text:
January 19, 2009
Here's the post where you can say good-bye to George Bush.
193 comments:
- Roberto said...
Good riddance.
- George M. Spencer said...
He wasn't hawkish enough on Iraq, as he failed to go in with maximum force against the enemy.
He wasn't hawkish enough at home against the opposition party.
And the economy thing didn't go so well, either.
And, Michael, we'll check in with you in four or eight years and see how you feel about the new guy then. - 1/19/09, 5:41 PM
- oldirishpig said...
A good man, who didn't bend with the polls. His domestic policies frequently left me unhappy but he did his job with grace and good humor. Happy Trails, Mr. Bush!
- Harsh Pencil said...
I've been told "good riddance" lots of times, but always by women.
- John Burgess said...
'Won't get kicked around anymore?'
Are Pelosi, DU, the Kos Kids and Michael signed on?
Last I heard--about 15 minutes ago--they were busy greasing up the tumbril axles. - 1/19/09, 5:43 PM
- The Crack Emcee said...
Georgie Boy is The Man - and he will be missed at TMR.
- Sissy Willis said...
A man of honor, something we haven't seen of late on the other side of the aisle.
- I'm Full of Soup said...
I wish the best to the last "no drama" president we will see for at least 4 years.
- Skyler said...
I already miss the lack of scandals. The democrats seem incapable of operating without them.
Bush is like his father – An extreme socialist who knows how to start wars but doesn't know how to fight them.
Besides being a decent honorable man, the only reason he was president and was reelected is because he wasn't as evil as Al Gore, or as buffoonish as John Kerry. Not that he isn't buffoonish.
The Bushes have done their level best to destroy the rebuilding begun by Reagan. Reagan was the first to really take on the task of dismantling the horrors of the New Deal, and now not only has that effort been ruined, but a Newer Deal is now on its way. Government is bigger and more intrusive than even FDR would have imagined.
The CPUSA couldn't have dreamed of a better result.
Mr. President, I stood by you for eight years hoping that despite your domestic socialist tendencies that you would fight this war against Muslim fanatics. You failed to use the bully pulpit and keep the American people engaged. You failed to understand that the center of gravity in war is the people, and in a republican democracy our greatest weakness is the people. When Americans fight wars they must fight hard and fast to win. Going into Afghanistan and Iraq with minuscule forces was guaranteed to embolden our enemies and cause our own people to lose hope.
And the absolute worst thing that generations will curse you for had nothing to do with the war. The bank and big three bailout will be remembered as the time that the American experiment died.
Thanks for trying, but you ended up being worse than a loser, you destroyed the hope of our nation. - 1/19/09, 5:55 PM
- Steve M. Galbraith said...
A good man who wasn't capable of doing the job. Events drove him more than he was driving events.
The job overwhelmed him and he was incapable of listening to the right people and understanding the fuller historical consequences of his decisions.
It's a shame that such small men - people like a Keith Olbermann or a Frank Rich - were given such an opportunity for their small minded mischief. He gave them the chance, and they ran with it.
We've had (and will have) worse presidents. And worse men and women as president. - 1/19/09, 5:57 PM
- lohwoman said...
"Mr. President, I have just come from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. I stood where you stood. I saw what you saw. I smelled what you smelled," Kieschnick said. "You not only have a civil calling, but a divine calling…. You are not just a civil servant; you are a servant of God called for such a time like this."
"I accept the responsibility," Bush said, nodding.
(From an article in Christianity Today of Nov. 2, 2001.)
Thank you for your service. I hope that someday you have grandchildren who will love you unconditionally. - 1/19/09, 6:03 PM
- ricpic said...
If your pencil's full of lead they'll hang around,
If your pencil's full of lead they'll hang around,
It's when your pencil's soft and wobbly
That you'll lose their gobbly gobbly,
If your pencil's full of lead they'll hang around. - 1/19/09, 6:04 PM
- David said...
Mr. President:
Thank you for your hard work and especially for your role in preventing another terrorist attack on our country for the past seven years.
You will probably be truly credited with this achievement only if we are successfully attacked sometime in the next eight years. Here's hoping (as I am sure someone of your patriotism and decency does also) that you will never have the benefit of this comparison. - 1/19/09, 6:04 PM
- The Crack Emcee said...
ricpic, you kill me.
- Beth said...
Heckuva job, Bushie.
I remember his 2000 campaign promise to restore dignity and honor to the office of President. I believe he succeeded.
- Chennaul said...
I think Bush was hated because that was easier.
9/11 was hard-no one really chose that-it was beyond our control in a lot of respects.
A lot of people can't handle that bad happens, that you can't control it.
The best that you can do is adjust and adapt.
Believe it or not given the current rhetoric-people don't like change and 9/11 was a game changer.
The media hated Bush because they've always been in control of the information, they've shaped it and bent it at their will- and when 9/11 happened for a brief window of time the public woke up and were faced with reality, not the media produced perception of it.
When 9/11 happened you couldn't escape the evidence-here were the buildings, here are the dead, here is who they were. In a rush to get it out fast, for once they weren't producing but responding they didn't have time to filter it, tweak it and twist it. The media got a sense of this-that they were no longer making the news but actually reporting it and they felt their power beginning to slip.
What was the first thing that they the media did?
The began to EDIT.
They decided that YOU couldn't handle the truth.
People jumping to their deaths rather than face being burned alive?
Too much for you-you can't handle it.
Hey and that's the way America liked it.
Thy didn't want to face it, know it, they wanted to go back to the Clinton days of sweeping terrorism under the rug-where YOU didn't have to see it.
They began editorializing,critiquing, opining.
Hell the media even blamed YOU- America for 9/11 and on some level America liked that-you felt back -in control.
George Bush told you we were going to have to do the hard stuff-
fight and face reality.
Accept that there is evil and that it can't be good-willed away.
He was hated for that - 1/19/09, 6:14 PM
- Meade said...
I've already sent George W. Bush my personal expressions of gratitude for saving the world.
So here, instead, I'm going to say, "Thank you to Ann Althouse:"
For setting the example of a good liberal with courage, conviction, and independent mindfulness and intelligence. The social and professional pressures on you up there, blogging in your lonely outpost in Madison, Wisconsin, must have been enormous.
I look forward to your further efforts to blog the Obama presidency with the same cold icy cruel eye that only a blogging diva of the highest order can deliver.
Godspeed and God bless you. - 1/19/09, 6:15 PM
- Michael Haz said...
Godspeed, Mr. Bush. You served your country well. Thank you.
- Steve M. Galbraith said...
So here, instead, I'm going to say, "Thank you to Ann Althouse:"
Good point.
With this change in Administrations, it might be a good time to express our thanks to Ann for her good humor and intelligence and fun.
I'm mostly a lurker but I've enjoyed her posts.
I've no idea but I bet she's a heckuva teacher. Hard and demanding. The best type.
Thanks Ann. - 1/19/09, 6:18 PM
- Meade said...
Nice to see you back in these parts, SMG.
- Methadras said...
President Bush it was an honor to have you as my President. While I didn't agree with everything you set forth in your compassionate conservatism agenda, I at least would like to extend my gratitude and heart-felt thank you for a job that is at many times thankless and burdening a responsibility that even I would shrink from if given the opportunity. Thank you for the unending support and gratitude you've shown to our fighting men and women. Thank you for at least trying to keep this country safe. And most of all thank you for having a spine of steel that distinguishes men who act on conviction, wisdom, information, and intelligence vs. those who simply talk the talk but couldn't put two feet together to pretend it was a walk. Take care and God bless you.
- Eli Blake said...
I already miss the lack of scandals.
yeah. riiiigghht.
I think that Bush will be remembered a lot like Jimmy Carter: Maybe a good man, but a man of limited talents and abilities who was in way, way over his head. - 1/19/09, 6:25 PM
- chickelit said...
Thanks George and good luck.
I also want to say goodbye to my decades-long print media subscription to The Economist, which runs out this month and will not be renewed. Their truly disappointing conjoining with the American media in reviling Bush this past year was just too much for me. Parts of you will be missed, but not the American editor, whoever you are. - 1/19/09, 6:26 PM
- Kirk Parker said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Ken Pidcock said...
He is a good man. He is genuinely compassionate. He is a role model for fitness and sobriety. If everyone I know possessed his character, I would be grateful.
But he never should have been President of the United States of America. He has valued loyalty over authority in a way that has done us harm.
I hope he enjoys his life. Having worked so tirelessly for us, he deserves to.
And, oh yeah,
A man of honor, something we haven't seen of late on the other side of the aisle.
he would never say that. - 1/19/09, 6:28 PM
- Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...
Happy trails, Boss, and thanks for 8 years of dedication and service in tough times.
- Psota said...
the man goes out with his head held high, and secure with the knowledge that - despite everything that was thrown at him - he never lost his dignity. I don't know what he plans to do with his time now, but I will make one daring prediction: he will not be jetting around the world fund raising from dictators and third world corporate oligarchs; nor will he be traveling to woe-begotten tyrranies to declare their latest sham elections to be "basically fair," nor will he grow wealthy traveling the world by private jet giving speeches about the imminent melting of the icecaps.
And, just as liberals look back at their hounding of the progressive Lyndon Johnson with regret, we will regret that we did not recognize that this was a president who was the the liberator of Iraq and Afghanistan, the strongest pro-life voice to occupy the office, the strongest friend of Israel, the finest annointer of judges and justices, a crusader for AIDS relief in Africa, and above all The Decider.
And no matter what, I think we will miss him more than we know. - 1/19/09, 6:30 PM
- Kirk Parker said...
"I think Bush was hated because that was easier."
That's definitely part of it. The End of History™ ended, the fact that it happened on Bush's watch made him a natural target for those who resented the intrusion on their rosy scenario.
But not me; I'll join with you, and Meade, and Althouse herself, and many others, in expressing our thanks for doing an often-thankless job. - 1/19/09, 6:32 PM
- Eli Blake said...
I would second Meade's comment.
Bush is a good man. But so was Forrest Gump, in the movie. But I wouldn't want him as President. And unlike Forrest Gump, Bush's run of good luck ran out shortly after the Florida recount. - 1/19/09, 6:34 PM
- Chennaul said...
Mr. President, I stood by you for eight years hoping that despite your domestic socialist tendencies that you would fight this war against Muslim fanatics. You failed to use the bully pulpit and keep the American people engaged. You failed to understand that the center of gravity in war is the people, and in a republican democracy our greatest weakness is the people. When Americans fight wars they must fight hard and fast to win. Going into Afghanistan and Iraq with minuscule forces was guaranteed to embolden our enemies and cause our own people to lose hope.
You know how you define failure?
By throwing the same formula around and using it in every environment and not adapting or accepting that there are-
Let's say your suggested path was chosen- what would have happened if we went in with a huge number of troops?
What would be the exponential number of support troops needed for every fighter sent?
You know, medical, logistical, supply, transportation COMM guys, security, how many more mess tents....
Now hell what have you just given the enemy-you know the one that is small, rapid moving, with not much of a command structure, and you know fights-asymmetrically.
One BIG FAT SLOW MOVING TARGET.
Also more base camps, and more targets, oh and a BIGGER number of KILLS.
The media was salivating at the chance to draw a parallel between the number of dead on 9/11 and the number of military killed.
So imagine if the enemy could have blown up a thousand or two in the first months.
Think the public could have stomached that?
We'll never know-but I doubt it. - 1/19/09, 6:36 PM
- CarmelaMotto said...
I think Harry Truman was extremely unliked/unpopular. He also had a close election...
I also want to say thanks W. - 1/19/09, 6:41 PM
- Trooper York said...
Eli Blake is a nincompoop.
In the plethora of Bush criticism, I've never seen an single example of how Gore or Kerry would have handled it better.
- Eli Blake said...
Thanks for spelling out more or less what I was trying to get at.
During the campaign in 2000, his qualifications for the job were questioned (remember how his campaign responded by trumpeting loudly how as a 'C' student-- he could somehow better relate to the rest of us-- to which the response was that without his family connections any other 'C' student in high school would never have even gotten into Yale.) But he did end up winning anyway.
During the next eight years we saw that the Presidency is an extraordinary job, and just having an 'average' guy there is very dangerous. After all, would you want an 'average' guy as your heart surgeon, or an 'average' guy overseeing your retirement account?
People figured after eight years of Clinton in which nothing much happened, that 'average' was OK. The challenging events of the Bush Presidency (some of which were his own making and some were not) and his failure to adequately deal with them has made it clear that 'average' is not good enough for the most important job in the world. - 1/19/09, 6:42 PM
- Steve M. Galbraith said...
He has valued loyalty over authority in a way that has done us harm.
Hmm, I'm not sure it was loyalty as much as it was passivity.
He clearly allowed a Rove to be involved in matters that he had no business doing. And Rove was driven by electoral politics which views the short term over the long term and favors winning over governing.
Loyalty? Passivity? Perhaps both.
Bush never seemed to have a deeper understanding of history, of the longer term consequences of his decisions. Granted, 9/11 was such a shock that everything was thrown into disarray.
But it's times such as 9/11 where sobriety and equanimity are especially needed.
And Bush had none of it.
The job - and the events of 9/11 - simply overwhelmed him. - 1/19/09, 6:42 PM
- Smilin' Jack said...
a good man.
Yes--too good. From Putin to the mujahideen, he misunderestimated the evil that can lurk in the hearts of men, and the focus and intensity required to defeat it.
Also, though he's not stupid, he's no intellectual either, and you can't run a war or an economy by the seat of your pants. A good heart is ineffective without a good head.
Let's hope Obama is enough of a smart, cynical bastard to make a good president. - 1/19/09, 6:43 PM
- Beta Conservative said...
The age of adolescent angst, retribution, and irrational hope is now fully with us.
We have traded in an unglamorous but effective Commander in Chief for a state legislator/magic unicorn, and God help us all.
The crazies won't let you rest, insisting you be harassed to the bitter end.
Your last inauguration cost 50 mil, and you were ridiculed for insensitivity. The Annointing runs about 160 mil, and your detractors are gushing and celebratory.
I miss you already. Thanks for keeping my family safe for seven treachorous years. - 1/19/09, 6:47 PM
- Simon said...
Beth wins the thread.
Althouse said...
"Now, tired old George can retreat to Texas and not be kicked around anymore."
He'll still be the whipping boy. Everything will continue to be Bush's fault until it ceases to be useful. After Labour defeated the Tories in England in 1997, everything was the Tories' fault, and continued to be for years, even after the following election, long past the point where it had ceased to be a credible excuse; the same result will obtain here, I suspect. Think of those brainwashed legions of Obama devotees: which do you think they will find easier, to accept that their messiah has failed, or to blame Bush for making such a mess that even Barack's herculean efforts couldn't fix it? - 1/19/09, 6:50 PM
- Chennaul said...
Eli Blake is not a nincom poop!
Look right away he proves what I just said two posts up in this thread that Americans loved Clinton because he swept terrorism under the rug.
Here Eli says-
People figured after eight years of Clinton in which nothing much happened
Umm let's see
The Khobar Towers
The USS Cole
Bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
A little genocide in Rwanda and he's right not much happened.
We didn't do a shit all about it. - 1/19/09, 6:51 PM
- Chip Ahoy said...
Good bye.
- Skyler said...
You seem to misunderstand me. I didn't say that our military should be a big slow moving target. Our army has for many years been largely just that, but that isn't the right way either.
Cheney and Rumsfeld had a military philosophy, perhaps they were influenced by the wrong crowd during Viet Nam, that small elite forces can win wars. This is not true and never has been. Such forces are good for raids, for training other militaries, but not for winning wars.
When we started the war in Afghanistan we went with just two battalions. TWO FRICKING BATTALIONS! Someone acquiesced to the rather idiotic idea that we could rely on Afghan militias to fight for us. Gee, I wonder why bin Laden got away? When you use mercenaries, you lose, because they go to the highest bidder.
Then we invaded Iraq with about half the troops we used to oust Saddam from Kuwait. Just think about that monumental stupidity -- occupying a hostile country with just two divisions. Idiotic.
Our failure to provide security emboldened the enemy and that's when our big fat slow army got kicked around daily by a few highly motivated murderers.
Bush was responsible for all of these failures, he was the commander in chief. Forty-eight good men in my battalion are dead because Bush failed to understand that mass is critical in any war. One under strength battalion covering 100 miles of the most contested part of the Euphrates was criminally incompetent by the generals who were afraid to cross Bush and Rumsfeld.
When we were replaced by five battalions, suddenly the place was peaceful. Imagine that.
Yeah, I'm still angry about it. - 1/19/09, 6:55 PM
- The rule of Lemnity said...
History will be good to 43. Specially if we let down our guard and get hit again.
- Chennaul said...
You've got class I should join you and simply thank the President. - 1/19/09, 6:57 PM
- Tibore said...
I recall people ripping Reagan when he was in office too, albeit not with the vehemence that critics used on Bush. And I've been told that Truman was looked down on in his day too.
History will judge. And will be far more levelheaded than hyperventilating pundits of this day will be. I don't see his as a terrific legacy - his economic policies weren't all that good, IMO, not conservative enough - but I see his actions towards Afghanistan and Iraq being seen in a far different light in the future. - 1/19/09, 7:00 PM
- Chennaul said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Diamondhead said...
Farewell, President Bush.
- Chennaul said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Chennaul said...
Forty-eight good men in my battalion are dead because Bush failed to understand that mass is critical in any war.
Skyler I'm sorry-I don't know what to tell you, or how to respond without some stupid platitude.
The theories of war-they don't account for the individuals.
I think that the military survives as a whole because it whipes that distinction out.
Tradition, the uniform.
You lost forty eight men and there is no making that up.
The United States can never pay its military enough.
Skyler you've got a right to be angry.
So I guess I get where you are coming from a lot more now.
Hang in there. - 1/19/09, 7:16 PM
- Shahid said...
Few presidents are as tested as G. W. Bush was, and for our sakes I do not wish the same for Obama. But GW was, and he had his triumphs, he made his mistakes.
Thank you, Mr. President, for seeing the country through through these consequential years. Thank you for helping keep us safe, for bringing an example of freedom to a part of the world that desperately needs it, and for engaging Africa in a way that actually allowed aid to actually help those who needed it, and bring them opportunity, and not simply enrich the pockets and bellies of its warlords.
May your experiments succeed. And may you one day receive your due. - 1/19/09, 7:18 PM
- Beth said...
I agree with your prediction, but how did you overlook the longstanding practice of blaming Clinton for everything that went wrong during the Bush years? - 1/19/09, 7:20 PM
- rcocean said...
Goodbye George,
You certainly were compassionate - too bad you weren't competent or conservative.
P.S. Tell Jeb not to run for the Senate. - 1/19/09, 7:23 PM
- Ah Pooh said...
As Meade wrote -
"Thank you to Ann Althouse -
For setting the example of a good liberal with courage, conviction, and independent mindfulness and intelligence. The social and professional pressures on you up there, blogging in your lonely outpost in Madison, Wisconsin, must have been enormous."
I second that, can't say it any better so I won't even try. - 1/19/09, 7:26 PM
- Mme Victorine said...
A good and honorable man. He kept us safe. I've never understood the left's irrational hatred for this man, but it all started with 2000 Florida recount (which they initiated). If you file a lawsuit, you just might lose. I still remember Berkeley, Dec. 2000 and the signs saying "He's not my president." That's what it all boiled down to--they wanted to be in control. We'll see if Obama lets them. There's still time to e-mail President Bush at the White House website and thank him. I did. Thanks Ann for bringing this up.
- traditionalguy said...
He was firm where it counted. He was weak in other places trying to to look non-hostile. The mixture was frustrating because when supporting the Strong Bush, you had to support the Weak Bush. Go in peace. Your strategery needed quicker adjustments to moves by very determined foes here and abroad. Write a tell all book as soon as possible.
- JAL said...
On behalf of myself and my family, we thank you, President Bush.
May God bless you and your family. - 1/19/09, 7:36 PM
- Kensington said...
Goodbye, Mr. President. Thank you for keeping the country safe, for your steadfast protection of the unborn, for Justices Alito and Roberts, for the tax cuts, and for trying to address the social security mess.
It was an honor to vote for you twice. You were a welcome respite from the immaturity and foolishness that so often characterize Democrat rule. Thank you for being an adult. - 1/19/09, 7:39 PM
- JAL said...
As for those who have written President Bush should not have been president, or was in over his head ...
Al Gore?
John Kerry?
And you think Obama will not be in over his head from Day One?
I see his White House counsel actively has pursued defending a man who murdered in ambush a United States soldier in Panama.
For all his "charm" the pattern of inappropriate and questionable associations and choices continues. - 1/19/09, 7:42 PM
I can think of no one finer way to say good-bye to President Bush than in these words from Charles Krauthammer:
The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these past seven years.
Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power."
Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.
Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.
In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains.
Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.
Which I suspect is why Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgment of how much he got right. - 1/19/09, 7:45 PM
- bagoh20 said...
Thank You George W. Bush and the American service people you lead
For 2680 days (7 yrs, 4 months) well funded, crazed lunatics who were willing to do anything, wanted to kill you and me, our friends and families. They had not one single successful attack on their most desired target. Miraculous!
7 years ago no one would have imagined it possible. While terrorists succeeded over and over with murderous results elsewhere all around the world, they could not where they wanted to most. More amazingly, this most open and free of nations had to sacrifice very little of it's liberty or convenience to accomplish this incredible success.
"It's always easier to be with the jeering crowd than to stand aside from it."
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. "
Bush spent all the political capitol we gave him, keeping none for himself and willfully accepted widespread derision and our pathetic 30% approval as the price. We are an ungrateful lot and that is the most despicable and self destructive of traits. I, for one, am grateful.
50 million people (2 entire nations) liberated from the despotic rule of fanatics, rapists and murderers. May the taste of liberty, now known and provided at great cost, never be forsaken. - 1/19/09, 7:46 PM
- The Bearded Professor said...
I say, professor, well put.
- Charlie Eklund said...
Thank you, President Bush. May God bless you all the rest of your days.
- hdhouse said...
don't let the door hit you in the ass.
- Kirk Parker said...
"Write a tell all book as soon as possible."
Oh my goodness, no no NO!
Let him make all the notes he wants now, but a book should only come after a significant interval. Otherwise it will just be greeted by today's BDS; and who the heck needs that? - 1/19/09, 8:17 PM
- MadisonMan said...
A good and honorable man. He kept us safe.
Well, yeah, if you ignore that thing on 11 Sep 01.
Bye George! Enjoy your retirement and leisure, you've certainly earned it. - 1/19/09, 8:18 PM
- Deb said...
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- KCFleming said...
I'd by you a beer, Mr. Bush, if only because you gave the finger to the mainstream media and Hollywood left, a fifth column opposed to everything goddamned thing you did.
Their relentless anti-Americanism succeeded, but you gave it a good shot, so I salute you.
And now my eyes are open, and I see things as they are, and that I have no home, not here, among strangers who detest what I was raised to love.
So thanks for the lesson, for the effort, for the war; its horrors were less than appeasement offered; and thanks for unmasking the left, for now I am awake. - 1/19/09, 8:30 PM
- KCFleming said...
At least the Dalai lama loves you.
George W. Bush rode into office having just barely survived one of the closest elections in years. He arrived however, with one of the most ambitious social and economic plans ever. Plans to elevate the educational level of every child in America. Plans to reform a broken Social Security System. Plans to create jobs, both here in America, and overseas, where vast sums had been spent on foreign aid. A plan to fight the AIDS epidemic, not just here but world wide. Plans to end poverty, fight crime, fix a broken healthcare system and reform an out of control tort system. He had big plans, and big surpluses to spend! Good times!. What he didn't have planned was 9-11. Plans changed. Priorities changed. Although he got a good head start with tax reform and his No Child Left Behind Act, other aspects of his goals for us changed, or at least got shoved aside. We stood behind him as he led us well during those dark days, and we thanked the Lord it was him and not the other guy that we elected.
The world can turn oh so quickly however. It wasn't long before his distracters pointed out to us that it was 7 whole minutes after he found out about the World Trade Center before he left that classroom full of kids. No matter that it took that long for the Secret Service to determine that it was safe to move and where to go. 7 whole minutes that I guess they say were wasted, somehow. Somehow it pointed to indecisiveness, they said.
When the African embassies where bombed by al Qaida during the Clinton administration, Clinton responded by somewhat blindly sending a few cruise missiles into a closed terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Bill Clinton knew full well the threat of Osama Bin Laden. Our intelligence agencies had developed a lot of info on him and al Qaida. One country even tried to turn him over to us, but Clinton passed. Also during the Clinton administration we fought a running verbal battle with Saddam Hussein. We didn't just think he had weapons of mass destruction, we KNEW he did. Bill Clinton kept the heat on him and the U.N. kept its inspectors busy looking. Iraq kept up a cat and mouse game of blocking inspections, then allowing the inspectors in, only to find empty buildings. How do we know Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Because we monitored the destruction of a great many of them. Trouble was, not all that we knew they had was there record of there destruction. They claimed shoddy record keeping. This from a country however that kept meticulous records on any and everything, no matter how minute or trivial. Clinton didn't buy it then, and Bush didn't buy it either. Fact is, the whole world didn't buy it. The question was, just how long should we allow the inspectors to keep looking. We never found those weapons of mass destruction, so, it became Bush's "lie". Even though almost all of the intelligence was gathered during the previous Clinton administration it became Bush's fault. They like to say "lie".
We accused Bush of not doing enough to uncover the 9-ll plot before it happened. Now that he's put into place systems that would have perhaps uncovered the plot we cry foul. He's treading on our "rights". We accused his father of not completing the task by removing Saddam during the first Gulf War, then blame the son for removing him now. We cry to pull out now, before the job is done, though we know full well that only chaos would ensue. That, and the loss of any credibility we have as a leader and power in the world. There are those that say we only went there because of the oil, when we could have had the oil simply by ending the sanctions.
Politics does create strange bedfellows. There are those that would have us believe that a man who went to Yale and graduated from Harvard with a rather hefty degree is somehow a stupid oaf. Most of those that call him stupid couldn't come close to getting into Yale, much less Harvard. The last election pitted one Yale alumnus against another. Both where 'bonesmen', both having been inducted into a secret society that only chooses the very cream of the crop for membership. Both served this country admirably during a highly unpopular war. Kerry chose his branch of service as a badge of honor, emulating Kennedy, but knowing full well at the time that the coastal patrol was seldom put in harms way. Bush chose the Air Guard because it was an easier way of getting to be a fighter pilot, his dad having been a pilot during WWII. At the time he joined they pulled Guardsmen to active duty regularly. Both, however, were unarguably legitimate services to our country. The only confusion came from those with a motive. Some folks profit from such confusion. (By the way, they don't let stupid people become fighter pilots)
Bush's administration suffered a huge blow on 9-11. The economy crashed, taking industries and stocks down with the twin towers. The war on terrorism has cost a fortune. It's created huge deficits. It ended the plans Bush had to use those surpluses he inherited. The money was spent to protect us, yet we fault him for spending it, all the while still demanding protection. Katrina blew away what was left along with the Gulf Coast. Bush was blamed, as if manipulating the weather was a Presidential purgative. The levee's failed in New Orleans. The haters even said that Bush had them dynamited. Blame was tossed everywhere. But it all really had to be Bush's fault, they said. But, even with all of the above, our economy soared. Bush's economic policies work! Stocks soared. Growth was at extremely high levels. Unemployment was less than ever, almost a whole percentage point below what is considered full employment. Inflation was almost negligible. Yet, Bush's approval rating for handling the economy: only about 36 percent. That can only be described as baffling. Either that, or the public was being conned by those that oppose him. And don't think that there aren't those that oppose him in places that can do just that. Bush has never been a darling of the press. Then the dems came along… no longer a Republican legislature to work with him.
They call him a liar, yet can't point to a single example that can't be immediately shot down. They say he is racist, even though he began his administration with dreams of elevating minorities threw educational opportunities and real fixes to societies problems; appointing minorities and women to more and loftier positions than any other President. He is supposedly extremely right wing but constantly does things that seem to disappoint the extreme right. They told us his tax cuts where supposedly only to help his rich friends, but somehow they created growth and jobs by the score, just like he said they would. He promised to keep us safe from attack here at home, but we attack him for it. He has enough guts to take the heat for an unpopular war, knowing just how necessary it is to stick it out. He stays true to his convictions, but we aren't used to politicians who won't change their mind with the wind, so we call him stubborn. He told us in the beginning that the fight against terrorism would be long and hard, taking years and years to win. He told us at the start that many people might die in the cause. We wonder why he hasn't been able to finish it by now. He asks God for advice, and we criticize him as a zealot. And just when we think we know him, he goes and does what he said he was going to do, and we are left shocked. Politicians aren't supposed to act that way. They're supposed to care about their legacy and image and poll numbers and such, aren't they? - 1/19/09, 8:34 PM
- Jen Bradford said...
One thing I've mentioned a few times in recent years is that Americans know with absolute certainty when Bush is leaving office. The comparisons to tyrants and claims of incipient fascism always sounded so childish, given this simple fact.
I've wanted the left to face the reality of 9/11 and Islamic fundamentalism without the crutch of Bush-hatred to dodge the hard questions. And I really hope that begins to happen.
Bush may well be a "good man" but he isn't a good leader. He doesn't explain, convince, inspire, identify - it's been weirdly exhausting watching his bafflement. But I've never hated the guy.
I will be much happier about not having to hear the Bush hysterics than I am at not hearing him. - 1/19/09, 8:35 PM
- Steve M. Galbraith said...
At least the Dalai lama loves you.
And millions of Africans alive today thanks to his efforts. - 1/19/09, 8:35 PM
- Patm said...
Farewell, President Bush, and thank you for keeping my kids safe. Thanks that no one blew them up while they were in stadiums or poisoned them in subways or blew them out of the sky when we flew.
Christopher Hitchens is also not sorry that Bush was president for 8 years and explains why, very well:
http://www.slate.com/id/2209133/?from=rss - 1/19/09, 8:36 PM
- Anton said...
It can be stated without fear of serious argument that no previous president has been treated as brutally, viciously, and unfairly as George W. Bush.
Bush 43 endured a deliberate and planned assault on everything he stood for, everything he was involved in, everything he tried to accomplish. Those who worked with him suffered nearly as much (and some even more -- at least one, Scooter Libby, was convicted on utterly specious charges in what amounts to a show trial).His detractors were willing to risk the country's safety, its economic health, and the very balance of the democratic system of government in order to get at him. They were out to bring him down at all costs, or at the very least destroy his personal and presidential reputation. At this they have been half successful, at a high price for the country and its government.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/bush_and_the_bushhaters.html - 1/19/09, 8:38 PM
- Beth said...
Deb, what happened Nov.7th?
- Patm said...
This is the most classless display I've ever seen.
They've lowered themselves to an extreme and nauseating level. - 1/19/09, 8:47 PM
- traditionalguy said...
I am thinking out loud thatBush's achilles heel was his non-feisty verbal leadership style, what with being so compassionate and all. So an antidote tell all book [ When possible, meaning after secrets of war will no longer have to be concealed], should be Ghost Written by Ann Coulter, with a kind, sensitive Forward by W. I think such a book would become his Mission Accomplished moment.
- Rose said...
I think I'm gonna sock - no, shoe - the next person who says something bad about President Bush.
G-d F-cking D-mmit! Don't you realize that all the Bush bashing costs us stature the world over.
Like the wife who criticizes her husband no end to her friends, then is surprised when they don't like him.
It was Clinton who sat there in international press conferences impaled by questions about semen on a dress, who wagged his finger and lied to us, cheated on his wife time and time again, but knew that he could do it, and the somnolent masses would get bored, and he could go on - a lesson many politicians, like Blago, have learned well. deny, deny, deny.
It was Clinton who took down our military, laughed it off when our ships were bombed and our men killed.
It was Clinton who bombed Bosnia, and the left didn't complain. There were no "Clinton lied and people died" signs. Nor will there be if Obama does it.
It was the idiot Gore who set the stage to rip our country apart with his demands to count only the heavily democratic counties in Florida, and his sulky behavior that brought us the phrase "appointed President."
On September 11th, I thanked God I had voted for Bush and not Gore, as I almost did.
His biggest mistake was in pandering to the worries of the pundits, and WAITING to go after Saddam. Had he gone immediately, the WMDs would have been there, and things might have been different.
I've had enough Bush bashing. I've had enough of the kids in my daughter's class drawing horns on Bush's picture in the dictionary, to howls of approval.
It does no good to say it. I'm sad for what we have become. - 1/19/09, 8:56 PM
- MnMark said...
Pres. Bush:
Thanks for restoring some propriety to the White House after the Clinton behavior. You are a person of solid personal integrity and that was a refreshing change from Slick Willie's era.
And you were right to take action against Saddam rather than to continue to let him get away with thumbing his nose at the world and developing his WMDs. Unfortunately there is no way to succeed in turning the muslim world into something like ours. But the experiment had to be tried so that we could relearn the cost of "nation building" (though the liberals won't believe it until they've tried it themselves many times - heck they've been trying "nation building" in our nation - the schools, the inner city, etc - without success for 100 years and it hasn't stopped them).
I regret that you weren't more articulate. It's clear that being articulate a la Reagan, FDR, Lincoln, etc, is a prerequisite to a really successful presidency, especially in a time when there is so much divisiveness. With your misspeakings and boilerplate you made it too easy for your opponents to dismiss your arguments without having to address them.
I regret that you were considered a conservative, and thus tarred conservative causes by association. You are no conservative. You are a right-leaning liberal. And now the far-left liberals will claim that your failures are a failure of conservativism when your failures were because of your liberalism: your desire to nation-build, your support of massive government interference in matters traditionally left to the states such as education, your support for socialist interventions in the marketplace that made it possible for a normal cyclical financial crisis to build to the level it has. Conservatism is going to have to suffer in the wilderness for years while people associate it with you. (The one upside is that the liberals are so completely intellectually bankrupt - few seriously believe that traditional big-government liberalism is going to solve anything - that people will soon grow impatient with liberalism as well.)
You are a good man but were exactly what conservatism and America did not need at this time: an easy target for liberals. - 1/19/09, 8:59 PM
- garage mahal said...
- Nagarajan Sivakumar said...
There are many faults that you can find in Bush and his administration. But nothing changes the fact that he is a fundamentally decent person.
Or the fact that he faced some of the toughest challenges that any President will ever face. And in the process of doing that, he took on the withering and vile hatred spewed from the left with a dignity that will not be matched by any future President.
This is the kind of hatred that he has had to put up with.
Mr.Bush, thank you for your service. It feels so odd for some one like me who was rooting for Gore and Kerry to win in 2000 and 2004 to feel thankful that Bush was President the last 8 years.
And thanks to Mrs.Laura Bush too - i dont think we will ever see another First Lady like her.
George and Laura can finally get some quiet in Texas, where they will not be sorrounded by the poisonous snakes from Washington DC - 1/19/09, 9:04 PM
- Host with the Most said...
God Bless you President Bush.
History will absolutely, without fail, place the Bush haters and bashers on the ashheap of self-centered cowardice. Their descendants will surely be as ashamed of them as the descendants of slave owners today are of their ancestors.
The beauty of America - it allows those weak of character to act as though they actually matter. Bush matters. Bush haters are wastes of life. They can all burn for their demonstrated worthless value to this country (oh, that's right - the Bible promises they will).
Thank you President Bush from me and my family. - 1/19/09, 9:06 PM
- bagoh20 said...
Ive read through most of these comments and it seems fairly consistent that the main difference between those who appreciate Bush's presidency and those who don't is whether or not you acknowledge the obvious accomplishments. If you do, then the statements deriding his intellect, leadership ability, understanding of history , etc. are puzzling. How does a man accomplish such a wide range of deeply important things while being such a dolt. We are talking about saving millions of lives and freeing tens of millions more. I guess he didn't spend enough time on his image. I can forgive that, but not the desire for some to attack it.
- Skeptical said...
Having listened to my departmental and university colleagues speak with grace and erudition yet be absolute fucking morons when it came to making decisions for the common good, and having watched my tongue-tied, untutored neighbors act with practical intelligence and care for the public benefit, I never knew why I would think that any politician's oratorical skills or lack thereof would make two shits difference. I disagreed with Bush on many things, but I do think he was fundamentally decent and that only God knows whether his decisions were wise and only God knows whether they will turn out well. I hope Bush can delight in the burden being lifted from his shoulders.
- Dangerous Dreamer said...
Bush kept us safe and that cannot be denied. If anything happens on Obama's watch (God forbid) no matter what else he does he will be a failure.
- ace said...
"The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small."
Goodnight, George. We could have done so much worse. - 1/19/09, 9:36 PM
- grtflmark said...
Dear Mr. President:
I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul for not only keeping me and my loved ones safe - but also these worthless duncil's denigrating you on this site who would have found themselves publically decapitated in many other countrys for speaking and behaving as the hateful, impotent, imbeciles they are.
Thank you for providing the best economy and opportunites for entrepreneurship in the last 100 years.
Thank you for being a champion of Freedom and Liberty, and a friend to democracy.
Thank you for protecting our borders and thank you for commuting the sentences of Compean and Ramos, undoing the misdeed of a poor Attoney: Johnny Sutton.
Thank you for being a force to keep America;s hopes and pride alive -- and thank you for respecting American's difference of opinion.
Thank you for keeping America a Leader in the world on all fronts: technical, humanitarian and political.
God Bless you - and God Speed, Good President George W. Bush! - 1/19/09, 9:37 PM
- Joe said...
Am I the only one who sees an Iraqi throwing shoes at President Bush in Iraq as wonderful illustration of the freedom Bush gave to that country? In any neighboring country, the incident would never have happened and had it, the man would have been executed. Why are people who whine about imaginary oppression of speech in this country so opposed to other people having even fraction of what we enjoy here? Worse, why do they wish it would end? Iraq had FREE ELECTIONS people. Maybe not perfect, but a damn site better than many country and less corrupted than many others (such as Venezuela.)
One last thing, Bush made a peaceful transition to President. He has been kind and gracious to Obama. Yet, the deranged left is screaming for blood as though we are banana republic. Given their support for Chavez, dislike for Iraqi democracy, I wonder if they hope Obama is their two-bit dictator. - 1/19/09, 9:39 PM
- Eli Blake said...
Let's turn that around. People who extoll the virtues of Bush tend to overlook these accomplishments:
Turning a $250 billion surplus into a one trillion deficit;
Promising to capture the man who led the organization that murdered 3000 Americans 'dead or alive,' and then putting that on the back burner to go fight another war someplace else, against somebody else.
Allowing the United States to kidnap people, several of whom later turned out to have nothing to do with terrorism, and send them to secret prisons thousands of miles away without letting their families know anything about it.
Establishing warrantless wiretaps and other expanded government powers-- encroachments on liberties, in other words-- which will now be used (and hopefully not abused) by Obama.
Condoning torture, making it official that the nation that was able to defeat Nazis and communists without resorting to their methods, was unable to prevail against a bunch of thugs without sacrificing our values to become like them (and in fact we have yet to prevail, at that.)
Issuing media credentials to a man who ran a prostitution ring out of the White House.
On January 20, 2001 the stock market stood at 10,587.60. So not only has President Bush become the first two-term President to so mismanage the economy that the market finished down during his term, but it is down more than 20 percent for his term.
Doubling the national debt.
Yeah, you're right-- people who have a pre-arranged mind do tend to overlook Bush's 'accomplishments.' - 1/19/09, 9:41 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
"Many of us would not abandon the man who needed our support..."
One would think that presidents earn support, rather than just presume it be extended to them. But the sentiment here is instructive in demonstrating just how such stunning incompetence is installed and retained at the highest levels of government.
Thanks, Althouse Blog! You do a service to the majority of Americans who do not share your monarchist vision of American government! We have learned a lot from you on how to hold this country back and restrain it from achieving true greatness. And we won't emulate it! But we have learned as much from your mistakes as we have from that infantile cynicism of yours which prevents you from admitting to them and learning from them.
Here's wishing you a happily delusional 2009! And if you miss the partisan bullshit you and Rove so loved, try seeing if some tinfoil hats won't help. You'll stay safe from Mr. Obama's bad, evil American unity that way, but you'll always have Bush and Co's quixotic characters to fawn over!
Oh, and by the way. Obama's kind words to Bush were completely for political effect. - 1/19/09, 9:44 PM
- David WL said...
Thank you, Mr. President.
May God bless you with a joyful and peaceful retirement.
May he grant you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the courage to know the difference. - 1/19/09, 9:47 PM
- MadisonMan said...
I think Jen Bradford says it best @ 8:35 ('tho I agree with Simon that Beth's comment is the best). Bush is a good man, but not a good leader at all.
Is this country better off now than it was 8 years ago? - 1/19/09, 9:52 PM
- chickelit said...
Eli, it is established fact that the stock market peaked and then declined in the Spring of 2000--before Bush had clinched the primary. It was still in decline as of Jan 2001. 9/11 worsened the market even more. It would have weakened under Gore too.
We can debate the root causes of the housing bubble. I'm not convinced it was Bush's fault. If you insist on smearing this thread with your misconceptions, expect a response. - 1/19/09, 9:53 PM
- Godot said...
Goodbye Mr. President. Thank you for keeping this nation safe for so many years. God bless you for spending so few American lives in the effort to do so.
I know the loss of each and every one of those lives weighed heavily upon you. I know you will carry that burden for remainder of your life.
I want you to know that you did the right thing. Imperfectly. But right. Thank you for that sacrifice. - 1/19/09, 9:54 PM
- chickelit said...
Is this country better off now than it was 8 years ago?
Well MM, my family and I are better off. How about you and yours?
I can't speak for next year because things change. At least there's always hope. :) - 1/19/09, 9:56 PM
- Unknown said...
Good riddance to one of the worst presidents ever, who allowed 9/11 to happen on its watch, who demeaned America with his embrace of torture, who did a few good things but whose overall record is that of incompetence and arrogance. Finally, a 8-year-long national nightmare is over.
- Eli Blake said...
And the economy Bush is handing to Obama is somehow better than the one he got?
It is also likely to go down this year. January 20 is a very specific date at which we hand the keys to a new driver. If you don't like it then pick another date. - 1/19/09, 10:00 PM
- Kevin Hannigan said...
Thank you for doing all you have for our great nation these past eight years. Even if I didn't agree with a couple of your decisions, I know you believed you were doing the right thing. God bless, President Bush.
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
Bush is the Forrest Gump of presidents. I perfectly admit the possibility that history won't be as harsh to him as his country is now, but it won't be kind. I'm sure he is a good guy. I'm sure I would like having a beer with him. I thought he was great while standing at the smoldering ruins of the towers and for about a year afterward. He was fun to listen to and even inspirational - in a highly superficial and hollow way. In the way that defines motivational speakers. But his cheerleading skills didn't make him a good president, and his undeniable involvement in trying, disastrously, to move the country much further to the right than it wanted to go, especially after a crisis, just shows you how silly the guy was. You don't run on the "uniter not a divider" slogan and then shred that motto out of post-crisis caprice. And then there was his allowing the economy to turn to slush. That too.
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
Bush was the Forrest Gump of presidents with none of the luck and all of the incompetence that only Hollywood magic can pretend doesn't matter in a guy with a double-digit IQ.
If we turned the country into a big frat house, I'd surely elect him president. But that's how certain blogs are run, not the United States of America. - 1/19/09, 10:05 PM
- Palladian said...
montana urban legend is the herpes simplex of commenters.
- Skyler said...
Montana wrote: " and his undeniable involvement in trying, disastrously, to move the country much further to the right than it wanted to go"
To the right? Which planet are you living on? He nationalized two entire industries, grew the reach and size of the federal government. That's not exactly traditional rightward policies. - 1/19/09, 10:08 PM
- Donna B. said...
The Office of the President deserves a certain amount of support no matter who holds it.
I didn't agree with much that Jimmy Carter did in office, yet still thought he was a good man, until his recent actions. I didn't agree with much that Bill Clinton did either, but always thought he'd be great fun at a party.
Heck, I felt sorry for LBJ, and I still don't think he was a bad person, even though so many of his actions were full of unintended consequences.
Why would I ever think worse of Bush than any of those other presidents? And I'm not starting out expecting Obama to fail. I'm pretty sure I'm going to disagree a lot with some of his goals, and I may hope for failure of specific ones, but I will not hope for the man to fail.
I think Obama's praise of Bush is sincere, because Obama now has an inkling of what the job is really about. There's no way he knew before, he was just too young and inexperienced. But he's finding out now and I sincerely hope he is a great president
Here's wishing George W. Bush a happy retirement. - 1/19/09, 10:08 PM
- Eli Blake said...
And I love the way Bush supporters like to claim that things would be worse under Gore. Of course this is an unknowable, so they can claim anything they like.
What we do know about Gore is that things would certainly have been different. During the 2000 campaign he promised to limit tax cuts and instead use the surplus to pay down the national debt. He also promised to put Social Security on a 'lockbox.' He promised to increase fuel standards and implement something very similar to the energy policy Obama is talking about, eight years earlier.
We can also infer from the fact that he came out in the summer of 2002 and sharply criticized the Bush administration for shifting the focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, that if he were President Al Gore would not have gone to war in Iraq but would have made finishing the job in Afghanistan a higher priority.
Beyond this, everything is speculation about what Al Gore would have accomplished as President. I believe he would have been a better President than Bush, you may not. But to claim with some degree of certainty that you know that things would have gone similarly (or worse) with Al Gore as President is sort of like suggesting that Utah or USC could have beaten Florida for the BCS title. It's an unknowable, and also an irrelevant argument. - 1/19/09, 10:09 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
"To the right? Which planet are you living on? He nationalized two entire industries, grew the reach and size of the federal government. That's not exactly traditional rightward policies."
It's a good point. While energizing the right, he had no discipline for their philosophy. And turned your movement into a disaster and consigned it to irrelevance.
And then there's Palladian, who writes:
"montana urban legend is the herpes simplex of commenters."
Sounds like you must have some personal experience with that. - 1/19/09, 10:13 PM
- SteveR said...
Sometimes it doesn't take personal experience to recognize a disease.
- Palladian said...
If we turned the country into a big unproductive, vulnerable socialist mess, I'd surely elect Barack Obama president. Oh wait, we have and we did. Thanks Mr Bush!
Ok, it wasn't really your fault, at least not to the degree sophomore co-ed fantasists like montana suburban fable (or whatever) like to believe it was. Like most presidents, you did some good things and some dumb things. You dealt with an extraordinarily bad series of events on September 11th, 2001 and handled it as well as anyone could have been expected to handle it. Your legacy is yet to be determined, since I resist the urge to do the "instant historicising" that is unfortunately so popular in this media environment.
Anyway, so long and thanks for all the fish. - 1/19/09, 10:18 PM
- Palladian said...
"What we do know about Gore is that things would certainly have been different."
My mother uses the word "different" when she hates something I've done. I'll show her a new painting and she says "Oh! That's... different." Meaning "Oh! What a hideous steaming pile of crap!". So using her definition of different, I have to agree. A Gore presidency would have been different indeed . Very different. - 1/19/09, 10:22 PM
- Eli Blake said...
Don't take it personally. He's out of his league when trying to engage in actual debate, so he specializes in vapid insults.
Like a mosquito, he can be irritating but not worth your time to obsess over. - 1/19/09, 10:23 PM
- Palladian said...
"Sounds like you must have some personal experience with that."
Yes, I caught it from your father. - 1/19/09, 10:23 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
Palladian, I'm wondering what you use for your herpes. Most patients relate that Zovirax requires too complicated a regimen, with five pills a day. Valtrex, on the other hand, can be dosed twice daily. Of course, if you need some additional, topical relief, you can always try Denavir cream. Really bad cases also get Zovirax ointment, but highly resistant strains have been increasing among gays, even the kind like yourself that need to prove their weird credentials of pathological hatred for the left.
Of course, the miracle of modern science offers you hope that there will soon be treatments for your strain. Be on the lookout for helicase inhibitors. And there will also be topical virucides for use before getting freaky with whomever it is that's turned on by your saucy, cynicism and ignorance of... pretty much everything but architecture and fiction, from what I gather. - 1/19/09, 10:25 PM
- chickelit said...
I believe he would have been a better President than Bush, you may not.
In fact, I voted for Gore in 2000. Since then, I've watched him become a petulant boob, almost at the level of Michael Moore.
The point you raised about my alleged certainty that Gore would have been worse is both legalistic and pedantic. I simply meant that 9/11 would have further crashed the market on anybody's watch. Gore was the plausible alternative for me to have named. - 1/19/09, 10:27 PM
- Stephen W. Stanton said...
He was a much better president than people think.
No, I am not a huge fan. Yes, he made plenty of mistakes.
But he's not responsible for all the ills attributed to him. Nor should he get all the credit for what went right. He did the job as best he could. He made some judgments I disagree with.
I hope the next guy does better, but I frankly don't expect it. I have low expectations when it comes to politicians. I am rarely surprised by their performance. - 1/19/09, 10:28 PM
- David said...
MUL: "Oh, and by the way. Obama's kind words to Bush were completely for political effect."
Now that you have cleared that up, can we in the future safely conclude that Obama does not believe most of what he says and that he speaks mostly for political effect?
Or will you--since Obama must be telling you which of his statements are insincere--please let us know what to believe? - 1/19/09, 10:28 PM
- Palladian said...
"Don't take it personally. He's out of his league when trying to engage in actual debate, so he specializes in vapid insults.
Like a mosquito, he can be irritating but not worth your time to obsess over."
LOL. I'm just not into "debating" George W. Bush's "legacy" with college students.
And thank you for the mosquito comparison, brain-boy! We mosquitos might be irritating and not worth your time, but some of us carry malaria, West Nile virus, and a whole host of other virulent contagions and you liberals succeeded in getting DDT banned all those years ago. So good luck controlling us!
Bzz! Bzz! - 1/19/09, 10:30 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
"Now that you have cleared that up, can we in the future safely conclude that Obama does not believe most of what he says and that he speaks mostly for political effect?"
No. You have to be more discerning.
"Or will you--since Obama must be telling you which of his statements are insincere--please let us know what to believe?"
Sure David. It's called context and the ability to observe a character that is more complex than that of George W. Bush's Dudley Dooright. - 1/19/09, 10:32 PM
- I'm Full of Soup said...
Speaking of urban legends, Eli Blake has latched onto the one that claims Clinton left a big surplus? $250 Billion?
LOL. Tell us another one. - 1/19/09, 10:33 PM
- Palladian said...
"And there will also be topical virucides for use before getting freaky with whomever it is that's turned on by your saucy, cynicism and ignorance of... pretty much everything but architecture and fiction, from what I gather."
Well you keep gathering, peasant, and I'll keep hunting. You don't seem to gather much though, or you'd know I don't like fiction. Besides, you seem to be the fiction expert. You just elected your own myth to the office of the President! - 1/19/09, 10:33 PM
- Eli Blake said...
The funny thing is that in 2000, I didn't decide for sure that I would vote for Gore instead of Bush until about three weeks before the election.
But a great deal has changed since then. A LOT has changed since then. In fact, I do owe something to Bush. Instead of being a relatively centrist Democrat who was willing to consider Republicans (as I was then,) Bush has made me remember why I registered as a Democrat in the first place-- and inspired me to get involved as a partisan Democrat. I ran for precinct committeeman in 2002 and haven't looked back since. - 1/19/09, 10:35 PM
- Fred4Pres said...
Oh those with BDS:
Hitchens on why Bush really was the best choice over Gore and Kerry!
Now we know why Andrew Sullivan did not give Hitch any tongue! - 1/19/09, 10:37 PM
- David said...
Gore? Who knows. He might have been ok before his bitterness took over. Hard to tell what he would have done had 9/11 been on his watch. Might have been better, might have been worse.
But Kerry? Dear God. That twit? Even though he came out early for Obama, Obama won't give him a post in the administration and does not appear to have consulted him on anything. Obama knows stupid when he sees it.
Remember also, lefties, had Kerry won the economic crash would have come on his watch, Iraq would be a mess and the Republicans would have won a massive electoral victory in 2008.
Unless of course you think Kerry would have prevented the mortgage and banking mess and lead us to victory in Iraq. Fat chance. - 1/19/09, 10:38 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
"You just elected your own myth to the office of the President!"
Actually, I and millions of Americans more than voted for whomever you would have endorsed (if you ever had the balls to take a stand on anything) did.
But if you harbor such contempt for so significant a portion of your country, then that sucks to be you. But your case of interminable misanthropy must be charming to other sociopaths. - 1/19/09, 10:38 PM
- Eli Blake said...
OK, you're right. It was 184 billion. Also, had the Clinton plan (i.e. without the Bush tax cuts) been followed the linked page indicates surpluses were expected to have continued and grown. In fact, the long-term Clinton plan (which Gore was pledging to follow) to focus surpluses into paying down the national debt would have eliminated it by 2013 according to the page linked.
- Tarzan said...
Thanks to standing up against Olde Europe when they wanted to jump into bed with each other and Saddam in an unvarnished attempt to put 'us' in our place. 'No blood for oil' is what they shouted but that's exactly what they wanted and you put a lid on it.
Thanks also for your supposed 'blunder' of flying onto the carrier in the jet. It's a GOOD thing for our leaders to show that they still have a ball or two now and then.
Take care and keep smiling, as history will eventually smile upon you. - 1/19/09, 10:46 PM
- Ritmo Re-Animated said...
Thanks for the advice, and feel free to keep up the fun for those who are willing to have factual discussions that go beyond mere opinion and "truthiness". - 1/19/09, 10:47 PM
- Eli Blake said...
I'm glad DDT is banned, so that birds no longer ingest it and bird eggs actually hatch. I like the idea that instead of only seeing a Bald Eagle on our national symbol, you can actually go hiking in a lot of places and see them where they belong.
- Eli Blake said...
Well, I'll go ahead and ride off to bed.
I can't complain about Bush, I suppose. I still have a job. In fact, I've got two of them! - 1/19/09, 10:55 PM
- The Crack Emcee said...
Eli Blake,
"Turning a $250 billion surplus into a one trillion deficit."
This has already been addressed but I'll add "there's a war on."
"Promising to capture the man who led the organization that murdered 3000 Americans 'dead or alive,' and then putting that on the back burner ,.."
The same position President-Elect Obama has taken. It's more important to stop the many-headed hydra called Al-Qaeda than it's leader, just as we stopped the Nazis without capturing Hitler.
"Allowing the United States to kidnap people, ,..."
War is Hell. Grow up.
"Establishing warrantless wiretaps and other expanded government powers-- encroachments on liberties,..."
Oh yea, we're all suffering so much because we can listen to terrorists talk. Again: grow up. And putting the presidency back to pre-Watergate levels isn't "expanding" the office's powers but re-establishing them to the level the Founding Fathers intended, which is something we want in wartime.
"Condoning torture,..."
Which was used on three - three - people. I swear, liberals are too much. You're willing to hang our president out to dry - and demoralize our nation in the eyes of the world - over three scumbags? Pathetic.
"Issuing media credentials to a man who ran a prostitution ring out of the White House."
Sure - not good - even worse that we have gay prostitutes (or idiots like that girl who's selling her virginity) in it.
"not only has President Bush become the first two-term President to so mismanage the economy that the market finished down during his term, but it is down more than 20 percent for his term."
Bush didn't issue one loan to someone who couldn't pay (while Clinton made it possible). He and John McCain warned the Senate about it. It was Democrats who said everything was fine. Not that the president had much control over these things to begin with. As we can all see by the "he's going to pay my gas bill" mentality, Democrats have a delusional idea about what the office is for.
"Yeah, you're right-- people who have a pre-arranged mind do tend to overlook Bush's 'accomplishments.'"
Yea, you do:
1) You're alive - and not one of us has been so much as scratched since 9/11.
2) None of the conspiracy theories pushed by the Left (we went to Iraq for oil, etc.) turned out to be true - a whole boatload of lies the Left hasn't apologized for (that demoralized us) or denied - but Bush's decency has finally exposed.
3) Those 14 UN resolutions Saddam broke were very real and we meant what we said about them. Saddam was also a murderous lying scumbag with two sons who were worse. He's rightfully roasting in Hell and was sent there by his enemies.
4) WMD is irrelevant. We know, now, Saddam didn't have them. We and everyone else - including his own generals -thought he did. He was a liar. Big whoop.
5) He scared the living shit out of Libya.
6) Hurricane Katrina will be looked at one day, and they will find Ray Nagan crying and the Governor getting mad and thinking that was her feminist "no man is going to tell me what to do" moment.
7) Africa and India - two of the most poverty-stricken places on earth - will forever be thankful for his efforts.
I could go on and on and on like this. George W. Bush is a great man who had to live with enemies inside and outside this country. Those outside our borders were serious killers with evil intent. Those inside were evil, but only as serious as the kids in Lord of the Flies.
The shame is all theirs. - 1/19/09, 10:57 PM
- LonewackoDotCom said...
Here's a site about all the damage that banning it allegedly did: rachelwaswrong.org. Apparently millions have died due to it being banned.
As for Bush, how about the things that are completely off Althouse's radar? Such as this anti- and un-American scheme that showed just how little regard Bush had for his (alleged) fellow citizens. Althouse, Insty, and friends would probably have supported that, if they had any clue about it to begin with.
And, if Kerry had come out in opposition to that plan and explained how bad it was, he'd be president and we might now have a better new president.
Or, how about the time that Bush made a pledge to a foreign government to push something that most Americans oppose?
Needless to say, there's much, much more that could be said.
All of his supporters - including Althouse - should be held responsible for supporting him, just as BHO's supporters should be held responsible for the things he's going to do. - 1/19/09, 11:01 PM
- Linus said...
"I'm glad DDT is banned, so that birds no longer ingest it and bird eggs actually hatch. I like the idea that instead of only seeing a Bald Eagle on our national symbol, you can actually go hiking in a lot of places and see them where they belong."
I'm glad too. It's not like all those people dying from malaria affect MY life, but bald eagles, oh, how they make my heart SING! - 1/19/09, 11:01 PM
- Palladian said...
"But if you harbor such contempt for so significant a portion of your country, then that sucks to be you. But your case of interminable misanthropy must be charming to other sociopaths."
No, honey, I don't "harbor such contempt" for so significant a portion of my country[men]. See, you're still thinking like a Bush-deranged sophomore. I think some of them voted for Obama for bad reasons, some of them voted for Obama for deluded reasons, some of them voted for Obama because all the cool kids were doing it, some of them voted for Obama because David Byrne told them to. Some of them voted for Obama for good reasons, some of them voted for Obama because they're Democrats, some of them voted for Obama because McCain was such a bad candidate. And so on and so on. Now, some of the people who voted for Obama are contemptible, and therefore I do harbor contempt for them. But most of them are normal, good people who I happen to think made a poor decision, or at least were forced into making a poor decision by the lack of good candidates this time around. Of course, you being you, interpret all disagreement as "harboring contempt". You and your kind have spent the last 8 years "harboring contempt" for all of your countrymen who voted for Bush so you naturally expect that that is how everyone else operates. Well you're wrong, as usual. I don't happen to like what little I know about Barack Obama, and I'm going to take every opportunity to criticize him when he deserves it and mock and make fun of the people who make fools of themselves over him. But that doesn't mean I hate him or hate everyone who likes him. I know this sort of nuance doesn't come easily to people like you, but do your best to try and understand it. Barack Obama is going to be our President. I don't have to be happy about it, but the office does require a small amount of respect no matter how badly he fucks up. You and your ilk didn't have an ounce of grace to spare for George W. Bush when he did something good, but I don't plan to model myself after you sociopaths.
For our sake, I hope Obama does good for the country but I hope every hare-brained Democrat scheme he tries to ram down our throats fails. It's the libertarian in me. - 1/19/09, 11:01 PM
- The Crack Emcee said...
Montana Urban Legend,
"While energizing the right, he had no discipline for their philosophy. And turned your movement into a disaster and consigned it to irrelevance."
Such hubris. Let me remind you of a something: the Democrats have won 4 presidential elections now in 40 years. That means that it's your ideology that's on life support. If you had lost this one - which you only won by 6% and are now calling a "landslide" (Bush was 8% and Reagan 10 and 18% - which was a landslide) - your party would be OVER. So keep it up, Chumpy:
I have no faith you'll keep going because, unlike conservatives, you people learn nothing - especially about how to govern. - 1/19/09, 11:05 PM
- Palladian said...
"...no discipline for their philosophy..."
You've got that one correct. But the good thing about it is that lack of discipline is a mistake that the Republican party can, hopefully, correct. You've got a much bigger problem. Your party has no philosophy. Lack of discipline is a better condition than lack. - 1/19/09, 11:13 PM
- Chennaul said...
Oh they got a philosophy...
Machiavelli, with a dash of mob, and a squirt of Marx....
Call it M cubed.
Well, philosophy that would be a compliment....it's a secret recipe. - 1/19/09, 11:25 PM
- former law student said...
Many of us would not abandon the man who needed our support, who was, perhaps, overwhelmed by the task that was thrust upon him.
Remembering back to Eisenhower, I can confidently say that W. was the worst.
W.'s problem was his delusions of adequacy. He prolonged the damage by running for reelection. W. was as clueless as Jimmy Carter, but has left the country in a lot worse shape -- we don't even know the scope of the damage to the economy yet.
But, the Democrats were equally at fault by nominating wusses like Gore and Kerry.
In hindsight, we would have been a lot better off with the 2000 model McCain as President. He was not an ideologue, his family was not hip deep in the oil bidness, and he had nothing to prove by beating up Saddam Hussein. - 1/19/09, 11:25 PM
- The Crack Emcee said...
former law student,
"we don't even know the scope of the damage to the economy yet."
I'll say it again: Bush didn't make one loan - but the Democrats encouraged them.
"we would have been a lot better off with the 2000 model McCain as President. He was not an ideologue, his family was not hip deep in the oil bidness, and he had nothing to prove by beating up Saddam Hussein."
Since we didn't go into Iraq for oil, what "bidness" Bush's family is in is a red herring. And are you seriously going to tell us a hawk, like McCain would let 14 broken UN resolutions go by without action after 9/11?
That's delusional. - 1/19/09, 11:50 PM
Bush was a complete failure in that his lack of verbal skills and abilities enabled the left to fully detach themselves from facts and logic and become the party of unrestrained emotionalism, most of which is the emotion of hate.
Until 9/11, the left had an elaborate world view in which evil was well defined as all things oppression. All strikes on colonial or capitalist powers were righteously carried out by these poor and oppressed, and any militancy to throw off some imagined yoke was always unconditionally moral.
But what a problem 9/11 created for the left. It wasn't poor oppressed radical attackers, but middle-class educated Arabs financed by plenty of oil money.
And what was worse for the left, rather than being a group easy to fit into the left's model of the oppressed - into the other pre-forgiven set of oppressed groups (women, blacks, workers, homosexuals, trans-genders, etc.) - these new anti-US militants hated homosexuals and had very regressive views of women.
After 9/11, a good portion of the left's world view was very obviously and unmistakably shown to be rubbish.
The left couldn't support Islamic radicals because it would be supporting gay and woman oppressors. The left couldn't quite support the former colonial and capitalist west, because they traditionally were the oppressors of the world.
So the left did the only thing it could to still remain alive – to remain at all relevant: they became hyper Bush haters. The left because the anti-Bush party. That was their only ideology, all others having been shown to be trash.
Left with no valid world view, they turned on a single man, and in so doing, they bent all facts to serve their ideology, again, in their desperate attempt to stay relevant.
And even now, they still lack a strategic world view that works. Some in the left say the problem is religion, and want to get rid of them. Good luck.
Some in the left think that the Islamic radicals will all quiet down if we just talk nice to them. Clintons administration proves that wrong. Bali, London, Madrid all prove that wrong.
So now that Bush is gone, we'll see what the left can come up with. - 1/19/09, 11:52 PM
- Patm said...
"Is this country better off now than it was 8 years ago?"
The GLOBAL recession that is in play now occured in the FINAL months of Bush's presidency. Before that, we had seven years of relentless growth and 4.6% unemployment for a very LONG time. Bush was never given credit for that. Most FAIR MINDED people will admit that the Fannie Mae debacle was not his - that it began on Clinton's watch, and that Bush tried to warn congress to rein it in.
Economically, we're not better off than we were in 1992, but that is a pretty recent development. In other ways we're much better off than we were. The Islamofascists no longer think of America as the "weak horse", we now have an ally in Iraq instead of an enemy. Libya is disarmed, India and China are our friends and - despite what the press repeats endlessly, we are not "hated" in Europe. We're rather respected over there, as well as in Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe, everywhere, in fact, but where Tyrants rule.
And we are not being suffocated by the Kyoto treaty, as so many EU countries are, but we've still managed to cut emissions.
And, the tax cuts created so much revenue that even the NY Times admitted, last year, that our deficit was being paid down ahead of schedule. That went kaput with the downturn, but it was still true at the time, and a good thing.
For now, until Obama defines himself a bit, we are much safer than we were before. I'd say all-in-all, given the GLOBAL nature of the economic downturn adn the fact that, yes, these things do happen, we're slightly better off, yes. - 1/19/09, 11:53 PM
- Patm said...
Montana, President Bush's IQ is 126, and for crying out loud, he flew fighter jets. Idiots do not fly fighter jets.
Can you finally put the easy and false "Bush is stupid" thing to rest?
It makes people SOUND STUPID when they say it. - 1/19/09, 11:55 PM
- miller said...
Palladian - nicely said.
- miller said...
And to Ann, I also say "thanks" - when I found this blog, I had no idea whether you were a con or a lib. You are very fair-minded.
- miller said...
And to George W: thanks for your hard work. My family is safe and prosperous due to your achievements.
- Guesst said...
Thank you President Bush.
- Zachary Sire said...
Reading this thread is like being on a seriously fucked up acid trip, in a cocoon, inside of a parallel universe. To the minority of you in here who actually are aware of what's going on in the world: thank you. And to the rest of you...wow. Just...wow.
- former law student said...
Bush didn't make one loan
No, he made 190K plus loans a year. How soon they forget Bush's Ownership Society. [shakes head sadly]
I don't know if this webpage will be up after tomorrow, so I'm including the text here. Note the emphasis on minority home ownership, and on making loans to people without any money for the down payment.:
President George W. Bush Record of Achievement
Expanding Home Ownership
"This Administration will constantly strive to promote an ownership society in America. We want more people owning their own home. It is in our national interest that more people own their own home. After all, if you own your own home, you have a vital stake in the future of our country."
- President George W. Bush, December 16, 2003
The Accomplishments
Increasing Homeownership
The US homeownership rate reached a record 69.2 percent in the second quarter of 2004. The number of homeowners in the United States reached 73.4 million, the most ever. And for the first time, the majority of minority Americans own their own homes.
The President set a goal to increase the number of minority homeowners by 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Through his homeownership challenge, the President called on the private sector to help in this effort. More than two dozen companies and organizations have made commitments to increase minority homeownership - including pledges to provide more than $1.1 trillion in mortgage purchases for minority homebuyers this decade.
President Bush signed the $200 million-per-year American Dream Downpayment Act which will help approximately 40,000 families each year with their downpayment and closing costs.
The Administration proposed the Zero-Downpayment Initiative to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages for first-time homebuyers without a downpayment. Projections indicate this could generate over 150,000 new homeowners in the first year alone.
President Bush proposed a new Single Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit to increase the supply of affordable homes.
The President has proposed to more than double funding for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP), where government and non-profit organizations work closely together to increase homeownership opportunities.
The President proposed $2.7 billion in USDA home loan guarantees to support rural homeownership and $1.1 billion in direct loans for low-income borrowers unable to secure a mortgage through a conventional lender. These loans are expected to provide 42,800 homeownership opportunities to rural families across America. - 1/20/09, 12:35 AM
- former law student said...
Most FAIR MINDED people will admit that the Fannie Mae debacle was not his - that it began on Clinton's watch, and that Bush tried to warn congress to rein it in.
Once again, Bush tried and failed, despite the support of a Republican controlled House and Senate (2004-2005)
We already know W. was an ineffective doofus. Tell us something about him that would elicit a positive reaction. - 1/20/09, 12:38 AM
- chickelit said...
Reading this thread is like being on a seriously fucked up acid trip, in a cocoon, inside of a parallel universe.
You need to lighten up Zach. Have you ever done acid in a cocoon, inside of a parallel universe? - 1/20/09, 12:50 AM
- Palladian said...
"Reading this thread is like being on a seriously fucked up acid trip"
Really? Guess you've had some pretty weak acid, because most of this thread is fairly reasonable and hardly unusual.
You, dear Zachary, are the one that's been living in, and will continue to live in, a "cocoon" and a "parallel universe". That's what being a gay left-winger who lives with his mom in California is all about. That is, until (and God forbid) something should pierce that cocoon or drag you out of that parallel universe, as it did 7 years ago to me, in the form of two airplanes slicing into my city. Being out of the cocoon is sometimes no fun, but it's the price one has to pay to be awake and alive.
Perversely I hope that, in part because of the things that Bush has done right and if Obama serves us well, you are able to stay snug inside your cocoon for as long as you can, even if it means putting up with your smug, self-promoting comments.
Godspeed to us all, and that includes the Presidents, old and new. - 1/20/09, 12:55 AM
- chickelit said...
President George W. Bush Record of Achievement
Expanding Home Ownership
- President George W. Bush, December 16, 2003
Recall that 2003 was about when the crazies took over and the everything spun out of control in the housing market. I think Bush was rightly proud at that point in time--even into early 2004. - 1/20/09, 12:59 AM
- Unknown said...
Let me remind you of a something: the Democrats have won 4 presidential elections now in 40 years.
Dems have won 4 of the last 5 popular votes. just thought that should be noted.
oh, and, let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, W. - 1/20/09, 1:03 AM
- chickelit said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Palladian said...
"Dems have won 4 of the last 5 popular votes. just thought that should be noted."
That and 4 dollars will get you a grande cappuccino at Starbucks. - 1/20/09, 1:36 AM
- blake said...
"Dems have won 4 of the last 5 popular votes. just thought that should be noted."
But remember, everything wrong with this country is Bush's fault. - 1/20/09, 1:41 AM
- Nichevo said...
Thank you for your service, Mr. President. There were highs and there were lows in your two terms, but if a man is judged by his enemies...you have all the right ones.
The final edition of the Letterman Show's "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches."
- Chris Arabia said...
The refusal of Bush haters to show even a modicum of class and grace at this stage speaks volumes. I have talked to numerous BDS sufferers who can't even acknowledge that someone (like W.) could differ with them in good faith. That's how I know the left is ultimately WRONG, even though that doesn't mean the right is right.
Bad faith opposition is un-American, and that's what the left has practiced for 8 years. Shame on them.
I'm not in the Obama cult, but I do hope that he keeps us safe and for the first time in his career amasses some solid accomplishments.
Bush did succeed on the paramount issue facing him. He also failed in other areas, had some successes.
I wish him a happy retirement.
I love the moron here who says we have to have the wisdom to divine when Obama is lying and when he's telling the truth--what a pathetic rationalization and admission that Obama cultists are just going to see what they want to see, and consider themselves sage for their stupidity. Ignorance is strength! - 1/20/09, 2:03 AM
- Rose said...
Eli, Gore had eight years as arguably the second most powerful man in the world. What did he do in that time, he and Clinton, about "Global Warming" which we are now to believe is such an important issue?
Nothing. Nothing is the answer.
That really tells you all you need to know about Gore. We are LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY that he did not succeed in promoting himself to the ultimate Peter Principle position.
Obama also has a record, if you care to look at it - tell me - what has he done that leads you to believe he cares one iota about anything you think he does? ANY issue you choose. He's discarding his campaign promises right and left, and the media continues to give him a pass, acknowledging that 'he only said it to get elected.' Going to church is not because he believes, but because he has to to get elected.
Again, pick any issue. Find a leg to stand on.
Now he says he is going to solve this financial crisis by spending money on activist projects - that is also in his record, just look at what he did with the hundred and ten million dollars in Chicago Annenberg Foundation money that was supposed to improve public education in Chicago - take a look and you will see what your future holds. Nothing to show for it.
I don't mind your belief - except that you choose to drag us all down with you. - 1/20/09, 2:13 AM
- Alex said...
Starting today I raise my black flag in protest of the Cult of Obama aka The Coup of the Motherfucking Media(thanks LGF). I am no longer proud to be an American. I am deeply ashamed of this country that welcomed my family as immigrants 30 years ago with the promise of freedom and opportunity. This country just turned its back on me and I flip it the bird.
Oh and Bush can fuck off for destroying the Republican party. What an asshole, I hope he burns in his Christian hell! - 1/20/09, 4:51 AM
- Carl in Jerusalem said...
George Bush's heart was in the right place. Unfortunately, he discovered along the way that setting policy and actually having that policy carried out are two completely different tasks. Where he failed was in getting his underlings to carry out his policies.
That's how I see it in Israel anyway. - 1/20/09, 5:20 AM
- AllenS said...
Goodbye, George. You didn't deserve the treatment that you got from the media. Part of your low approval ratings is the fact that you didn't fight back.
- Deb said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- Darcy said...
Goodbye, G.W. It would be cool if you could toss your hat up on the "weather vane" as you leave.
God bless you. - 1/20/09, 5:55 AM
- Alex said...
Darcy said...
Goodbye, G.W. It would be cool if you could toss your hat up on the "weather vane" as you leave.
God bless you.
God bless him? God curse him. - 1/20/09, 5:56 AM
- Alex said...
And, Michael, we'll check in with you in four or eight years and see how you feel about the new guy then.
Oh he'll still have his head up his ass in worship of his messiah. This is a "to the death" deal. - 1/20/09, 5:58 AM
- Kensington said...
"Dems have won 4 of the last 5 popular votes. just thought that should be noted"
Fine, but let's not forget that Bill Clinton never won a majority of the vote. - 1/20/09, 6:28 AM
- hdhouse said...
Dangerous Dreamer said...
"Bush kept us safe and that cannot be denied. If anything happens on Obama's watch (God forbid) no matter what else he does he will be a failure."
oh i get it. 9/11 was the result of clinton's failures and didn't happen under his watch (or blind eye). And if something happens this evening (God forbid) it had nothing to do with Bush whatsoever.
that just about sums up the comments on this board doesn't it? Hail to the x-chief...the paragon of non-responsibility.
I repeat...don't let the door hit you in the ass. - 1/20/09, 6:31 AM
- hdhouse said...
Palladian said...
"Sounds like you must have some personal experience with that."
Yes, I caught it from your father."
and all this time I thought Palladian was male. shame on me. - 1/20/09, 6:38 AM
- author, etc. said...
I am confident that history will treat Bush well, by no means giving him high marks throughout but in the areas where his detractors have most taken their potshots--namely Iraq and the defense of the American homeland--he will be judged to have persevered admirably under great pressure and under, too, a relentless hail of spitballs from the self-affirming peanut gallery of the American liberal elite.
And leading the Bush rehabilitation will be Obama, since he is about to find out that there is a difference, as Iris Murdoch wrote, between "the good and the nice." - 1/20/09, 7:35 AM
- Factory Yoyo said...
History only cares about the One Big Thing.
If Iraq turns out well, that is all that will be remembered, for it is the One Big Thing Bush has his fingerprints all over. The economy, SCOTUS, waterboarding, GITMO: they all will mean next to nothing in the upcoming decades.
No one cares that Lincoln imprisoned thousands of border state residents without a trial and suspended habeus corpus, or that his familiar naive trust in his generals almost lost the Civil War. He won the conflict and freed the slaves.
And apparently no one cares that FDR's silly policies prevented an earlier conclusion to the Great Depression. Or that he tried packing SCOTUS and imprisoned tens of thousands of japanese americans. He won WWII.
And, IICR, Clinton fatigue had really settled in by 2000. Just as it does on every second termer. - 1/20/09, 7:58 AM
- Hoosier Daddy said...
Eli said Condoning torture, making it official that the nation that was able to defeat Nazis and communists without resorting to their methods,
Eli can I assume then you'd be all in favor of systematically carpet bombing those tribal areas where the Taliban and AQ folks are hiding?
Cause we certainly didn't torture any Nazis. No sirree. Firebombed their cities into ashes but no torture.
Do me a favor and reacquaint yourself with how we conducted WW2 and then get back to me on whether using FDR's methods were preferable.
Oh and I'm sure you'd be cool with internment camps too. You know, the one's that FDR ordered. - 1/20/09, 8:03 AM
Go home to everything Texas, embrace all things that you hold close to your heart, and enjoy your retirement.
- Salamandyr said...
Fare well, President Bush. Enjoy your retirement. I imagine you will be more gracious to the current Officeholder than some of your predecessors have been.
It is often, and accurately noted, that Bush's greatest flaw is his inability or unwillingness to adequately defend his policies. It seems to me, if they were the right things, the flaw has more to do with those needing to be convinced to do the right thing. - 1/20/09, 9:06 AM
your daughter just got married. i feel a grandkid on the horizon soon. Believe me, despite all the failings of the human race, your own and others, a grandchild will bring you hope. Carry them on your shoulders that they may see further than you have ever seen.
Thank you for trying even when i didn't agree with you at all.
Nancy Krabbenhoeft, mom and grandmom. - 1/20/09, 9:10 AM
- AlphaLiberal said...
I've tried to understand you over the years and never really could. Why you did the things you did, why you broke with longstanding American tradition in so many ways.
I fought you over your entire term, except for a few months after 9/11 when it seemed you would unite the country behind a common purpose. You were too small for the moment in the end.
You may never understand the great damage you've done. But I will try to leave the animosity created by your Presidency behind and to recapture that national unity for common goals.
Here's hoping you enjoy a nice, quiet all-encompassing private life while the country recovers from your reign. - 1/20/09, 9:16 AM
- Hoosier Daddy said...
You may never understand the great damage you've done.
For those of us who have a knowledge of this country's history that goes further back than the last 8 years, we probably won't understand either. - 1/20/09, 9:23 AM
- btenney said...
Because I frequently posit that George Bush is the "Greatest Living American" just to make Liberals froth at the mouth and soil themselves doesn't mean it'd not true.
- chickelit said...
Good Morning Eli.
I found some support for a fact which we were mulling over last night. The most recent leg down in market value cannot be blamed on Bush. I won't name any names on this historic day, but perhaps you should check it out yourself
link. - 1/20/09, 9:37 AM
- AlphaLiberal said...
"Bush won't pardon Libby"
Good call, though I suspect Bush did so to give Scooter a reason to keep his yap shut. - 1/20/09, 9:40 AM
- AlphaLiberal said...
"The most recent leg down in market value cannot be blamed on Bush. "
That really is funny. When the economy downturn happened in Bush's first term, conservatives blamed Bill Clinton, and in some cases, even Jimmy Carter!
Now, even with Bush in office, after 8 years of his policies, you guys blame someone who has not even taken office.
Well, allrighty then. You have a nice day. - 1/20/09, 9:44 AM
- MadisonMan said...
Or that he tried packing SCOTUS
Nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that. Just not done with a deft touch, which I think for FDR was unusual.
I will agree, though, that if FDR had ended his term after 2, the way history treats him would be very very different. - 1/20/09, 9:56 AM
- chickelit said...
Alpha: Read the link dickhead--then comment.
- Kirk Parker said...
In the future, online dictionary definitions of the word "projection" will consist of a link to Alpha Liberal's 9:16am comment.
- Unknown said...
got to love the conservatives, the hardline gop dudes, the libertarians, trying to find something nice to say about a failed president. What did he do that was good, great? the economy, deficit, Iraq? Katrina?
and the twin towers? he was warned about Al Qaeda when he first took office and did nothing. - 1/20/09, 10:11 AM
- Beth said...
Because I frequently posit that George Bush is the "Greatest Living American" just to make Liberals froth at the mouth and soil themselves doesn't mean it'd not true.
You're mistaken - it's true, though, that people sometimes pee themeselves when laughing uncontrollably. - 1/20/09, 10:25 AM
- former law student said...
The refusal of Bush haters to show even a modicum of class and grace at this stage speaks volumes.
W.'s most memorable accomplishment: He made Jimmy Carter's Presidency look good. - 1/20/09, 10:38 AM
- knox said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- John said...
Today is the day the left and the Democrats have to start growing up. It is very easy live through childist temper fits when you have no responsibility. But it is impossible to live that way when you do. The Left no longer has Bush to blame for everything. Have fun. I hope that works out for you.
- Oxmyx said...
Dear President Bush: Thank you for keeping us safe and for being a decent, gracious man who stood up for his principles and didn't cave in to political correctness. I will miss you greatly.
- Meade said...
Well said, knox. My sentiments exactly.
- A_Nonny_Mouse said...
Mr. Bush:
Thank you for your service, sir. May God bless you and your family, and grant you all peace, health, and contentment. - 1/20/09, 11:49 AM
- Unknown said...
here is how the nation feels...unless yhou do not believe in the people
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/18/poll.bush.presidency/ - 1/20/09, 11:50 AM
- AlphaLiberal said...
Yeah, Ann, when I heard "Cheney in a wheelchair," I immediately thought "Like in Dr Strangelove," too.
It's a natural. - 1/20/09, 12:25 PM
- blake said...
Nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that. Just not done with a deft touch, which I think for FDR was unusual.
Legal or Constitutional, it was a naked power play. Its failure was only temporary, unfortunately. - 1/20/09, 2:02 PM
- Unknown said...
Goodbye, President Bush, I'll miss you.