therefore everything he says is God’s truth and everything he does is ordained by God.”
ThymeZone
Wallets?
Zifnab
See, I like this quote the best because it’s Peggy Noonan taking a giant-sized step back from her own rhetoric. What a quaint term, that BSD. And to think some people used it in polite conversation. The very idea. I almost get the vapors.
How the fuck is anyone supposed to take such an unmitigated hack seriously? It’s like hearing a French Revolutionary, elbow deep in still-wet blood, talk about the old days when some local common folk rose up and killed the king. I’m still waiting for the Noonan piece, “The Iraq War: Who Really Took That Seriously, Anyway?” I expect it out by next week.
Rob
Support for Bush is at rock bottom- around 28% or so
I’ve wondered about this for a while – has any researcher or pollster established what the plausible floor is for approval ratings? I mean, it’s fairly well established that a substantial % of the electorate reflexively votes party line & I would guess that a bunch of those people will never express disapproval for a president of their party.
Cain
So, what’s the rational for claiming executive privilege on the Tillman case? It has nothing to do with national security other than the fact that the military was hiding the true reason why Tillman died and the fact they used him as a prop.
Claiming executive privilege would..would..be.. inconceivable!
cain
Chad N. Freude
Is your profession poking through that typo?
ThymeZone
Actually, reading Noonan’s piece, even given that it was written by a lying apologist for the thing she is now poo-pooing, one can only wonder what keeps the Republicans on the hill from coming down to the White House, as they did with Nixon, and saying, we’re really sorry, but it’s over.
Oh wait …..
If they do that, we get Cheney.
Never mind.
Chad N. Freude
Rationale? I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ rationale.
But if you insist: If everyone who covered up what may have been a criminal act or lied for political reasons might be hesitant to cover up or lie if they knew it might become public knowledge. The President needs unvarnished cover-ups and lies.
ThymeZone
What do y’all think of this?
Isn’t this an idea that the Dems floated over two years ago?
Cain
He’s playin chicken with congress and he knows he can fucking get away with it. So far they can’t even take away Cheney’s lunch money.
We truly have some seriously fucked up asshats in the
democratic party. Even with Cheney polling in the teens we got a Democrat fucker from Nebraska who doesn’t have balls to do even that. Probably because some cow (and a holy one at that) probably munched on his balls by accident when he was out servicing the flock of sheep.
cain
Dreggas
I find it amusing but at the same time I gain a sense of satisfaction and am glad to welcome them to the “dark side”. The only thing better is when they have truly seen the error of what they did and are truly repentant. This is why I can read sully and cole and have some modicum of respect for them yet read noonan’s little piece and want to slap her into next century.
Chad N. Freude
There’s a family resemblance, but the Dems, AFAICR, didn’t hint at revising the authorization-to-ignore the Constitutional power to declare war given only to Congress.
The Other Steve
That’s for me to know, and you to find out!
Dreggas
I think it’s a “false hope” they’ll propose the amendment knowing it will go down in flames and probably even vote against it themselves just as they have every other time they’ve proposed “getting tough” or “standing up to bush” or “changing strategy”.
Cain
er, let me clarify, the democratic gentleman from nebraska apparently is too much of a pussy to take away Cheney’s lunch money. He’s obviously scared that Cheney might say mean things to him next time they meet. Don’t know why. It’s the same endearments he says to the sheep at the farm.
Must take deep breath, drink my water…
Chad N. Freude
I don’t care if the Dems tell Lugar and Warner to claim full credit for thinking of this and D’oh why didn’t we? Somebody, Congress perhaps, needs to send a message to the President, even if he knows where the veto pen is hidden. The inaction drives me to distraction. Let the Republicans (BTW, can we call them the arse, for short?) play the filibuster card. Let their filibustering get time on Fox and CNN. It can’t possibly do them any good.
srv
FAS – Fluffer Abandonment Syndrome
Chad N. Freude
Wait. My last suggestion won’t work. If the Republicans filibuster, Fox won’t cover it and CNN will cover another missing white girl in the Bahamas.
srv
Helena, if it took y’all 5 years to figure it out, you are as stupid as it gets.
Chad N. Freude
Redundant.
Otto Man
John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey noted that even an obvious nutjob like Alan Keyes landed 27% of the vote against Obama in 2004. That seems to be the bedrock of Republican dead-enders.
Zifnab
Some Senators are still living in ’02, when Republicans ruled with an iron fist and a groundswell of popular support. Nelson is probably too afraid of what his conservative constituency will do to him when he comes home, never realizing that what they’d probably do is throw him a parade.
It doesn’t matter. No one serious watches CNN or FOX anyway. The question is whether ABC, NBC, and CBS would cover it. I imagine at least one of them would. The other question is, would anyone care to watch? If its a filibuster on a minor amendment to troop readiness resolutions, I honestly think it would be the tipping point for a media firestorm. Republicans would look as stupid and inept here as they did at the height of Terri Shavio. But this time they wouldn’t be nearly as popular, and they wouldn’t have the numbers to bully the legislation around. They’d look stupid, inept, and WEAK.
But Dems don’t want to play that card. They’d rather hurry on with other very very important legislation, because Iraq just isn’t a big enough issue to drag Congress to a grinding halt on.
BFR
John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey noted that even an obvious nutjob like Alan Keyes landed 27% of the vote against Obama in 2004. That seems to be the bedrock of Republican dead-enders.
Yeah, but that’s for one state only. I bet it’s much lower nationally for either party.
Chad N. Freude
I don’t watch any of them. I get my TV news from Keith Olbermann the Daily Show.
Chad N. Freude
Ooops. Omitted “and”.
HyperIon
what hand is Noonan lending?
what hand is Lugar lending?
what hand is Domenci lending?
LarryB
HelenaMontana said:
Sadly, no. The Republicans let their party apparatus be taken over by the Christianists, nativists, and neocons. Face it, this is the modern Republican party and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. The wingnuts own the primary process and won’t allow a moderate to be nominated except in bizarre cases like CA Gov. The natural home today of the socially moderate, fiscally conservative (but not supply-side whacko) voter is the DLC.
mclaren
Like a rapist sternly lecturing the victim on her shocking failure to protect her virginity, Peggy Noonan’s level of hypocrisy and dishonesty takes the breath away. This former speechwriter for Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star, who fostered and encouraged an atmosphere of delusional unreality in the Reagan White House, proclaiming “It’s morning in Amerca!” while interest rates soared above 20% and unemployment
topped 10%, now has the infernal gall to whine that
“Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.
“With Mr. Reagan it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He’s the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it’s weird.”
Wait — did she say Bush? Or did she say Reagan? It’s impossible to distinguish between these two cases of hopeless self-delusion. The Great Hater Ronald Reagan, “The Cruel Man With the Kindly Smile,” grinned and waved to cheering crowds while he starved small children by claiming “Ketchup counts as a vegetable” in school lunch programs in order to enrich billionaires with criminal tax cuts — the great Prevaricator, Ronald Reagan, who announced with cheerful sadness that he missed the soldiers who had died in combat around him during WW II…even though Reagan never served in the army in World War II!
“Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity. (..)
“The Interior Department [was] packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands to industry and developers” that `deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.’ Oil leases, anyone?
“Equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, including the deputy attorney general and the chief of the criminal division, resigned in protest.
“Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives — people who built their careers by serving the alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package.
“In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs. If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be `loyal Bushies.'” — Paul Krugman, “Dont Cry For Reagan,” March 2007
The hallucinogenic sight of Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star pounding the table throughout the 1980s and inveighing against government deficits that he himself had created with his grotesquely irresponsible corporate welfare makes the current kabuki dream show in the present White House seem rational and sensible by comparison.
Adrift in a senile fantasy world, Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star told weepy stories about how he liberated death camps during WW II
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000327/alterman
— even though “The Cruel Man With The Kindly Smile” spent all of WW II playing a solider on the sliver screen in films like “This is the Army” and “Rear Gunner.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036430/
And what did Peggy Noonan and John Cole do in the face of this tidal wave of unreality from the Reagan White House? Did they condemn this senile sociopath Ronald Reagan for living in a haze of self-delusion during the 80s, did they fiercely critize the presidential kook for his borderline-psychotic refusal to live in the real world when, in 1973, Ronald Reagan passed a law in California which licensed astrologers as legitimate businessmen, taking them “out of the realm of fortune telling” and placing them on the same level of legitimacy in the eyes of the law as doctors and lawyers?
http://www.janicestork.com/reagan.html
Did Peggy Noonan and John Cole write stern editorials slamming The Cruel Man With the Kindly Smile during the 1980s for turning the White House into Fantasy Island
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html
while the real world burned, with homeless people filling the streets and sky-high interest rates crushing the average consumer and out-of-control spending on superweapons that didn’t work turning the Pentagon into a crazy feeding trough for corrupt military contractors that inevtigators later described as “an organized criminal conspiracy”?
Of course not.
Peggy Noonan and John Cole cheered themselves hoarse when Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star launched into deluded tirades in which his senile dementia took over and he bizarrely claimed “Trees have caused more pollution than all the factory smokestacks in America” and “Facts are stupid things.”
Yet now, these same pundits who roared with approval at Ronald Reagan’s refusal to recognize reality proclaims themselves shocked, shocked that the drunk-driving C student who infests the current White House has drifted off into delusional fantasy…even though the current president is still 20 million miles closer to reality than Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star ever got.
“Towards the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term…the crushing liabilities of Iran-Contra, the bloated national debt and Reagan’s faltering mental acuity were joined by a new revelation: that for the previous seven years of his administration, the president’s every important action had been orchestrated by Nancy Reagan’s astrologer, Joan Quigley.”
http://www.honeyiforgottoduck.com/
With a head awash with gibberish like Arthur Laffer’s wacky Supply Side Economics, Ronald Reagan, “The Cruel Man With the Kindly Smile,” cheerfully trashed the U.S. economy and ran roughshod over the environment and helped impoverish millions of Americans — all the while proclaiming (and believing!) that it was “Morning in America!”
Reagan’s response to the 1981-1982 recession, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, was to declare ketchup a vegetable, release federal cheese surpluses, and shackle the strike leaders of the air traffic control union hand and foot and lead them off to jail. My most pronounced memories of the Reagan years are the three hour cheese line and the German care packages to unemployed workers in Detroit.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0617-06.htm
And the chief architect of this colossal monument to unreality, the master of the House of Mirrors in the palace of illusion misnamed the Reagan Presidency, Peggy Noonan, now has the unbelievable gall to decry with shrill shrieks of outrage another president who has followed the Great Prevaricator’s lead and drifted off into la-la land in a haze of demented self-delusion…?
What planet is Peggy Noonan living on? How does she think we can get away with vomiting out this crazy crap? Does she think the word “hypocrisy” has somehow been removed from all our dictionaries? Has she imbibed the same reality-distorting hallucinogenic cocktail of self-delusion and cheery dementia her former boss lived his entire presidency in?
How on earth does this reality-denying professional fabulator Peggy Noonan, who eagerly aided and abetted the senile criminal Reagan in his flight from, facts, think it somehow now makes sense to lecture us in tones of stern righteousness about the dangers posed by a president who refuses to live in the real world?
The woman who clapped her hands raw applauding a senile self-deluded chimpanzee’s co-star as he rambled on in a mist of demented fantasy in 1971 announcing that “For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ” (comment to James Mills regarding events in Libya) and in a 1980 interview with Jim Bakker “We may be the generation that sees Armageddon” now shrinks with dull-faced faux horror when the current president follows suit.
And THIS is the role model for the “reality-based Presidency” Peggy Noonan holds up for comparison with the delusional denizens of the current White House with such Olympian scorn? Noonan dares to assert with a straight face that there’s something creepy about denying military disaster when her idol and living god Ronald Reagaon, after the disastrous American occuption of Beirut, proclaimed “[Tip O’Neill] may be willing to surrender, but I am not” on 2 February 1984??!?
The woman who cheered herself hoarse at crazy gibberings from Bonzo the Chimp’s co-star, including gems like “Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal” (Ronald Reagan, 1976) and “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do” (Ronald Reagan, 1981) and “There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge” (Ronald Reagan, 1983) now professes herself appalled at a president because he is detached from reality?
Does Peggy Noonan actually think we’re all so stupid we can’t recognize her compulsive pathological lies when we hear them? Does Peggy Noonan actually delude herself into fantasizing a dreamworld so bizarre that she has actualy convinced herself none of us will remember that her idol, her god, the senile kook she describes as a “successful president,” hired an astrologer to schedule all his important appointements???
The frustration of dealing with a situation in which the schedule of the President of the United States was determined by occult prognostications was very great–far greater than any other I had known in nearly forty-five years of working life.” –Donald Regan, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington
This is the role model whose speechwriter now lectures us in tones of punitive hysteria on the alleged importance of living in the real world and avoiding self-delusion???!!?!!??!!!??!!!??
Tim F.
Dude, that state was Illinois. I would say that 26-28% is probably bedrock for any Republican not named Cheney.
binzinerator
Amazing, isn’t it? They support this criminal lying dirtbag because democrats are somehow worse? Lord almighty and Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, in what way is that possible??? Who are the deranged ones here?
I suspect what’s behind this 28 percent is greed, religious fundamentalism and racial bigotry, and that it was the bigoty angle lurking underneath this immigration issue that was the real tipping point. They found could live with all the other criminal and reckless shit without being bothered much by it — and they did — but what really mattered to them was Mexicans.
HelenaMontana: No, you have not figured it out. Bush IS a Republican. Bush was the GOP’s chosen poster boy for the bright future of Conservatism. As Glenn Greenwald points out in his post “The Great Right-Wind Fraud to Repudiate George W. Bush”:
“When his presidency looked to be an epic success — [conservatives] glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism”. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/04/fraud/index.html)
John Cole also put a smack-down on this sort of weasley crap, this time catapulted by Mark Levin. (https://balloon-juice.com/?p=8255).
But as Levin noted (quoted in Cole’s post): “President Bush is the leader of the party, in charge of the RNC, and for the most part sets the national agenda”.
Yup. Bush was exactly the kind of Republican the Republican Party wanted.
What you have figured out, HelenaMontana, is a way to avoid coming to grips, even now, with what you helped bring about.
So don’t hand me this bullshit about Bush not being a ‘real’ Republican. It’s called denial.
By the way, this should also be included under Digby’s Observation: “Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)” In other words, if you’re disenchanted with Bush, it can only be because Bush wasn’t a real Republican.
Yeah, right.
Richard Bennett, re Bush:
Understatement of the decade. Another a form of denial, too. Bush’s presidency is a catastrophic failure. It is a disaster for everyone in this country, left or right, and worse for millions outside. And the deleterious effects of his ill-advised, foolish and often criminal policies will echo on for all of us for years. Find the stones to face the ugly reality. John Cole did.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Never said they were lending one.
conumbdrum
Ditto, ditto and ditto again. I think we should save our most virulent disgust for the Noonans out there… the ones who happily wallowed in the cesspool with the Bushies when the Idiot Prince was riding high in the polls, but now stand to one side, covered in cheap perfume to obscure the stench of their shit-swimming past.
Everyone in America needs to read this gloating post-2004 election Noonan column that Dreggas linked to above, then compare it to the I’m-so-above-it disdain for Bush that she maintains now (note the fervent valentine to the Swift Boat Veterans):
As long as we’re stuck with Noonan as a spokesperson for GOP spin, I can think of no more appropriate punishment for her than to get nailed with the word “savor” at every appearance, every interview, in response to every goddamn piece of dribble she writes. “Savor” this, bitch.
Dreggas
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
ThymeZone
Ditto. Ms. Noonan, “savor” my entire ass.
Zifnab
Mmmm… savor that bullshit. Goes down smooth, comes up hot.
Rick Taylor
“In fairness, though, I suspect this is how the liberals who read this site look at me- I did vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004, and only in the spring of 2005 did I finally come to grips with what I had done.”
Yup. :)
After I watched the first 2000 Presidential debate between Gore and Bush, I was happy, because I thought that it was impossible Bush could win; he’d shown himself to be completely unprepared to be the President of the country. It was stunning he’d somehow made it through the Republican primaries, but I didn’t think it was possible that someone who had conclusively demonstrated themselves to be unfit to lead on national television could win. I’d encourage you to watch that debate again (it’s available on the Internet), especially the point where he’s asked what he would do in the middle of national crises, and he responded like a deer in the headlights; it was there for everyone to see.
On top of that you had Paul Krugman meticulously documenting his dishonesty in economic issues (and getting lambasted as shrill for his trouble). And you had Molly Ivins and others who knew his record meticulously documenting how he’d been a lightweight who’d been looked after by his powerful family friends all his life. It wasn’t a close call.
Of course few have the time to pay attention to politics, but everyone should have known the truth by the 2004 election. By then we’d invaded another country under false pretenses (I don’t care if he was dishonest or deceived, I suspect it was both), a hand picked Republican had confirmed it declaring there was no so called weapons of mass destruction, the causus belli for war, it was becoming clear we were torturing people, they’d even outed a cia agent and were covering it up, and surprise surprise, when you overthrow a soveriegn government, even a heinous one, the people who benefited from it are liable to fight back and we were in for an endless occupation after an unnecessary war. Still, the Republicans managed to win by defaming the patriotism of a war veteran (the sight of Republican’s at the convention wearing little bandaid’s to make fun of Kerry’s purple heart sickened me). That took my breath away. My faith in reprentative democracy in America was shattered after that election. We’d be better off with a lottery. I still don’t get it.
It’s great people are finally beginning to catch on, though I sure do wish it hadn’t taken until after 2004 to do so. He hasn’t changed in all that time. I guess we’re all Paul Krugman now.
–Rick Taylor
cleek
Cheney’s down around 13% or so, IIRC
DragonScholar
As one of the liberals visiting the site, I figure you pretty much looked at things over time and came to the logical conclusion.
The thing is not your change – your change is an honest, intelligent one. The thing is how can so many people still support him? I suspect far too many people are doing it out of being unable to admit they’re wrong.
Rick Taylor
This post reminds me of a conversation I had with my more conservative relatives a year or two back. They were talking about how they were beginning to sour on Bush, and I was thinking to myself, well it’s about time. So I asked them what had brought about this change, and they all said, immigration. I didn’t say anything, but all I could think was, wtf? Not torture? Not a botched war with millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, a damned if you stay damned if you leave occupation killing Americans nearly every day, and America’s image in the world in free fall? Not our new-found habit of kidnapping people and shipping them to other countries to be tortured (Maher Arar). Not the bizarre maneuvering on social security? Not even the ever mounting fiscal debt that we’ll some day have to confront? Immigration?!?!?!??!?
Help me out here. Is the truth of the matter that they don’t want to be associated with Bush because he’s now so unpopular, and this was the only issue they could find because they’ve supported him on everything else? Or are they really so xenophobic, this one issue trumps everything else? I can’t figure it out.
–Rick Taylor
Cain
Huffington Post has a link up with O’Reilly telling Snow “You can’t win this war”. Man, that must really suck for Tony. The ultimate death will be when Lilith, AKA Ann Coulter turns against Bush. That would blow some minds…
Alas, I can dream can’t I?
cain
Rome Again
Is your wallet round? That’s not a wallet, that’s called a change purse.
John S.
It’s really quite simple: The GOP has been cribbing the UPS tagline for decades…
What can fear of (sic) brown do for you?
Dreggas
She has, she even called him an idiot, of course her break with him was immigration.
grumpy realist
Peggy Noonan’s love affair with Reagan has been, well, pretty disgusting. A woman who swooned over everything he said and never could admit that the man was (as outlined above), in many ways a total bozo.
Rick Taylor
“It’s really quite simple: The GOP has been cribbing the UPS tagline for decades…
What can fear of (sic) brown do for you?”
Well that does make some sense. I’m glad to see that after using it as a club, Bush gets to be knocked around with it.
One thing I wonder, those conservaties who are disillusioned with Bush, what’s their position going to be towards us liberals who were disillusioned with the President back when he was elected? I notice Noonan used the phrase, “I’m not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Does this mean that wheras liberals became shrill and deranged for completely inexplicable reasons (torture, war under false pretenses, fiscal irresponsibility, using a national tragedy to bash the opposition, . . . ), conservatives are now turning against him for completely different sensible reasons (immigration, and uh. . . . help me out here). If so, what would these reasons be? One thing I’ll say for George Bush, perhaps the only thing, is he’s consistent. I don’t see how you can argue he was a strong leader from 2000 to 2007, and only a fool or a Frenchman could have disliked him, but somewhere in 2007 it became evident he wasn’t really a Republican.
–Rick Taylor
Rick Taylor
“I’m glad to see that after using it as a club, Bush gets to be knocked around with it.”
To rephrase, I’m glad that after the GOP has used it as a club, their leader gets knocked around with it. Another positive thing I’ll say about Bush is I haven’t seen him use racism or xenophobia directly himself, even if he’s benefited from it.
–Rick Taylor
Rick Taylor
“I’m glad to see that after using it as a club, Bush gets to be knocked around with it.”
To rephrase, I’m glad that after the GOP has used it as a club, their leader gets knocked around with it. Another positive thing I’ll say about Bush is I haven’t seen him use racism or xenophobia directly himself, even if he’s benefited from it.
–Rick Taylor
Tsulagi
Wasn’t that the dipshit who was here some months back? The one saying…”Yes, my brother was a faggot who I hadn’t bothered or wanted to see since we were kids. The scum died of AIDS alone, destitute and forgotten in a SF gay flophouse. Fuck him, let the maggots eat him.” Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the guy.
Vote Republican. Nothing says Jesus like the love we show for our family. Family values are our bedrock. Lead the way, Dan!
numbskull
“I took the W off my car today,”
Boo-fucking-hoo.
At this point, if you’re just now yanking the W off your fucking SUV, please just crawl under a rock and die.
DougJ
Better late than never. That’s all water under the bridge.
I didn’t think the Iraq war would turn out this badly in 2003.
Nobody’s perfect.
Rome Again
I can tell you what “brown” did for me. They lost an entire roll of carpet on me when I worked for a rug factory.
This administration must have found it, they’ve been sweeping all kinds of shit under it for the last six plus years.
John S.
The thing is, there are two camps in the GOP: the business lobby that foots the bill and the social cons that fill the voting booths. For a while, the interests of these two separate groups ran in tandem and Bush enjoyed high approval ratings across the board in the GOP. But as they say, one cannot serve two masters. In the end, the desire for big business to keep an endless supply of cheap labor to maximize their profits while avoiding prosecution won out over the social cons’ fear of the brown people.
Remember a while back when there was a dustup over allowing a UAE conglomerate assume control of some of our ports? Same thing – Bush cowtowed to the demands of the business interest and didn’t expect the outrage to be so great from the social cons. The immigration backlash is the same situation multiplied by a factor of 100.
Like I said, it’s all about fear of the brown people. It started with the ‘Southern Strategy’ of constructing all black people to be the boogeyman. Then, once that no longer become politically viable in the mainstream, they turned to the Arabs. The events of 9/11 only made that compulsion even more universally acceptable. In between there was always a healthy fear of the Mexican invasion, so effectively there are now two viable brown boogeymen to scare up the voters. When the Arabs don’t seem so scary, turn to the Mexicans – and when Reconquista no longer seems so scary (or the spread of leprosy), turn back to the Arabs.
Remember, when O’Reilly or Pat Buchanan or whoever are bemoaning the waning influence of white people (or whatever code word they use to allude to it), this is exactly what they are referring to. Unfortunately for them, fear of the brown only works on the social cons. The business interest only fears one color, and that is green (or lack thereof). It’s an interesting dance to watch the GOP engage in, but in the end they can’t serve both masters – no matter how hard they try.
Rome Again
You obviously never studied the history of Mesopotamia prior to the war.
Redhand
Maybe the evolution of my own attitudes towards Bush will provide some perspective.
As I’ve said here before, I abstained from voting in the last two presidential elections because of personal life changes — career change, divorce — and because of utter disgust with the candidates the two parties fielded. Thus, I don’t have John Cole’s baggage about having once supported Bush.
I never liked the guy or thought he would be a good president, and despised the way he was given the first nomination as the ne’er-do-well son of a former president. Just what a schmuck he was was revealed by what his people did to McCain in South Carolina in 2000. I felt that he was an “accidental president” from the get-go too; you can’t tell me he had any real public policy goals for the office before 9/11–other than packing the federal government with cronies and fundamentalist morons.
Since then his entire presidency has been one of reacting — poorly, piss poorly — to the crises that have beset us and the rest of the world during his tenure. The only thing well executed was the initial invasion of Afghanistan. Being old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin, I smelled a huge rat in the run up to the Iraq war, but was willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt.
Everything he has done since has been a horror show. We really did get into that war based on a pack of lies, and the ineptitude of its execution and strategic misjudgments will be the stuff of case studies for the rest of the century, at least.
Bush’s cumulative failures – the 2004 tsunami non-reaction, the post-Katerina nonfeasance (or malfeasance, take your pick), pathetic passivity in the face of an urgent need to fashion intelligent reform of an utterly broken immigration system, etc. ad nauseam — have all been the result of detachment and almost criminal abdication of vital powers to vicious incompetents, beginning with Cheney and Rumsfeld.
The more they have run amok, the harder it’s been to take Bush seriously, except for the fact that he wants his presidential power to increase in inverse proportion to his inability to wield it intelligently, and in conformity with the fundamentally legalistic nature of American society.
Of course I’m a lawyer and so focus on “law,” but I really think it’s true that the constitutional “rule of law” is what binds our society together. And if you ask me what, among all the cumulative failures of the Bush presidency, is central in turning the people against him, I’d have to say it’s his disregard for our constitutional system in the largest sense. Through his blind obstinacy in insisting on “his way” in Iraq after the 2006 election, Bush has proved conclusively that he doesn’t understand or respect the limits on his power that that election signaled. What LBJ had the wisdom to do in 1968 this dumb bastard will never grasp. He’ll keep getting our people killed in a hopeless and totally unnecessary war out of pure id. That’s been the tipping point, I think.
One final comment on the place respect for law has in our society. Think Watergate and the corruption of John Mitchell. Now think about the pathetic, lying sack of sh*t who is our current Attorney General, and who still has Bush’s “unqualified support.” What else do we really need to see to realize how totally unfit his boss is for high office?
Richard Bennett
Bizinerator thinks my statement on Bush:
Was not sufficiently emotional, so he/she scolds me. I’ve been known to say Bush has been the worst president of all time, but it’s hard to make that case really, given that he has competition such as Carter, Garfield, Grant, and Harding. The truth is we’ve had plenty of terrible presidents, and one way or another the Republic marches on.
I suspect that the long-term consequences of the Bush presidency will be minimal, outside of Iraq, because the next president will be able reverse his religiously-motivated appointments and nobody’s been paying attention to them anyway. You put people from Liberty University Law School into the Justice Department and they have minimal effect, but put some assholes from Harvard in there and it’s probably more long-lived.
So Bush’s long-term influence will be slight because he’s such an extremist. Ironic, isn’t it?
ConservativelyLiberal
Noonan has been, and still is, a shill for the Repugs. She was a RayGun enabler, Bush I and King George cheerleader. Her statement here is about as strong as weak tea. As another member here said, she did not specify a single problem, thus assuring that her words could not be used against the current crop of Repug presidential candidates. Her words are a waste of space, and a waste of time to even read. Just the kind of fare that the wingnutz can digest.
What she should be pointing out is that King Chimp said that he is a uniter, not a divider, and he has finally united the majority of the American public. Not intentionally, and not in a way that is to his liking, but united nonetheless!
Now that is success…
As far as Bush being good in 2002, as another member here said, I would have to disagree with that. I knew he was an idiot before 2000, and when 9-11 happened, I told my wife that Iraq was on the top of their shit list. Repugs and Dems voted to give Chimpy a blank check for war, and Chimpy hit them right before an election, when voting against Chimpy could (and would) be used against them. The weak kneed Dems buckled and they are just as responsible for this mess as the Repugs are.
Bush was getting low ratings before 9-11, and his presidential moment after 9-11 was manipulated into the mess we are living today. He peaked right afterward, but as more people realized that they were sold a bill of goods, they have stopped supporting him. His recent valley in the ratings is due to his support of making every illegal immigrant legal. He started low, peaked because of a national emergency, and he has been in decline ever since.
People I know are not afraid of ‘what can fear of brown do for you’, they all say what irks them is the way it was being done. Dems and Repubs were against this bill, not just the repubs. I can care less what color their skin is, white, green, brown, blue or whatever. Fix the damn immigration system. If I can get tossed in jail without any consideration for my wife and child, it damn well is good enough for any other lawbreaker, be it DUI or sneaking into this country. I did not get the option of leaving the country or paying a fine. Heck, as swiss cheesed as that bill was, it was a giveaway. Dems are Repubs are tired of the bs, and tired of the 21 year loop of rewarding lawbreakers that started in 1965.
Right now, our Congress is tone deaf to the American public. They are not listening to us unless they are clubbed like a baby seal, instead they are gauging what they should do to keep their positions in Washington and people are getting sick and tired of it. That is why the immigration bill did not pass. I will bet that some of the Dems who voted for it are breathing a sigh of relief that it failed. Our congresscritters were literally buried in complaints about this bill, and now all that is in the average voters mind is ‘it did not pass’. So they feel safe for that reason, yet they can still say that they ‘did the right thing’.
My Democratic Representative and Senator voted to pass the immigration bill, and they voted to continue funding the war. They will never get my vote again. I don’t care if a Repug gets their jobs, they need to go. I will vote for any Dem candidate who is against the war and giving away citizenship to those who cut in line, and if they do not win the primary, I will vote for the Repug if they believe the same as I do. If both are undesirable, I will not vote for either.
And they wonder why voter apathy is a problem…
Rome Again
Really? I am expecting a bunch of right-wing judges to push the idea that Bush’s signing statements are the new law of the land.
jake
Call me a pessimist but I get the feeling a lot of these late-waking nerds are ready, willing and able to run back to Bush the minute there’s the least sign things are going well. I suspect that if Bush were to go on teevee tomorrow and announce victory and ponies had been achieved in Iraq, Nooner would be calling on her pals to savor the sweet victory, no questions asked.
Secondly, I find it interesting that even this late in the game many of the cheerleaders who are starting to admit that Bush isn’t so much fun any more have nothing to say about the rest of the GOP.
Now, I know there are Republican representatives that aren’t spin spewing shit heads (we have one in Maryland), but most of them have been more than happy to enable the president every single step of the way, and it is only until this week that we’ve started to see a few cracks in the Iraq facade. But has anything else changed? Let’s see, is AG da AG still in office? Yep. Are tax dollars still funding the office of the Vice President? Why yes they are. Are we still being told that stem cell research is MURDER? Yuh-huh. And don’t even get me started about the pack of psychotic arseholes that want to be the next Republican president and the fact Nooner will gleefully vote for one of them because he’s a Republican.
So I have to say I don’t buy it from Noonan and her rock ribbed Republican pal. If they think the problem is just the president they haven’t been paying attention.
Richard Bennett
Jake, it seems rather unlikely that the people will elect a Republican president in 2008. Noonan is trying to salvage the image of the party for 2012 and beyond. Bush has given the Dems a “get out of jail free” card for the next election.
You boys shouldn’t worry so much, our system has survived many morons in the past and it will survive this moron as well.
Mona
As with John and Richard Bennett, I did not begin to really see the total insanity and dangerousness to the Republic from the GOP until the Schiavo derangement. I wasn’t blogging at the time, but spent countless hours furiously trying to deal with Bush supporters at some of the more popular pro-Bush blogs to bring them to their senses in comments — as a lawyer, I argued straight from the law and the relevant FL court papers that were online. Didn’t matter a whit. They were all about Grand Conspiracies of FL probate judges, Michael Schiavo and even the hospice staff colluding to “murder” Terri.
The Padilla case had been greatly bothering, but I assumed he must know some seriously heinous shit about various plots to use radioactive bombs. But then on the heels of Schiavo, we learn Bush is violating a criminal statute that requires obtaining warrants when intercepting the electronic communications of U.S. persons, and he says he has the authority to ignore basically any law he wants. The Schiavo and FISA matters all came out in ’05. By that point I didn’t believe these morons had any basis for what they were doing to Jose Padilla.
Had Schiavo and the NSA illegalities happened been pre-eelction, I would not have voted. I still think John Kerry is a putz. It is too bad the elite media rendered Dean unable to get the Dem nomination — and had I actually listened to him, that would have been the right choice.
sglover
In that I disagree. The regime — with Bush as the affable window dressing — had two broad goals: 1) Tax cuts for the real ownership class, the upper 1-2% of the social pyramid, and 2) the further dismantling of the old New Deal welfare state consensus. In this they succeeded, though at some cost: The Idiot Prince was well on his way to being a one-term wonder after only a year in office.
An important ancillary goal was cultivating an enemy, a bogeyman, some foreign demon whose evil intentions could justify the “defense” industry feeding so well at the trough. China was supposed to fill that role, but the project wasn’t going so well — for one thing, other corporate interests do very well by China. Fortunately for the Man-Child and his handlers, Osama bin Laden handed them their greatest political gift.
The Dems are extremely, perennially disappointing. But the Republican Party is a real poison in the flailing heart of what we still call “our democracy”. Real patriots have to hope for the end of the GOP, and a subsequent resurgence of sane, adult conservatives.
scarshapedstar
I’m gonna go with option C:
They went batshit insane after 9/11 and convinced themselves that we were facing an enemy WORSE THAN HITLER AND STALIN AND SATAN ROLLED INTO ONE and not just one of them but well over a billion, all of whom wanted to kill them — yes, them personally! — and so, in their minds, the sole qualification for elected officials was that they toss out enough dog whistles to prove that they:
a) Were scared shitless. (“Lessons of September-the-eleventh Two-thousand-and-one!” “The oceans no longer protect us!”)
b) Hate the fuck out of brown people and view them as some sort of subhumans. (“This is a part of the world that has never known freedom…”)
c) Believe that the best defense is more Jesus and more jails. (This part needs no elaboration.)
Beej
Did anyone watch Bill Moyer’s Journal on PBS tonight? Richard Bennett says there have been disasterous presidents before and the republic has survived. I’m not so sure there has ever been one like this. The point Moyers and his guests made was that this administration has gone so far in the direction of strengthening executive power at the expense of Congress that the only possible corrective is impeachment. Only impeachment will say to this and all future presidents that you are not above the Constitution. Do we really want to see this kind of monarchical power passed into the hands of future presidents? Do we really think any president is going to hand back powers which have been presented to them? George Washington was one-of-a-kind.
DougJ
It does seem like we’re not hearing any of the good news about the Republican party these days. You know, like all the Republican Congressmen who don’t pay prostitutes to make them wear diapers.
Nancy Irving
There are lots of people who are pro-torture and anti-immigrant. They also probably think we’re losing in Iraq because Bush has been too soft by failiing to just nuke the place. They’re haters, and they’re the people Bush has lost recently.
jake
Right, but I’m not talking about who will win in 2008, I’m talking about people like Noonan who will, in all probability, VOTE for one of the nightmares currently kissing the 28% right on the arse in order to get the GOP nomination.
I could be wrong. Maybe Ms. Sava-da-Flava and her ilk will write in Pogo Possum or stay home. Watch for columns that single out one of the candidates for praise.
ether
I’ve said it before…
Please reconcile being against torture to achieve ends, but for killing.
It can’t be done.
Self-righteous bullshit morality.
Redhand
Wow, just wow. What a wonderful and thoughtful thread this turned out to be.
First, kudos to sglover for pointing out the Bush administration’s pre-9/11 agenda. That I wasn’t following at the time, for reasons previously expressed.
Second, I think scarshapedstar nicely summarizes the batshit crazy mindset of the Bush administration right after 9/11. Just like I felt in my guts we were being suckered in the run-up to the Iraq way, right after 9/11 I couldn’t get past the creeped-out feelings I had listening to those bizarre reports reassuring the public that the vice-president was safe in a super secret secure location. It was something right out of the last “war room” scene in Dr. Strangelove where we plebs could all take heart that, even if we were doomed, the elite males would survive with lots of ass in their underground bunkers.
Finally, I think that Beej expresses better than I did why the Constitution is in peril now and impeachment is in the air; the boy king really does believe all the bullshit he’s been fed by Cheney about an all powerful unitary executive, the Constitution and common civil rights be damned. Both of these bastards need to be thrown out on their asses in disgrace for the hideous abuses of power they’ve literally “presided” over.
My reluctant reconversion to a Democrat is nearly complete. As sglover says:
Who would have thought it in 1990s, when I felt that Bubba was the most corrupt President in American history? It seems like a veritable “Age of Innocence” now.
conumbdrum
Yep, they don’t make ’em much dumber than Dan Riehl, that’s for damn sure… but y’all simply must check out this film clip of some knucklehead from Alabama hurling abuse at Cindy Sheehan and her friends (some of whom are Vietnam vets) for being, er, insufficiently pro-Iraq War. Even John would take Cindy’s side.
The best part: where one of Sheehan’s posse asks this mouthbreathing doofus why in hell he doesn’t join the military himself, and he indignantly snaps, “I’m thirty-one years old! They don’t want me!”
Watch out for this bone smoker… I’ll bet the 28 Percenters of Alabama are already demanding that he run for public office, or at least mail a resume and demo tape to Fox News.
jake
Breaking. Al-Maliki to US: Go on, who needs ya anyways!?
nabalzbbfr
President Bush is God’s choice for America. We are now going through a period of tribulation, but we must have faith in God’s will and persevere. In the end we will be richly rewarded.
RSA
Oh, great–now Bush supporters are telling us that we’ll be in Iraq until the Rapture comes.
Chad N. Freude
And the evidence for this is …? Wait. We don’t need evidence. Unsupported assertions of faith are enough. Better than enough; they don’t require any of that difficult, meaningless testing or searching for proof.
Chad N. Freude
Why does God hate America?
Wilfred
Maliki has always been Bush’s ace in the hole. In the Arab press, Maliki says things like “What will happen to me if the Americans leave? But now he gives Bush the opening to get out, encouraged, I’m sure, by the real probability of finding an IED embedded up his ass.
Getting the Iraqi government to demand withdrawal is Bush’s “Hey man, pull my finger” gag, with the rest of us standing downwind.
nabalzbbfr
President Bush won the 2000 election by 537 votes. The odds of this happening by pure chance are infinitesimal. There could be no clearer indication of direct Divine intervention.
Richard Bottoms
>I suspect this is how the liberals who read this site look at >me
Absolutely.
Even I couldn’t stand needling you anymore. I am busy demoralizing Rod Dreher these days.
I am pretty sure you have the occasional night sweat and wave of shame about what your support for Bush has done, especially when reading reports like the current issue of the Nation.
I’ll be polite and not aim this at you since that would be rude on your own site, but for rest of you late Republican converts: FUCK YOU.
Fuck you running. Because I know as sure as the sun shines that as soon as the GOP produces another shiny oil salesman who can hide his bigotry, greed, and incompetence well enough for you to rationalize the Democrats would be worse you’ll be back voting for the fag bashing, selfish, polluter party again.
We don’t want you, we don’t need you. We’ll do fine with the %3 swing vote that Bush has horrified. This is a %51 electorate and if we beat you by just one vote that’s just fine with me.
Torture, lying, eroded civil liberties, 25,000 dead and wounded troops and 100,000 dead Iraqi’s weren’t enough to bother you, but Pedro working at Wal-Mart does the trick?
Fuck you. You can all go straight to hell.
Chad N. Freude
That and the 18,000 missing votes from a liberal district. Another Act of God, no doubt.
Chad N. Freude
I’m losing my touch. I almost let this slip by.
Florida by 537 votes. Nationally, Bush 50,456,002; Gore 50,999,897.
President Bush “won” the 2000 election by MINUS 543,895.
However, if you choose to believe that God had the Founders structure the Electoral College to choose Bush in 2000 despite the popular vote, there’s nothing to discuss.
demimondian
PotD
ThymeZone
Courtesy of the History Channel.
Chad N. Freude
Got a URL for this? I always thought it was Justice Scaliathomas.
RSA
Actually, God didn’t play a role in either of the last two elections; His name was purged from the voter rolls when registered letters addressed to Heaven were returned to the post office.
Repack Rider
Count me among those who are not impressed by your remarkable grasp of the obvious. Bush is the same corrupt, incompetent moron now that he was all his life, BUT YOU JUST NOW NOTICED IT.
Okay, you noticed two years ago, after helping to foist this disaster upon our country.
You will be forgiven for this only when the damage he did is repaired. That will be when your great-grandchildren finish paying the bills for your stupidity.
Please write another column to explain how it was that Mr. Bush’s lifetime of incompetence and corruption impressed you enough to vote for him.
Was it his clever insider trading at Harken? The failure of every business he tried to run? The use of public funds to enhance his investment in the Texas Rangers? The $12.4 million gift over and above his rightful share that he received from his grateful partners in the Rangers?
Inquiring minds want to know.
ThymeZone
The link you requested.
It was the Rehnquist Court that carried out the Florida travesty, and as chief justice, he deserves the appelation.
I don’t think he wrote the majority opinion but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t the engineer on the trainwreck.
Just as a note of fascinating trivia, I had a childhood connection to Rehnquist when he lived in Phoenix during the late 50’s and early 60’s. In order to maintain my thin veil of anonymity, I’ll just say that I came in contact with the Rehnquists on a regular basis. It’s a cross I now have to bear forever.
Chad N. Freude
Thanks. The page contains this proof of God’s choosing of Bush:
cs
I’m also in Chris Cannon country, like UnkyT from a long ways away upthread, but I’ve started to notice a change around my neighborhood. Someone on the block now has an impeach bush sticker on his new pickup; first one I’ve seen in Happy Valley and that was two weeks ago. I’ve seen a couple more since then.
Probably doesn’t sound like much to people coming from liberal areas where it’s probably mandatory for every car to have one, but three stickers is huge for Utah County, one of the most Republican places in the country.
Cain
Sadly, they are probably going to want to impeach him based on his stance on immigration rather than anything else. Nobody seems to care about the law because it doesn’t affect their lives of trying to earn a living. The immigration issue is really easy to understand from that context as immigration is perceived to be about jobs and about being undercut. It’s possible it’s about brown people being everywhere. I don’t know.
Brown people were here before the whites came so, big whoop.
cain
jrg
Noonan is such a hack. Now that it’s obvious to everyone that Bush is a failure, she pretends that “BDS” was not dreamt up by conservatives in response to the grave concern that Bush does not know his ass from a hole in the ground. Give me a break.
People will look back at conservative commentary from this era and be appalled by its idiocy. For the record, here is the sequence of events:
-Bush gains wide popular support following 9/11.
-Bush misinterprets support for the U.S. as support for any egregious action imaginable.
-Conservative columnists criticize the (then minority) of critics, calling them “unhinged liberals”, “BDS sufferers”, or “America Haters”.
-Critics turn out to be right.
-American moderates wake up and smell the Republican cesspool.
-“Blogs4Brownback” nitwits continue spewing 2003 B.S. well into 2007, calling the (now majority) of Americans “unhinged liberals”, “BDS sufferers”, or “America Haters”
-Conservative pundits, now aware of trouble they have created, slowly back away.
In other words, the same conservatives who manufactured the wedge issues that tore this country apart now need some (any) reason to dump Bush, in the hopes that they can jettison their baggage along with him.
To the Peggy Noonans of the world: Fuck You – you broke it, you bought it. You wanna know why so few people under 30 claim the Republican Party? Hyperlinks, Bitch.
Richard Bottoms
Except for the fact that this disastrous president’s mistake has cost untold thousands their lives and left us still vulnerable to attack, I take great joy in grinding Republicans faces in their stupidity for backing Bush.
Don’t like seeing your precious boys and girls heading of to Iraq. Fuck you, you voted for it.
Horrified at how unprotected power plants, chemical plants, and air cargo still is six years after 9/11. Fuck you, you voted this dimwit.
We. Told. You. So.
I’m not kind about it now, and I will be doubly vicious about it when we kick your party’s ass in November 2008 sending your evil you bible thumping, fag bashing, ignorant anti-science, nitwit party into political oblivion.
Stick your regret in your ass.
CaseyL
Iraq is not fixable. But most of the rest of what Bush did is.
The damage Bush did to federal agencies by stacking them with Dominionist hacks can be quickly fixed, as long as the incoming (Democratic, please God) President is willing to sack everyone. Not just the top officials, who generally get fired anyway at the start of a new Administration, but the middle- and lower-level hacks, too.
The damage to our military can be fixed, though neither quickly nor easily. It’s contingent on pulling out of Iraq, and weeding out the criminals, psychos, and illiterates that the lowered recruiting standards are stocking our armed forces with. After that, we hope to hell nothing happens anywhere that requires military action – or, if something does happen, we institute a draft, of men and women, with very, very few deferments. (Deferments to avoid sending both parents of minor children to war is about the only one I can think of, off the top of my head.)
The damage to the federal Courts is unfixable… unless the new President, or the Congress (whoever has the authority) does something really interesting: establish more of them. This is defensible, since so many federal courts have enormous dockets; the President (or whomever) can invoke the Constitutional right to a swift trial. Having established additional courts, the President can then name judges to staff them.
The people who now regret supporting Bush can help repair the damage he did.
First and foremost: Don’t vote for Republicans. Let the GOP die. There is no issue – not taxes, not nanny state-ism, nothing – that’s more important than keeping the GOP out of power.
Second, demand that the people who are in office do what’s necessary to fix things. Demand we get out of Iraq; demand we repeal the Patriot Act; demand that FISA oversight be obeyed; demand real trials for the inmates of Gitmo et al.; demand full funding for veteran’s benefits. Write to, call, email your Congresspersons.
Third: If the President does set about cleaning house, and commences wholesale firings, the MSM is going to go nuts. We’ll hear about “TravelGate II.” We’ll hear the punditariate ask (oh so disingenuously) why the same people who were angered by Bush’s firing the USAs aren’t equally angered by the new President firing everyone in the government. We’ll hear about how “unprecedented” the firings are; how the President is “politicizing” the federal government. Remember why the President is firing everyone. Remember that it’s because Bush stocked every federal agency with people dedicated to his insane, Anti-American ideology. Write letters to the editor, call into the talk shows, and remind everyone else, as well.
We can fix what Bush-Cheney have done to us. But only if we remember how they got away with it, and resolve to support the people and the policies needed to fix what’s been done to us.
D. Mason
I disagree.. a very small portion of it has been a comedy show. The aborted Harriet Myers nomination for example.
demimondian
So, the illegality of the current administration can be fixed if the next administration is willing to break the law? You know, that doesn’t make me at all comfortable.
scarshapedstar
Er… where’s the lawbreaking part come in? Did I miss something?
sglover
You’ve got the current GOP marketing strategy all wrong. *Hide* the bigotry and greed?!?! Hell, to believing Republicans, those are virtues, things to boast about. Look at that weasel Romney, babbling about “doubling Guantanamo”. Look at Tancredo or Brownback — their only constituency is xenophobes. Look at that out-and-out megalomaniac nutcase Giuliani. These people are trying to appeal to the collective brainstem.
demimondian
Firing the current mid- and low-level managers would violate their civil service protection. That’s…illegal.
caustics
Anyone else notice that most of these %28 seem to have a distinct southern accent? Listen to CSPAN’s Washington Journal a few mornings in a row to see what I mean.
The beauty of it is, these people will view any potential GOP candidate’s inability to replicate a lame-ass 12 step Jesus with a Texas ‘good ‘ol boy’ act rehearsed in a New England family compound as some kind of dangerous character defect.
incontrolados
I am moderately optimistic that the next 18 months might turn out to have impeachment proceedings. But if that fails to happen, I plan to turn into a crank.
Bush retires to Crawford. The pups and I take a road trip. Poopy lives in Htown. The pups and I go for a car ride. Forget this email stuff. I start writing to them both with my own hand in paper and pen. Again and again and again.
Crap, after reading this and Greenwald today and listening to the news, I’m going to look for a “Impeach Bush and Cheney” placard I can put on my front fence. (I’d make one myself, but it would be crappy.)
The Other Steve
This is absolutely correct. If you read the old PNAC stuff, the path to America’s dominance was to try to kneecap China.
That’s why they hyped up the plane which landed there. There was always something wrong about that incident. Why did a US spy plane land on non-allied soil? It should have ditched in the ocean.
Richard Bottoms
Sleep well assholes.
The Other Steve
It’s 26%, not 28%.
ThymeZone
Looks like the people in Iraq don’t care for Bushwar any more than Americans do.
S.W. Anderson
HelenaMontana wrote:
So, HM, who exactly is a real Republican?
Would it be all those lockstep-marching drones in Congress who refused to do any oversight for six long years, enabling our worst-ever president to do his worst?
Would it be all those rah-rah demagogues of the right-wing noise machine — Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Blankley, Noonan, et al — who promoted and defended Bush’s every stupid idea, feat of blatant dishonesty and screwup?
Would it be all the corporate media on-air personalities and political “analysts” who did their bit to promote and defend Bush and his deadly, costly nonsense — Blitzer, Matthews, Hume, Halperin, Stephanopoulos et al?
Would it be the behind-the-scenes moneymen who ponied up all the hundreds of millions it cost to sell Bush to a gullible public twice?
Would it be crooks and liars like Abramoff and Ralph Reed?
Would it be bumbling cronies like heck-of-a-job Brownie?
How about valiant promoters of Christian faith and family values, like Gingrich and Vitter — are they real Republicans?
Come to think of it, that lady who did the figuring out must have been smoking something besides tobacco, because Bush is a perfect fit.
Sorry, but you folks don’t get to damage our democracy, our government, our economic well-being, our military preparedness and our reputation in the world via your recent hero, George W. Bush, and then walk away when the people have finally caught on.
S.W. Anderson
HelenaMontana wrote:
So, HM, who exactly is a real Republican?
Would it be all those lockstep-marching drones in Congress who refused to do any oversight for six long years, enabling our worst-ever president to do his worst?
Would it be all those rah-rah demagogues of the right-wing noise machine — Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Blankley, Noonan, et al — who promoted and defended Bush’s every stupid idea, feat of blatant dishonesty and screwup?
Would it be all the corporate media on-air personalities and political “analysts” who did their bit to promote and defend Bush and his deadly, costly nonsense — Blitzer, Matthews, Hume, Halperin, Stephanopoulos et al?
Would it be the behind-the-scenes moneymen who ponied up all the hundreds of millions it cost to sell Bush to a gullible public twice?
Would it be crooks and liars like Abramoff and Ralph Reed?
Would it be bumbling cronies like heck-of-a-job Brownie?
How about valiant promoters of Christian faith and family values, like Gingrich and Vitter — are they real Republicans?
Come to think of it, that lady who did the figuring out must have been smoking something besides tobacco, because Bush is a perfect fit.
Sorry, but you folks don’t get to damage our democracy, our government, our economic well-being, our military preparedness and our reputation in the world via your recent hero, George W. Bush, and then conveniently disown him when the people have finally caught on.
incontrolados
RB, where’s that from? I only ask . . . because oh hell it made me cry. I know I can look it up myself.
Ok, crazy crank impeachment bitch is here.
It starts now.
incontrolados
SWA, you forgot Grover taxes are still too high Norquist.
ConservativelyLiberal
Fixed.
Ralph, the true God, never would have picked this idiot for Prez, but he probably would have thought that picking up dog poop for a living would have been appropriate and within his limited set of skills. Unfortunately, Mommy Bush did not have an abortion, and consequently Daddy Bush has always cleaned up sonny boys messes.
Richard Bottoms
>RB, where’s that from? I only ask
Sorry, the link didn’t come through:
NYT
mrmobi
What a great thread.
I applaud all the wonderful rants, and would like to add that you watch democracy die with the President the Supreme Court gave you, not with the President the American People elected.
John Spragge
I obviously need Dan Riehl to remind me that, like Winston Smith, I don’t do well at metaphysics. In the post you linked to, he wrote:
Well, Dan’s pretty well got me stumped. I can’t think where to find all the quotes from the supporters of this administration, and this war, predicting a “cakewalk”, Iraqis dancing in the streets, greeting invading troops as liberators, and a short successful war. Seems these quotes exist only in my own head, and oh yes, a few (hundred) places on the Internet.
George Orwell, in 1984, wrote of a world where an inverse relation between sanity and intelligence prevailed among the ruling class. But in the world of 1984, the rulers controlled all the sources of information, and had the ability to wipe out their own mistakes. What can we say about people who look at a huge mass of information proving that their rulers, whether out of deceit or simple ignorance, grossly misrepresented the challenges their project would face, and blandly ignore the historical record?
jake
Shorter Casey: You’re not getting your family member back anytime soon.
Fixed!
Although I wouldn’t call joining groups formed to stop this crazy fucked up train-wreck via legal means “drastic.” I’d call it the right of any person living in a democracy.
Oh, wait…
ConservativelyLiberal
And now the military is kicking out people who have ‘personality disorders’ so they will not have to cover them. The worst part, from what I have heard, is that some of these soldiers are being told that they have to repay their signing bonuses.
I have nothing but the highest respect for those who put the uniform on for the rest of us Americans. We have a responsibility to stand up for these men and women, especially because the ones who say that they will stand behind them are not doing so. It is all so much lip service.
It is said that the military is one of our most powerful tools in the American toolbox. But this tool is not unbreakable. And we do not get a free replacement. This tool is made out of flesh and blood, and when it breaks so will our nation.
It is getting pretty damn close to breaking, in my opinion. If we do not change course, we are in for some hard times. We have pissed off the world, and the only thing keeping us safe is that we have nuclear warheads. If not for that, I bet someone would have declared war on us after the crap that we have put the rest of the world through.
I love my country, but I know that we are not perfect. No one is, but try to tell the flighty righties this. In their opinion, America can do no wrong. We are infallible.
I wish…
RSA
Why don’t you move to Europe if you like democracy so much? See how you like other stuff like their health care systems while you’re at it.
Hey, that’s what I was going to say!
AnonE.Mouse
You seem to want to downplay the fact that you were this village’s idiot up to spring 2005,as well as the responsibility you share for putting another village idiot in the White House-twice,the second time after plenty of evidence of torture,incompetence,and lies.But for Terry Schiavo,you might still be part of the 28%.
PAULQX
Where does Peggy get that no one beleives in Bush Derangement Syndrome anymore? Is she totally unexposed to right wing radio or blogs? Over there they not only beleive in BDS but in Iraqi WMD’s, Iran is about to get the bomb, McCarthy was a hero, liberals love terrorists, Saddam was behind 9/11, science is for chumps, global warming will be good for America and immigrants are infected with leprosy. Oh Peggy, where has the love gone?
John Spragge
Seriously, John…
I think you have a right to the same consideration, the same respect that I would have expected if the Iraq campaign had gone well; the right to say my objections had some foundation. I would have said that Bush behaved recklessly in invading Iraq, whether his project succeeded or not. By the same token, the melt-down in Iraq does not make the original stated reasons for invasion any less valid. The sorry record incompetence, the torture, the terrible price paid by thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis does nothing to make the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime any less terrible. Yes, we should learn from the Iraq debacle, but I see no way to learn without acknowledging and respecting the perspective from which Bush’s actions seemed to make sense in 2003-2004.
scarshapedstar
Okay, but then we have to acknowledge the perspective from which a worldwide Objectively Pro-Saddam/Anti-Freedom Conspiracy between the Fifth Column, the LLL, the MSM, Michael Moore (who is fat), Rachel Corrie, Tom Daschle, Green Helmet Guy, Jimmy Carter, the EUroweenies, and the Dixie Chicks seemed to make sense in 2003-2004. How deep does the rabbit hole go?
Chad N. Freude
They cannot be made less valid because they were not valid in the first place.
ConservativelyLiberal
There is a reason that the repugs have been out of power so often. Look what happens when they are given the reigns of power. They abuse everyone and everything, and all to the benefit of their rich buddies.
Screw the MSM being left meme. I call bullshit on that one. The MSM is owned by a bunch of rich a-holes who got rich by being a-holes.
Look back in history to the robber barons. When given the chance, the rich will do everything they can, legal or illegal, to get richer. Child labor? No problem. Miniscule wages for horrendus workloads? No problem. Slavery? No problem. Horrific work conditions and hours? No problem.
As long as it puts a buck in their pocket. They do not care a whit about those that they view as beneath them. The masses are to be manipulated to enrich themselves. If they can turn us against each other, all the better. That is why we have a two party system. As they say, divide and conquer. They have it down to a fine art now. And the populace is being herded around like cattle.
Talk radio likes to point out that the right owns the airwaves because there is no market for the left. Wrong. The right own the airwaves because they have bought them and control all of the major markets.
Now the rich are trying to figure out a way to control the internet, and when they do that, we lose the only medium where we can communicate with each other en masse and get the truth about what is really going on in the world.
The MSM feeds us pablum like Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears and other worthless drivel. The so called news is nothing but another distraction. There is little substantiave news to view now, and that is the way it is.
Take your right wing talking points and shove them where the sun don’t shine. After all, that is where they came from originally…
The Other Steve
They were a sham. The reason for going into Iraq was purely political. Get the Iraq war bill out there before the ’02 elections, show the Democrats as being soft on bombing people into the stone age. Invade Iraq in spring of ’03, and come home in Summer of ’03.
Build the Arch de Triumph on Pennsylvania Avenue and cruise into the ’04 elections as a war hero President.
Nobody could have possibly anticipated this wouldn’t work out as planned.
Tax Analyst
Yup.
sglover
Uh, well, except they didn’t. The ham-handed, amateurish way in which the regime made its “case” for the war was, for me at least, the clinching argument against invading Iraq. It was obvious THEN that the Bush gang was incompetent, and that they’d fuck up their little project. All the blame-shifting since — Golly, how was I supposed to to know that Bush wouldn’t run the war well? It’s all his fault! — is pathetic and disgraceful.
Jay-zus H. Key-rist: I remember back in 2003 watching darling Condi Rice, “historian”, telling me that Iraq was gonna be some kind of groovy no-cost replay of postwar Germany and Japan!!! Please. Which is worse — that her countrymen didn’t laugh her off the stage, or that she might’ve actually believed that happy horseshit herself?!?!
cajunboy
From your reference to the “village idiot”:
“I disagree with Bush on immigration, I’ve faulted him for his prosecution of the war…..”
This is pure BS! Progressives are called ‘defeatist’ and other names when they’ve questioned Bush in the past and yet everyone from McCain, Kristol, and all the rightwing blogosphere like to put forth their ‘bonifides’ with a comment about how he “faulted” Bush’s handling of the war. This is pure bull!
binzinerator
the other steve:
But oh yes, there were plenty of people who did and said as much even in Bush’s own government. Refuting this nonsense is way too tiring for me — it’s been done again and again and again by many others — but for starters, consider those generals whom Bush fired when they told him what he didn’t want to hear about the war he was planning. Try looking up Gen. Shinseki and Batiste, for starters, and see whether they somehow anticipated just how bad a clusterfuck Iraq would be. And note what happened to them.
Try googoling Gen. Casey, recently fired for somehow anticipating just how useless “the surge” would be. (“The Surge” — a stupid label for “military esclation”, the choice of which hints at the adolescent war-as-sports mentality the warmongers have.)
And what about those cabinet members Bush got rid of? You know, the ones whose job it is to actually advise the president and who it turns out unfortunately had a knack for anticipating how much Bush’s war might actually cost.
Go google or wikipedia Lawrence Lindsey (or Paul O’Neil). Lindsey thought the war would cost $100 to $200 billion. So Bush fired him.
Lots of experts anticipated this wasn’t going to work out as planned, militarily or financially.
All it takes is a few minutes with Googol and this statement “Nobody could have possibly anticipated…” is debunked.
This whole “Who’da thunk?” bullshit was exactly what Bush and his toadies put out after Katrina. They hid behind feigned ignorance and incompetence unil a video surfaced of a teleconference between Bush and Brownie and the Corp of Engineers 24 hours before Katrina made landfall. In that videotaped record, engineers from the Corp and even Brownie tell Bush ‘this is it’ and ‘the levees are not going to hold’ and ‘must assume the city will be flooded’. This was before Katrina even hit.
This ‘nobody could have anticipated’ bullshit is just a lie they want you to believe that absolves them from criminal negligence at the best, or from criminal conspiracy at the worst.
Crikey I sincerely hope you meant what you said as cynical sarcasm, Other Steve.
binzinerator
Richard Bennett:
Not insufficiently emotional, Mr. Bennett, just insufficiently candid.
If you’ve said before that Bush may be the worst president of all time, why didn’t you say “pretty good in 2002, among the worst president since then”?
“Not so much since then” is a whitewash by comparison.
(And out of curiosity, why is Carter on your list? Because he was feckless? I didn’t like him, but I don’t recall him lying us into a war, authorizing torture, and ignoring FISA warrants, or asserting himself above the law. You know, just constitutional and war crime issues, high crimes and misdemeanors…
And Garfield??? The man was president for only 6 months! Is brevity in office somehow one your criteria?
And why isn’t Nixon among your competition? Apparently fecklessness and uselessness are more damaging to this nation than criminal behavior and blatant power grabs. That could very well be a good argument — but if so, what does that do to Bush’s ranking, who by that yardstick of ‘worst’ has been feckless in everything he has turned to? Or do you think his performance in the run up to 9/11, in the handling of Katrina, in privatization of Social Security, in NCLB, in immigration — in short in any thing he has done — has been effective, as in the opposite of ‘ineffective’? For feckless, Carter has nothing on Bush.)
Please explain how you came to suspect the Iraq war won’t have long-term consequences for the U.S.? Specifically, how radicalizing muslims everywhere, providing a boost for recruiting terrorists, stronger Al Qaeda everywhere, weakened military, weakened alliances, weakened diplomacy and a moral high ground (we’re gonna tell who about human rights abuses?), ignoring Geneva Conventions (you really think this won’t affect how our servicepeople are going to be treated in the future?), loss of prestige, Iran gaining influence and poised to become the power broker in the region, an Iraq in civil war, (and where the hell is Osama bin Laden?) won’t have any thing but ‘minimal’ long-term consequences? Jeezus, the list could go on and on.
But no long term effects there, eh? A Mideast that is radicalized and burning with war and fundamentalism won’t have any significant long-term effect on this country, right?
And, say, what about those 500 billion dollars spent (raised by borrowing) while taxes where cut? You really think that won’t have a long term effect on this nation?
What nonsense. What planet did you just arrive from? (lemme guess: Planet Bushlove, where recent signals have indicated the climate has turned hostile over what to do with brown people.)
Or when you wrote ‘outside of Iraq’ did you mean it in the sense of ‘apart from Iraq’ or as in ‘except for Iraq’?
What bigger nonsense.
There ain’t no ‘outside of Iraq’ about it here. Iraq is the biggest single policy the Bush presidency will be infamous for.
And even if one is willing to pretend (suspend one’s disbelief, actually) that Iraq never happened, what about the torture and radical theories of monarchical executive power and politization of justice and the infestation of hundreds of religious freaks in this government working to make this a theocracy and firmly believing they answer to no earthly law?
The conservative movement became a party of radicals, people who ultimately do not believe in democracy, rule of law, or tolerance. The rightwing fringe went mainstream in the GOP, and this is not going to change with a new president.
Our entire political discourse has been changed by these people. Our national character has been changed. We as a nation, as a people, torture. We throw people — anyone — into prison for years and years upon mere suspicion and without redress. We are spied upon by our own government, our privacy has been weakened and reduced while that of our government has been augmented and expanded.
Our leader thinks laws do not apply to his friends. Even now, people who have been charged or convicted and imprisoned for perjury and obstruction of justice are clamoring ‘me too’! And why should’t they? Even if you’re convicted of these crimes, spending even a day in jail is ‘too harsh’, according to the example set by the president. The consequences in our legal system, in our perception of justice, are already being felt, and will be there for a long time to come. Bush has set disastrous precedents, and they will come back to affect us years from now.
Iraq, rights abuses, lawlessness, religion in government, huge deficit spending, attacks on science (including suppressing evidence on global warming — that won’t have any long-term effect on anyone, will it?) — Believing this won’t have any long-term consequences is simply an expression of denial, yet again.
It’s not that you are insufficiently emotional, Mr. Bennett. It’s that you are still clueless.