In the Village, W is still the steely-eyed commander who won the Battle of 9/11 with his bullhorn.
My guess is that there’s lots of Republicans who view W as an idiot and a failure now, even if they held him up as a genius when he was president. Every mention of W hurts Jeb! despite what Halperin and Politico think (this screenshot is from the NYT).
I think Atrios is right that the true Dear Leader phase only lasted five years. But establishment media never really moved on.
srv
Once again, Trump breaks the mold for truth to power.
trollhattan
In this case, “suggesting” easily verifiable facts. Jeez, journalism has become easy.
srv
Even Peggy Noonan is knocking them out of the ballpark today, Dougie.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Trump does sometimes seem like the Republican version of our Crazy Uncle Joe. The racist, sexist, asshole version, but the same willingness to point to the middle of the room and say, “What’s that elephant doing there?”
Brachiator
Let’s see whether the Republican big wigs freak out and try to eject Trump from the presidential hopeful club. Because the 2 highest GOP commandments are “thou shalt make an idol of Ronald Reagan” and “thou shalt never ever suggest that W did anything other than keep us safe.”
I can see Bulldog Cheney bursting out of his kennel to bark out a ferocious Iraq defense on one of the Sunday shows. This will also allow for an easy two-fer of Obama failing in Afghanistan, etc.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
if he lasts long enough, we may someday see Broderism re-named Weigelism
I’ll admit I never paid much attention to the Congressional proceedings, but I did read the long NYT account of the attacks, and I don’t remember anything about a report HRC got saying “Ansar al-Shari’a determined to strike in Benghazi”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: Christ, I would love to see a big media fight between big Dick and the hyoooge dick.
Keith P.
This gives the media an excuse to debate it now, at least. Not to mention, Jeb!’s twitter feed with every comment along the lines of “Uhh, 3000+ people don’t think your brother kept us safe” is the cherry on top.
SatanicPanic
@trollhattan: yeah duh, Bush didn’t avert 9/11, I thought that wasn’t controversial
right? I’m confused
Baud
Comment moved to next thread.
feebog
Trump is the gift that keeps on giving for Dems. Not only has he exposed the ugly racist underbelly of the Republican party, he also keeps blurting out the truth about 9/11. Can’t wait for him to weigh in on the Select Committee to tank Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.
Brachiator
@srv:
You know who else lowered the bar?
Lincoln. Obscure one term Congressman. Didn’t even make it to the Senate and the big leagues. Came from nowhere and won it all twice.
Maybe Peggy Noonan had better crawl back into her bottle. Her Obama too uppity to be president, and lowering the standards is more than a little tired.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A sense of proportion. Weigel lacks one.
ETA: Autocorrect hates Weigel. Who knew?
BobS
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not a fan of Clinton (or her husband) and have been critical of the role both her and Obama played in the destruction of Libya, but that’s a laughable comparison. It would be more accurate to compare the debacle of Libya to Bush’s invasion and destabilization of Iraq.
benw
@Baud: Reply to comment also moved to next thread.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
We all know Clinton was in office on that particular 9/11…no…wait…it was Obama!
“He kept us safe” needs revision: “He kept us in the dark.”
p.a.
From the driftglass vault.
A guy
U guessed wrong . GW going down as one of best ever
Waspuppet
I’m not even clear on what GOPers are supposed to say: “Uh uh, he DID avert 9/11”?
That’s not happening. So they’re reduced to grovel ing: “Well, OK, he didn’t avert it, but no one could have WAAAH WAAAH WAAH.”
They HATE doing that. The Halperin/Dodd/Politico axis hates them having to do it almost as much.
Get yr popcorn is what I’m saying.
Chris
@Waspuppet:
I think the popular explanation for a long time was “Clinton destroyed our military and security apparatus and Bush wasn’t able to rebuild it in time.”
Roger Moore
The whole “W kept us safe after 9/11” business would also be more sensible if there hadn’t been a whole bunch of lesser attacks- the anthrax mailings, the beltway snipers, embassy bombings, etc.- after 9/11.
SatanicPanic
@A guy: now you’re not even trying
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Herbert Hoover. He never held any elected office before running for President, and unlike guys like Grant and Eisenhower, he didn’t have a military reputation to build on, either. Whose first thought about the top nominee for president is the Secretary of Commerce?
David Koch
Idiot ¿Jeb? is being savaged on Twitter
https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/655098096649707520
the Conster
JEB Bush is an internet joke and a twitter punching bag because he’s an over-entitled unself-aware babyman who has no clue about, well, anything. Trump, for all of his thin skinned blowhardness, is like a heat seeking missile when it comes to others’ underbellies, and he’s got JEB’s number. Rooting for injuries.
Dmbeaster
@srv: Glad you agree Bush and crew effed up re 9/11. Seriously doubt you thought that at the time or for the next ten years. Fortunately there is someone who can learn something from Donald Trump. Too bad you couldn’t see this sooner after thousands of others expressed the same opinion for years before The Donald finally figured it out for you.
Francis
@A guy: Going down is correct. He’s currently at the bottom of the top 45 presidents of all time.
maya
@jeb! Thanx for covering my ass. @bigbro
Applejinx
@feebog: All Trump has to say is, “I can beat Hillary Clinton WITHOUT wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money to establish things everybody knows anyway.”
His best move here is to hang the fruitless, obvious waste around the Republicans’ necks like a gasoline-filled tire.
They wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on a useless GOVERNMENT investigation that didn’t even work, as if people had to be told about Hillary Clinton. It’s ridiculous and disgusting and wasn’t even effective, just what a bunch of government Washington people would do. That’s what he can say.
He’ll be pretty much saying he can beat Hillary without any such shenanigans, just like all the Mexicans will willingly go back to Mexico and build him a wall. Just bare assertions of nonsense, but in the service of painting the other Republicans as feckless cowards spending taxpayer money like water rather than, I dunno, flexing really hard?
This is a really, really easy call for Trump. Super obvious. He can make the Benghazi committee look like real weasels who are Doing It Wrong because they’re too cowardly to just call a spade a spade.
BobS
@Francis: If you mean he’s at the bottom of the top 45 American presidents of all time, that would mean he’s already behind the next one, and the one after that as well (Grover Cleveland had two nonconsecutive terms, meaning Obama is actually the 43rd person to be president). Which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if anyone of the stooges we saw in the Republican debates ends up in the office.
Arm The Homeless
I may have to rethink my assertion that the candidate formely known as JEB would glide through Super Tuesday and pick up the pity vote.
Who the fuck is funding this doofus!?
Villago Delenda Est
@A guy: What color is the sky in your world, fuckstick?
Chris
@Dmbeaster:
Trump is actually making it okay for conservatives to be anti Bush.
During the entire Bush presidency, all the Repubs agreed: it wasn’t. When the teabaggers took over the party, sure, you might get some wiggle room with “Bush was a liberal” comments on his economic policy, but definitely not his foreign policy. So even with all the evidence around you screaming that something was going really, really wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, you can’t actually say it out loud. That would put you on the same side as the lousy stinking liberals and that weird Keebler Elf from the Texas 22nd Congressional District. But now, with Trump’s yoooooooooooooge support base, it’s becoming possible to diss Bush over Iraq and 9/11 and still be a Good Conservative.
EconWatcher
@Chris:
Good comment. It seems a little counter-intuitive to suggest that Trump will help restore sanity to the GOP, but in a weird way it might be true.
R. Porrofatto
Trump also said this: “He was president, O.K.?,” Mr. Trump said. “The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
Gives you an idea of what he thinks he’s running for: King.
Ken
@srv:
Knocking them back at the ballpark, more likely.
TG Chicago
Under Bush, 3,000 civilians are killed on US soil and the head perpetrator is never caught during the following 7+ years of his presidency = He Kept Us Safe!
Under Obama, 4 non-civilians are killed in a foreign hot war zone and the head perpetrator is caught in less than 2 years = SCANDAL!!!!
father pussbucket
@A guy:
Now we’re lowering the bar for trolling, I see.
Jinchi
Nobody is going to punish Trump for insulting “You-Know-Who”. Republicans know he was a disaster. That’s why they never speak his name in public.
Death Panel Truck
@A guy: I couldn’t agree more. George Washington was truly one of the greats.
mclaren
@Villago Delenda Est:
He can’t see the sky with his head that far up his ass.
john fremont
So I wonder how El Rushbo is going to spin his way out of this? He’s been very supportive of the Donald and during W’s terms he went to the mat for his administration. ( Except of course for Bush’s immigration reform proposals and the Harriet Miers nomination.) What’s a ditto head to do?!