I’ve been watching Bush the past two days working with Clinton on the Haiti disaster, and I think that even though his administration was such a disaster it made me switch parties, his conduct since he left office has been pretty admirable. Compare his behavior to Darth Cheney and Cheney’s idiot daughter. Bush deserves credit for that.
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Peter
Faint praise indeed. The bar has been lowered as low as we’d like it to be lowered, and god forbid we look back during a Palin admin to the glory days of Bush.
beltane
Likewise we do not see Jenna Bush (or whatever her last name is now) on TV every day bad mouthing the President. It is pretty sad that we have reached the state where a former president acting the way former presidents always have is a remarkable thing.
You Don't Say
Yes, he does, but I am curious exactly what is his contribution to this Clinton-Bush effort for Haiti. What does he know how to do?
And I wonder if this will turn out to be true: http://www.samefacts.com/2010/01/uncategorized/gitmo-torture-rumor/
Ash
I’ve heard even the people in Dallas hate him now. He probably doesn’t have very many friends anymore, he’s just trying to find a new buddy.
Bailey
He’s only doing what most presidents and vice presidents do the year after leaving office: shutting the hell up. Darth Cheney and spawn of Darth are really just the vile exceptions.
I don’t see much admirable about W. The only admirable thing is that he’s managed to follow the presidential protocol. Sorry, no praise for coloring within the lines.
Ash
@You Don’t Say: Hmm.
Jim
Call me mean-spirited and partisan (go ahead, I don’t mind), but I think there was always a fundamental laziness to Bush, the nine-to-five work schedule that his people and the press called “discipline”. He only wanted the job to avenge/show up Daddy, and get even with Jebbie, in the first place, and pretty much seemed to have stopped presidentin’ in March of ’08. The ol’ coffers will be replenished with minimal effort on his part. He can devote his life to working out and watching Larry the Cable Guy DVDs. Probably Waylon and Madam too.
The Grand Panjandrum
@You Don’t Say: Holy shit, if that isn’t Sully bait then nothing is.
jayackroyd
It is a little telling that the best thing he could do is shut the fuck up. But he has, so, Attaboy!
Left Coast Tom
Usually praise for a post-Presidency cites things that former President has done, rather than things he’s declined to do. Carter, for example, has done a lot of work with (among others) Habitat for Humanity. Shrub, I guess, has simply kept his mouth shut.
Post title noted…
BruceFromOhio
No, he doesn’t. That soulless pampered draft-dodging ratfuck sonofabitch ain’t buying his way into heaven. That someone benefits from his quest for meaning or whatever the fuck drives his actions is great, power to them both. And I will definitely agree that getting off your comfy, cushy ass in your little Dallas palace to help those in need is an admirable thing.
But what he ‘deserves’ is unrelenting scorn and derision for the Gaia-damned fucking mess he made of this country. Sorry to harsh on your Haiti rescue feel-goodedness. If all earning a humanitarian merit badge takes is your publicist not booking your gasbaggery ala Cheney, then the bar is too fucking low.
Leelee for Obama
He has behaved well, and he does deserve credit for that. Since he had little control over Darth et al while President, I’m fairly sure he has zero influence now, but an effort would be good. He snapped at a few of the political snipes at Obama, so I was impressed by that.
I am seeing a Katrina Redux meme growing at DKos and, of course, HuffPo. I would really like to see better distribution of the supplies and medical help, but we are not in charge there, it seems things are being deferred to the UN and the Haitian Government, which may or may not turn out well. Tapper just brought up Honore and his criticism’s on CNN. He says the aid drops should have been happening the next day, and that we should just drop the stuff from helicopters and leave. Martha Radditz just said that she saw such a drop and it was quite dangerous and she hoped that wasn’t going to be the norm. I don’t know what’s the best. I think the Haitians are exiting to the countryside, which may make distribution better, or, God forbid, worse. Not being an aid worker, I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. With Katrina, my main issue was that the people at the Dome and the Conventions Center were told to go there, they were there and were unable to leave as would have made sense and the RC wasn’t allowed in, either. Similar but different. And, while NOLA could be a chaotic place, it certainly didn’t have a reputation for civil war and machetes swinging. All I can say is, it’s a horrible situation, and seemingly the best efforts are just taking way too much time. But, again, what’s the right thing to do?
beltane
@You Don’t Say: Who on the right will express disgust at this? On the contrary, they will boast about what big boys they are for torturing prisoners to death.
Rey
I agree, he does. I know that conventional wisdom wants to say that by 2012 everyone will forget about Bush and it will all be about Obama- I disagree. The Bush presidency will haunt us for 10 years at least. I was one of the many Americans that lost a job, could not find one and when I did- wrangled out a meager salary. I want to vomit when I think about the 18 mos prior to Jan 20, 2009. I meet lots of people in my present job and when the conversation comes to this country and the mess we are in, they still blame Bush. He is not beloved, and this is in the redstate of Tennessee.
nepat
I think he’s just back in his element: staring out the window, enjoying the long empty spaces between thoughts.
Max
@Leelee for Obama: I think Honore’s statement is dishonest and dangerous.
Haiti is a foreign country, we can’t just “surge” into it. We need to respect its government, such that it is.
The situation on the ground is a lot more complicated that NOLA, and Honore was wrong.
But, I’m an O-bot, so what do I know.
Jim
@Leelee for Obama:
I’ve always thought Martha Raddatz was a good reporter, and Jake Tapper constantly reveals greater depths of toolishness. The problem with Honore’s criticisms is that aid did start arriving “the next day”. I still cant’ believe no one has looked at the timeline. As to “Katrina Redux”, I missed the week of news stories warning that a big fucking earthquake was going to hit Port-Au-Prince. (Earthquakes are more or less completely unpredictable, scientifcally speaking, aren’t they?)
SGEW
[reposting from open thread, as it is on topic here]
Attackerman on George W.’s Haiti message:
Heresiarch
@BruceFromOhio: This.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Rey: We elected Reagan six years after Nixon resigned. Never underestimate the American publics ability to forget.
FlipYrWhig
@SGEW: I did notice that Bush was acting goofy. He never did know what to do with his body in idle moments.
Leelee for Obama
@Max: @Jim:
I wasn’t saying that I think this is Katrina Redux, I was saying that there is a theme emerging in some places where it shouldn’t.
We do need to defer to the Haitian Government, or be accused of invading while they’re gutted. The UN has been on the ground for years, so it’s natural to defer to them, in spite of their own losses. Just not sure those entities are up to the task. How do they get the supplies to the people who need them-I though Honore was wrong about just dropping and leaving-how do you make sure that the stronger people don’t become black marketers and gouge the survivors?
Toast
I’ve only been reading this site for about a month, but it absolutely shocks me that you (Cole) were a Republican prior to Bush. The GOP was every bit the swarm of unprincipled, destructive, know-nothing scumbags before Bush that they are now. What they did to Clinton in the nineties with the open-ended seventy-million-dollar witch hunt – regardless of what you think of Clinton personally – will go down as the beginning of the end for a workable two-party system.
MattF
Bush isn’t what anyone would call a thoughtful person– but I’ll allow that he’ll experience an impulse toward the right direction, once in a while. Too bad it had no effect until he left office.
And I really do think he’s responsible, ultimately, for what Rove and Cheney did and are still trying to do. So, Bush gets a kudo for doing the right thing, but he’s still going to Hell– maybe not directly inserted into Satan’s rectum… but nearby.
DougJ
He also deserves credit for listening to Condi rather than Cheney on Iran.
gwangung
@Leelee for Obama: Basically, Honore wasn’t thinking it through, and didn’t take the 45 seconds it takes an average viewer to think of problems.
Jim
@Leelee for Obama:
I got that. I was just building on what you said. I can’t be bothered to log in at GOS to argue with Firebaggers.
adding: also too the point you make about Haiti being a sovereign, foreign country. I can’t believe this has to be pointed out to anyone, much less ‘journalists’
Bad Horse's Filly
I will forever be grateful to GW Bush for giving us John Cole. Beyond that I got nuthin.
BruceFromOhio
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I toy with the theory of what American politics would’ve been like if the Shah had not been overthrown in Iran, or had been overthrown 18 months later. Did the American hostages provide a powerful, visceral ad-bite for Republicans to leverage as part of the broader conservative message? Not saying that was “The Key To Reagans’s Election,” rather just wondering how much affect it had on the short-term electorate memory loss.
Totally O/T, and I apologize, but that stuff is endlessly fascinating to me.
Ash
@Toast:
Not just a Republican, Toast. Cole was full metal wingnut. :D
Leelee for Obama
@gwangung: Honore actually made a statement that I can’t remember exactly, but the gist was kind of social Darwinian. I didn’t like it one bit. He did a decent job after the debacle of Katrina, but I think he doesn’t have the right mind-set here.
Rey
@Panjandrum
I know but this is a different world now. Although we could use a little inflation so that– I don’t know maybe our homes will be worth more than a tent sitting on a piece of land. This recession has not discriminated- people from all walks of life are hurting. If not personally, then their kids or grandkids are suffering. It’s rough out here.
beltane
@Jim: It’s not as bad at GOS anymore. The admins seem to be taking tentative steps to reclaim the community, and some of the worst-offending Firebaggers have been banned on a temporary basis. The push to help out Martha Coakley has served to separate the Democrats from the Naderites/Norquist fans.
jayackroyd
@Toast
It wasn’t absolutely fucking clear that there was not a single principle, beyond power and cronies, that republicans believed in until they had all the levers of power in their hands.
John may believe in some of those principles, and may have been conned. There are still a fair number of people who are blind to the absolute fucking clarity of what happened in 2001-2006. Worse, the fuckers won the 04 elections.
So, just as I cut myself slack for not voting for major party candidates up to and including 2000, I think you can cut John slack for being conned.
Because he eventually noticed there was no pea under the shells.
Joey Maloney
@MattF: Bush gets a kudo for doing the right thing, but he’s still going to Hell—maybe not directly inserted into Satan’s rectum… but nearby.
He’ll spend eternity falling off a Segway and wedging his head against Old Scratch’s taint? Works for me. Cheney gets to be the Morning Star’s anal dildo.
beltane
@Joey Maloney: Correction: the Morning Star gets to be Cheney’s anal dildo.
joe from Lowell
Bush’s dad was a president. He was a president. He relates to presidents; he considers Obama and himself to be in the same club.
Cheney is just a wingnut activist who achieved a high position.
Joey Maloney
@beltane: Why not have both, kind of a Worm Ouroboros of Evil?
BerkeleyMom
GW Bush has been silent the last year because he can’t be bothered to think about serious policy shit long enough to make a relevant statement. He walked out the door of the WH last January and he looked relieved to be the hell out of there. Trying to look like you know what you’re doing is hard work and he no likey.
Bush was dragged into this Haiti situation. What’s he going to do–say no? Instead he’ll let Clinton do the heavy lifting while taking half the credit as the smirking sidekick. He may not be Dick Cheney but he’s still a dick.
georgia pig
W probably has always been a likeable enough dunce with an mile-wide asshole streak that stays relatively submerged if everything stays superficial and he’s not in charge. God forbid, however, if you put him in a position with any authority, say, like POTUS.
BTW, Honore is an ignorant moron, and Tapper is just continuing a long string of moronic reporting. There is no comparison to Katrina, even looking beyond the fact that you can’t predict an earthquake. Christ, New Orleans is a city in the US, where there is widespread infrastructure for disaster relief. The crisis there was limited to a relatively small portion of a very wealthy country with shit like interstate highways, airports, tons of places to put displaced people, oh, and a fucking National Guard to make it all happen. Of course it’s unacceptable that aid took so long getting to the city. Haiti was a basket case before the earthquake, there are a a lot more displaced people and there is almost zero infrastructure to support relief efforts.
AkaDad
Fixified
Toast
@jayackroyd: To be clear, I didn’t mean my previous comment as an attack. John’s doing the FSM’s work here now, so it’s cool. I’m just honestly surprised that any reasonable person came through the nineties with their loyalty to the GOP intact. It has nothing to do with ideology or policy, either. That part I get, even if, as a died-in-the-wool FDR liberal, I never agreed with it. The political behavior of the Republican party in the nineties was so jaw-droppingly despicable, so obviously, mind-blowingly scummy it defies description. Newt and his revolutionaries laid the groundwork for the red/blue, same-planet/different-world impasse we’re at now.
Toast
@georgia pig: George W is “likable” if by “likable” you mean “I’d really like to punch this arrogant douchebag in the face.”
Toast
Er, or “dyed” for that matter…
Skepticat
Nothing became his presidency so much as his leaving of it.
Daniel
Admirable would be if he were to come clean, but he still holds secret all the crimes and misdemeanors that were done in his name.
Jamey
Shorter John:
“He’s a much nicer fellow now that he’s stopped beating his wife.”
Tim O
Like Chris Rock Says, “This guy at the Million Man March, says’ ‘I take care of MY kids!’ Really? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR KIDS!
George Bush is SUPPOSED to act like a human and a Christian. For all he’s done, it’s the very least he could do. A very public confession and penance in Times Square on New Years Eve would be a good second step!
Alex S.
Something about Bush’s behavior is strange, like in, he is still continuing to move to the left. I keep on waiting for the big Bush vs. Cheney debate (although I think that Cheney will die shortly after the release of his memoirs). At the end of his life, Bush Jr. will be at least as “liberal” as his father, probably even more so, once he is in need of divine forgiveness.
And something else, I can see Haiti becoming another Puerto Rico.
HeartlandLiberal
I hope, before he dies, George W. Bush will write down his thoughts for posterity. Mainly, I would like to know if, by the end of his term, he realized that he had been used basically as a ventriloquist dummy by the Neo-con PNAC leadership, channeled through Dick (may I call him Dick?) Cheney.
And as a result, Bush’s legacy is assured. The worst president in the history of the Republic. The most disastrous foreign and domestic policies and events, the near exhaustion and subversion of our military, and a swing from surplus to the largest debt in the history of the Republic.
I wonder if he thinks about these things now.
Toast
Bush never struck me as what you’d call “self-aware”.
kid bitzer
john–jim fallows did a blog post on this theme:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/in_praise_of_george_w_bush.php
“Since leaving office he has — like most of his predecessors in their first years out of power — maintained a dignified distance from public controversies and let the new team have its chance….The former vice president, Dick Cheney, has brought dishonor to himself, his office, and his country. I am not aware of another former President or Vice President behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power…”
and more along those lines.
and i say “this” in agreement with both of you.
SGEW
Certainly. However, there was something . . . well, poignant about the look on his face during Obama’s inauguration. Some dawning spark of awareness, maybe. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me; but look at his eyes in this photo.
He is, after all, a human being. Cheney, I’m not so sure about.
Jim
@SGEW:
The fact that Cheney wore that hat makes me suspect there may actually be some sick sense of humor cohabitating with Teh Evil.
woody
The IMF is offering loans but, as usual, they come with “Shock Doctrine” strings.
After the recovery from the immediate effects of the disaster, the best (and perhaps the only) way to ensure Haiti doesn’t become a failed state is to cancel ALL of Haiti’s international debts (though dfailed states are handy to have around if you have a larcenous, exploitative culture like the US).
Paris
I have mixed feelings on the selection of Clinton and Bush. They both were responsible for making life worse for the people of Haiti. Should they now STFU and go away or be used to raise substantial funds from their elite friends in order to aid Haiti?
While I prefer they STFU and go away, that probably means they should pay their penance in applying their money raising skills, because I am not a good judge of such things.
Toni
Did W tell David Gregory that he missed him but not the spotlight? That’s what my ears seemed to hear and David blushed and said he took it as a compliment.
Jamey
Anything Cheney has done wrong since 1/20/00 has Bush’s signature on it.
Jamey
Anything Cheney has done wrong since 1/20/00 has Bush’s signature on it.
El Cid
I don’t know I’d say that Bush Jr. deserves credit for not being too much of a loudmouth public jackass during the post-Bush administration cleanup, but I know that I personally appreciate it, or at least am grateful for it.
Ming
I’ll second John’s sentiment — all of it. I think Bush was an absolute disaster as President, that he did incalculable damage, and that he has a mean/callous streak in him. At the same time, with Cheney and the right wing behaving as it has in the last year, it is worth noting that W has not succumbed to the temptation or pressure to behave similarly. Further, in W’s remarks about the Clinton-Bush Haiti initiative, he made a point of acknowledging the swiftness of the U.S. response. For him to do that, when there was absolutely no need for him to, and when it inevitably brought to mind the comparison with his performance on Katrina, was striking. And I have to say he looked genuinely grateful for the chance to be a good guy for once.
In acknowledging these things, I’m not erasing or excusing his record, or even trying to.
HumboldtBlue
Yeah, and I deserve praise for not driving home after watching the game yesterday. Now, I was under the influence, but please, send your plaudits my way for doing the responsible thing.
Common Sense
The man is a member of a party that has overwhelmingly decided to spend all of their time flinging poo at the people who are cleaning up the mess. When 99% of his party has adopted the 80-20 doctrine Bush deserves credit for bucking the powers that be. Particularly when he is their most visible member.
Yes, it sucks that we are giving him kudos for doing things that Presidents should be doing anyway. However he is basically the only Republican out there who is keeping his trap shut. Good for him.
Darryl
Made less retarded-sounding.
Mr. Wonderful
What BerkeleyMom said. Didn’t Obama publicly ask Clinton and teh Shrubber to do this? How could he say no? I’d be curious to know what, exactly, he agreed to do and insisted he not have to do.
I’m still haunted by something Molly Ivins once said–something along the lines of, “Some people think Bush is mean and stupid. But he’s not mean. And he’s not stupid.”
She would know. Still, I query the “not mean.” Or maybe “so oblivious, in his [justified] insecurities, that he does cruel things without being aware of it.”
At this point the only thing Bush could do to even begin to atone would be to strap a bomb to himself and detonate it at a banquet in honor of Cheney. And even then…
Jill
Call me a cynic, but I think the old man put him up to this in an attempt to try to fix the Bush family name and its legacy so that Jebbie can run in 2012. And Obama walks right into the trap.
BruceFromOhio
@Mr. Wonderful:
This is so full of win it defies words.
srv
@Ash:
Well, half. But he gets standing ovations at the eateries the well-to-do frequent according to the DMN.
Jim
@Mr. Wonderful:
You got me curious and I made a google and found this
The Uncompassionate Conservative
and this
.
damn, I miss Molly.
MissKG
I’ll give Bush some credit when he confesses to war crimes and donates all his money to reconstructing New Orleans. Putting his face on Haiti relief effort is either incredibly cynical or incredibly naive.
asiangrrlMN
@Jim: I agree with this wholeheartedly. W. never seemed mean to me (a la Cheney). I do think he’s unintelligent, incurious, and woefully, blissfully unaware of anything that doesn’t personally affect him, though.
I miss Molly, too.
aimai
In re the “trap” for Obama in restoring the bush family name–that’s totally backwards. It seems clear to me from the language Obama used that Bush was brought in to attack the new Republican/Rush meme that Obama and the US government (being wholly under his control) are going to harvest not only the email addresses of duped charity givers but also probably appropriate the monies for themselves. That’s basically what Rush was saying when he started saying “who knows” who is going to get the money when you click on the white house link. Obama specifically put Clinton and Bush in charge, rhetorically speaking, with the object that they would use their names (clinton with liberals and bush with the loony fringe) and guarantee that all the money, whether from american citizens or outside of the country, would go to Haiti and not somehow wind up in Obama’s pocket. Its unfortunate that Rush and beck can spew this stuff to their adoring fans with no come back, but there it is.
aimai
fraught
W, who during his presidency, was encouraged with faint rebuke, is new being damned with faint praise? He was never damned enough and should still be damned with full rebuke. Just because he is the only republican on earth who has not slandered Obama does not mean he does not have contempt for him in that smirky, superior way W always showed his disdain. We have not heard the last of the inept, angry W.
Sanka
Seriously. A sitting president has never been trashed by the preceding vice-president in the public forum. That has NEVER happened in recent memory.
fraught
@Sanka: Three full years after w took office. Come on. Push, you can do it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Toni: Yeah, that’s what he said (and did you hear the big guffaw of laughter from the crew?). To me, it was an awkward throwback to the frat boy Dubya poking a friendly little stick in Stretch’s eye. One of those moments when it’s actually a little embarrassing to be watching.
suzanne
Early contender for funniest comment of the year.
LMMFAOOOOOO!!!!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Uh. No. The man’s whole problem is he’s always gotten credit for doing Jack Shit.
Anyhoo, working with the Clenis will secure his legacy as a stealth lieburul.
Batocchio
Bush the elder works better as a public image, because he’s worked with Clinton before on these things and is less polarizing. Also, unlike his son, Bush the elder didn’t raise the Peter Principle to the level of Biblical plague.
Bush the younger has been much more classy than the Cheney family, and at times gracious toward Obama. Bush also deserves credit for some of his aid to Africa. However, Bush was a stunning disaster on almost every other front, the worst president we’ve ever had, and should be on trial for war crimes and many other abuses.
If Bush is classy in his post-presidency, perhaps it’s further proof that Bush and the presidency were never a good fit.
Ian
@Toast:
I guarantee to you that if you take a pumpkin and a gun out into your backyard this can be explained. Depending on the explosion of pumpkin seeds this will prove if it was Bill or Hillary who killed Vince Foster.
JMY
I’ve actually thought about this many times. Does anybody think that if he didn’t have Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Addington, Libby, etc – the neo-cons – and more people like Powell, that he could have been a decent – not good, not great, – just decent president? He had some sensible people in his administration, but they were blocked out by the big boys. Whoever wasn’t in line got let go, such as Paul O’Neill his first Treasury sec.
RW_Gadfly
Out of curiosity, did you maintain the same principle when, in particular, Carter and, to a lesser extent, Clinton were sniping at GWB from the sidelines?
I’m just trying to get a sense of when you think it’s right for former presidents to bite their tongue and when it’s not.
And, so that you know, I’ve never said anything but that Cheney should respect that same tradition. It’s a good tradition, IMO. It doesn’t mean that they have to lose their opinions or anything. But I’m sure the line to the Oval Office is always open to any former president who had something they wanted to get off their chest to the current occupant.
On substance, I’ve agreed with most (not all) of Cheney’s criticisms. But the fact that he’s the one out there doing it says more about the pathetic state of his party than anything else. If somebody like Boehner or McConnell were to say the same things, nobody would care.
I’m sure you agreed on substance with what Carter had to say about GWB. But did you support him going about it the way he did? If so, why the double standard?
RW_Gadfly
I’ve thought the same thing, but for different reasons — which stands to reason, as it was GWB’s domestic, rather than foreign, policy that soured me on him.
As for Cheney, Rummy, & Co, I think the biggest fault there wasn’t so much going in the direction they advocated, but being way too slow to pivot on Iraq. The changes he made there in early 2007 should’ve come at least 18 months earlier than they did. And it’s no secret that Cheney and Bush were mostly at odds in the last couple years of his term.
But, to your point, I’ve come to think quite a bit of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels — on fiscal policy, anyway. He’s precisely what the GOP should strive to model, IMO.
He was GWB’s first budget director and it’s come out that he was a lone voice in the administration advocating spending cuts to go along with the tax cuts. Obviously, he didn’t get his way and he ended up leaving the administration largely because of that.
Daniels was to Bush what Stockman was to Reagan. Neither of them minded the tax-cutting — which is fine with me. But both of them unsuccessfully fought to pair the tax cuts with spending cuts…and both of them were frustrated about it.
I really hope Daniels runs in 2012 — and I really hope that he gets the nomination….rather than some populist fruitcake like Sarah Palin. He’s what “conservative” ought to come to mean.
JMY
Trust me, I am no fan of any of GWB policies, but just reading and watching documentaries about the run up to Iraq and the internal battles in the administration, it was is apparent that even though he had the final say, he was really a puppet for Cheney & Rumsfeld. I don’t think he ever or will ever realize just how much they used “Daddy’s Boy” for their agenda. I’m sure he may have held some beliefs that they had, but I don’t think he would have went forward with any of it if they were not in his administration. They (Cheney & Rumsfeld) really ran that WH for the first four years. I just find it amazing how he had all these sensible people who would constantly tell him he shouldn’t do this or that because it would hurt our country yet he would always side with the neo-cons. It’s just mind boggling.
metalgirl
@MattF: Thank you for putting this so well!
Deschanel
Faint-ass praise from me too, at least for this: mouth-breathing fool David Gregory taking up Limbaugh and Beck’s asinine talking point:
GREGORY: In some circles, the President’s been criticized for politicizing this disaster. Do you think that’s fair?
BUSH: I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been briefed by the President about the response. And as I said in my opening comment, I appreciate the President’s quick response to this disaster.
Small credit where due. But what in the fuck did Gregory expect Bush to say, in the middle of a bipartisan humanitarian effort? “Why yes David, I agree Obama is politicizing this disaster . That’s why I’m here, to help him politicize it for Democratic advantage. Idiot.”
David Gregory is the stupidest man on television. Awful cretin.
Neutron Flux
Passionately hoping that this thread is dead, because I have to say that I agree with John Cole.
See how I say I agree but not mention what I agree about.
Some things are just not sayable out loud.
Wile E. Quixote
@kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah, I wonder how long it will be before Erick Ericksdottir and John “Assrocket” Hinderaker post blog entries claiming that this proves that Bush was never a conservative and that they never supported him because it was obvious from the start that the was a crypto-liberal who was on a mission to destroy the true conservative principles handed down by Ronaldus Magnus.
LarryB
@Jill: I’d chalk it up to W fulfilling a filial duty. The Clinton charity thing was always Pappy’s gig. He’s just too damn old now, so Junior is filling in for him. In short, he inherited it. Sound familiar?
Wile E. Quixote
@RW_Gadfly
Out of curiosity do right wing assholes like you have any rhetorical technique other than continually offering up false equivalencies? Out of curiosity do you have a second anal sphincter located where everyone else has a mouth so you can spout shit from both ends? Out of curiosity when did Carter or Clinton ever attack GWB on national security the way that Cheney has president Obama? The answer to that would be never, even though Bush deserves to be attacked for not heeding the warnings about potential terrorist attacks that he received in 2001, for letting Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora and then starting a war in Iraq.
Out of curiosity why do you still identify yourself as being a member of the right wing? I mean seriously, the right wing in this country is composed of ignoramuses and morons (Sarah Palin), racist assholes (Rush Limbaugh, Joe Wilson, Michael Savage), deranged religious fanatics (Pat Robertson, Rick Warren), pathetic closet cases (Larry Craig, Mark Foley, etc, etc, etc), sexual deviants and adulterers (David Vitter, John Ensign, Newt Gingrich, Mark Sanford, etc, etc, etc), cowards who love the military and wars but who never served their country (Dick Cheney, Jonah Goldberg, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, in fact 99.9 percent of all conservatives under the age of 70) and drunken fuckups (Dick Cheney, George W. Bush). Are there any right-wingers out there who aren’t incompetent, cowardly, closeted and massively hypocritical? If there are please name a few of them, come on, tell me that your movement has at least one Barry Goldwater in it (who would probably be rejected by the right these days because he was competent, served his country, was faithfully married to the same woman for 50 years and believed in individual liberty) and isn’t just a bunch of bigots and retards who are pissed off because a black man got elected president and they’re too fat to fit into their old Klan regalia.
Wile E. Quixote
@JMY
No. He would have been less of a fuckup, but he would have been a fuckup nonetheless. And he’s the president, the man in charge, if there were sensible people in his administration and if they were blocked out by Cheney et al then it’s nobody’s fault but his. It was his responsibility to not appoint idiots like Cheney in the first place as well as being his responsibility to not let those idiots bring more idiots into his administration (Addington, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, etc).
Laura W
@Wile E. Quixote: pssstttt….
Did you hear about my steamy holiday BJ discount?
Nice to see you back!
Cat Lady
@Wile E. Quixote:
This. And a cigarette.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jill
Jesus H. Christ, that’s as ridiculous as anything I’ve seen posted at Firedoglake or DailyKos. Yeah, Jeb Bush is going to run in 2012. What’s his campaign slogan going to be? “I’m Jeb Bush, vote for me because I’m not a fuckup like my brother George”. Watching Jeb Bush run would be fantastic, he’d either have to completely distance himself from his brother’s administration, which would make for some delightful tension within the Bush family, or he’d have to claim it, which wouldn’t be popular with anyone, including the teabaggers who are trying to distance themselves from the eight years of sustained failure that was the second Bush administration by claiming that Dubya was never really a conservative.
Brian J
Maybe Obama has decided to pull a Truman, acting as if Bush was Hoover and letting him do good work around the world in order to repair his reputation. Classy move, if true.
brantl
First, Douche IS Hoover, without the charm, or decency, or any redeeming qualities; second, I think Obama is sending him out to play in traffic (since he’s got Clinton bull-dogging him to not do anything TOO stupid) so that Bush gets to make a complete ass of himself in a non-partisan setting. And he will, you know he will. The difference between Bush and Sarah Palin is he would generally shut up quicker, when he was making a fool of himself.
r€nato
GW Bush is doing (until the Ex-Presidents Haiti relief effort) exactly what I was hoping he would do in retirement:
STFU and go away.
I do give him credit for helping out to raise relief effort funds (will Rush approve?), but let’s hope he doesn’t get the idea in his head to get behind the stick of a relief plane flying into Port-au-Prince…