Friday, January 30, 2009
A pat on the back for W
George W. Bush probably does not need a pat on the back, but almost certainly would appreciate one, having given so many to others during a very difficult eight years. If you agree, go sign the thank you note.
40 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Jan 30, 09:29:00 AM:
I credit "failed" presidents as different as Nixon and Carter to both be patriots in the best sense of that word ... whatever you thought of their political positions, they both thought they were acting in our collective interest and put that before their own.
I expect Bush will be judged a failure too, but he deserves special criticism ... with Bush it was all about him. Iraq was all about outdoing Poppy. You don't need to be Freud to understand why he landed on a flight deck saying "Mission Accomplished."
Iraq is the key to Bush's presidency. His domestic failures ... which outweigh Iraq ... flowed from his failure to act like a Republican ... as he had overdrawn his political capital account to pay for Iraq. On the home front Bush was feckless when he wasn't down right bad. Obama has now turned our collective anger at Bush into a mandate for a socialistic roll of the dice, god help us. None of this was foreordained when Bush took office.
My sense is that Bush has a real nasty streak ... that he got a double shot of his mom, and very little of Poppy. It comes out in the way he has to belittle the people around him ... and the reported thrill he got from Texas executions. I have no sympathy for him.
Bush has a lot to atone for .... More than several lifetimes worth ...
The sad thing is that Bush was a better politician than Poppy. Had he just stayed Governor of Texas he would have been a great success ...
Link
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 10:08:00 AM:
1,455 people have signed the thank you letter. That's about as many votes he'd receive if he ran for office again.
There isn't enough money in your bank account to make me put my name to that malarky.
By 
RPD, at
Fri Jan 30, 10:46:00 AM:
The opposition have been just so amazingly gracious to the outgoing President, it leaves me choked up.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 11:11:00 AM:
To the Previous 2 comments about "poppy" and "not willing to sign the letter"
You guys have no idea what you are talking about!
President Bush has saved your butt more than you'll even know!
I can't believe you could be so ungracious!
Now go back to your beer, couch, and wait for that disability check to come in for your "ailing back" Should be a great year you might get a stimulus check too since your buddy big O loves passing out the greenbacks to losers like yourself!
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 11:16:00 AM:
I'm a little "l" libertarian. I voted for Bush the first time because I lean Republican and I thought Bush would be be less grandiose than Gore, and hence less likely to screw things up.
If I'm part of the "opposition", then the Republicans will be left lost in the wilderness, and Obama & Co will run riot. The Republicans will be only a party of the Religious Right and Rush Limbaugh ditto heads. Which is why I'm calling Bush out ...
When we look back at our financial history to find where it went so horribly wrong, I fear that the Prescription Drug Benefit will be seen as a watershed. It had an NPV cost of over a trillion ! ... much higher than what we were told, and was enacted over the opposition of the Democrats and some fiscally conservative Republicans. Bush wanted the Drug Benefit to buy the votes of the Greatest Generation he sorely needed going into 2004, and those votes don't come cheap.
Obama now wants to take a trillion ! to give away to his constituency. Can you blame him, after Bush ?
Game theory would predict this. The parties compete to win big blocks of voters using bribes paid for by the rest of us.
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Link
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 11:55:00 AM:
Someday a cure will be found for both Bush Syndrome and Leftism. Both are horrible mental disorders and deserve research money. Private research money of course! :)
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 11:59:00 AM:
Oh man.
Look at all of these self righteous losers hiting Bush.
Not one of you dirtbags can acknowledge he saved our ass for alsmost eight years against one billion freaks!
Just twenty of those guys changed our live forvever and Bush put the fear of real God into hearts. They attacked France, Spain and every other country but us.
Libya caved like house of cards and Bush even took the fight into Africa, the next Islamic front.
Now, we have the economic crisis, and not one detractor can nail the loser pinko congress and their housing slush fund for it, nor the regulation the DEMOCRATS opposed.
For all of the effort you put into learning what has gone on, you deserve the President we have now.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 12:19:00 PM:
I imagine Bin Laden is very pleased with himself. He only had to put up a bit of cash to finance 20 fanatics and he's put the US on a course to ruin, because Bush took the bait.
We don't have a billion enemies, Rude Dog ... but we do have a few. "Bush kept us safe" is a canard. If a Democrat had been in office on 9/11, and known what Bush knew beforehand ... you'd probably have called for his impeachment.
Both parties have blame on housing, although it is more on the Democratic side.
Keep calling me a loser and a dirtbag. PS, you're mother is a man.
Link
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 12:30:00 PM:
Not one of you dirtbags can acknowledge he saved our ass for alsmost eight years against one billion freaks!
Um, he kept us *safe* after we were attacked while he was in office!
Don't forget Rude Dog (pet name?), Bill Clinton kept us safe for almost 8 years after the first WTC attack in 1993.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Fri Jan 30, 12:53:00 PM:
Enjoy your freedom to speak hateful nonsense--my guess is that ace the Ice and Dark Ages descend upon us, the rack, the keep, and other tools of enlightenment will be the reward for people that speak up.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Fri Jan 30, 01:16:00 PM:
I get too upset too quickly--silly typos result.
Enjoy your freedom to speak hateful nonsense--my guess is that as the Ice and Dark Ages descend upon us, the rack, the keep, and other tools of enlightenment will be the reward for people that speak up.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 01:16:00 PM:
"I imagine Bin Laden is very pleased with himself."
Bin Laden is long since dead. In a selfless act of political courage Bush never took credit for getting Bin Laden, knowing Bin Laden would become the patron saint of jihad if we did.
Other than that little point, the comments on this thread say more about the jumbled up thinking processes of the posters than they say anything about Bush. Wartime presidents are different, and can only be measured by their war success. As much as I hate Bush's Democrat domestic policies, I'll forever acknowledge his war success. Those who disagree with some aspect of his domestic policies, regardless of where on the political spectrum you imagine you fall, would do well to do the same. So far, my principal disagreement with Obama is that he imagines himself to be a peacetime president, which endangers all of us.
Thanks GWB for keeping us alive and safe.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Jan 30, 02:03:00 PM:
I'd be careful if I were you, Bush fans.
Without the libertarians like Link in the so-called conservative coalition, the Republican candidate will never climb much above 33 percent in a Presidential election.
The bottom line:
- Bush pissed off the Democrats. Who cares.
- Bush alienated registered Independents. Not good.
- Bush alienated small-government (libertarian) Republicans. Not good.
It's time for an attitude adjustment, folks. Maybe you like being a loser. Maybe you want to see more left-wing Democrats in the White House. I don't.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Fri Jan 30, 02:17:00 PM:
Nice selection from the collectivist menu there DEC.
I'd rather see a party that fives the small-government, low tax folks a reason to come out and work and vote.
I don't see any point in delibrately annoying anybody.
I certainly don't see a reason to adjust my attitude to resonate with the folks that are killing us.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Jan 30, 02:36:00 PM:
Small-government Republicans need to come up with effective candidates instead of clowns like Ron Paul (or Bob Barr).
In the case of the Presidency, the best small-government candidate probably will come out of the American West (like Reagan and Goldwater). Too many Northeastern Republicans think like Nelson Rockefeller and Michael Bloomberg.
Sarah Palin still has potential, in my view, if she can polish her dog-and-pony show over the next two years. I'm not sure she can do it.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jan 30, 03:13:00 PM:
I pretty much agree with both of DEC's comments, although I think Michael Bloomberg is not really comparable to Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller led an entire legitimate wing of the Republican party and might well have been a Republican president at some point. Michael Bloomberg is not merely a RINO, but he's a Republican of convenience.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jan 30, 03:33:00 PM:
A whole list of inaccuracies and silly crap today.
"I expect Bush will be judged a failure too, but he deserves special criticism ... with Bush it was all about him. Iraq was all about outdoing Poppy."
Absurd armchair psychology. You manage to reduce an entire political process involving dozens of people, which has been recorded and studied, to a single decision of ego.
"If a Democrat had been in office on 9/11, and known what Bush knew beforehand ... you'd probably have called for his impeachment."
Conspiracy mongering.
"Um, he kept us *safe* after we were attacked while he was in office!
Don't forget Rude Dog (pet name?), Bill Clinton kept us safe for almost 8 years after the first WTC attack in 1993."
This is incorrect. Al Qaeda attacked us in 1993, (New York) 1996, (Saudi Arabis) 1998, (Africa, twice) and 2000 (Yemen), and Clinton *still* refused to authorize the CIA to kill bin Laden when they had the chance. There was also the foiled Millennium Plot. (foiled because the guy panicked during a routine customs check, not because of national security agency competence)
Additionally, holding Bush responsible for 9/11 'because he was in office' is patently unfair. He had been in office less than a year and he inherited a broken national security establishment from President Clinton, who oversaw the inception of the infamous 'wall' between the FBI and CIA and refused to pursue active counter-terror measures.
"Bin Laden is long since dead."
Bin Laden was still alive as of December 2008.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 03:35:00 PM:
It's too early to determine the import of the Bush years, but if Iraq continues on its present course I predict the future will regard his foreign policy favorably.
Iraq has the chance to become a self-sustaining model of Muslim moderation in a region notably lacking in same. And it may yet prove to be too much of an influence for the Iranian mullahs to contend with, much less defeat. Afghanistan, on the other hand, has the potential to become the quagmire Iraq was supposed to be. It may well be that George Bush's genius was that he had the judgment to redeploy to a battlefield where he knew the long-term advantages far outweighed the near-term loss to his popularity and general regard. So, again, it is a fair bet that history will judge his foreign policy much better than do present-day critics.
His domestic policy is a whole different matter.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Jan 30, 03:42:00 PM:
TH: "Michael Bloomberg is not really comparable to Nelson Rockefeller"
You're right, of course, TH. I used to think of them both as "Democrats Lite." On second thought, I don't think the word "lite" describes Bloomberg anymore.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Fri Jan 30, 04:34:00 PM:
I voted for Bush in 2004 because the issue of winning in Iraq and continuing the GWOT trumped other issues. I also hoped that he would make good SCOTUS nominations.
I got what I asked for. Not much more, but I got that. I have also admired his graciousness and character, as I haven't got so much of those myself.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 05:18:00 PM:
"Bin Laden was still alive as of December 2008."
Really? Is there proof? Nope, I thought not.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Fri Jan 30, 05:35:00 PM:
"Really? Is there proof? Nope, I thought not."
Of course there is proof--you see him live on TV every now and again.
Don't be bothered that some of the video loops are really old, and that his lips stop moving when there is something new being said.
I for one don't care an awful lot whether he is dead or alive, it is cowardly, cross-dressing underlings I want dead.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 05:39:00 PM:
From Link. A few follow-up points ...
I don't blame Bush for 9/11. My point is that there are many on the right who would have crucified Bill Clinton if he had been told by the CIA that Bin Laden was up to something the month before, but then not taken any action. Bush's exact response was a dismissive "you've covered your ass" ... if Clinton had done that, many on the right would be blaying for his blood.
If you want to defend the decision to invade Iraq, go ahead. We managed to invade one of the few nations in the Middle East with a secular government ... one with no connections to 9/11 ... on the basis of stove-piped flawed intelligence. How did that happen? Go figure ... "Absurd armchair psychology" works for me.
Do we accept that our occupation of Iraq was bungled ... or is that another mark of Bush's genius?
Do you think the Bush family think he was a good President? I'd bet they say worse things than I ever have.
History may be even more unkind, as we have continued ongoing risk that Iraq will turn worse. I hope for the best here, and I'm not for cut and run ... we broke it, so we own it. But if Yugoslavia could host the Olympics and still implode over ethnic fault lines, what odds that Iraq will be a model democracy in ten years? I'd bet that if you could put a referendum to the Iraqi people over whether to keep their democracy or bring back Saddam, they'd pick Saddam.
Most importantly, I see Iraq as having had awful affects on the domestic side of the Bush presidency. It made him a profligate, divisive figure who didn't keep his eye on the things that mattered. Instead, he put his own political position first ... always.
Would any of you hire Bush to be CEO of a private sector enterprise? What would happen to market value on announcement?
The likes of Bush, Rove and Rush have made the Republicans a woefully minority party. Without effective opposition, Obama & Co will run riot.
I believe in our Constitution first and foremost. A small business founder, who admires people of faith, but who doesn't want religious litmus tests in politics. Who believes that our greatest strength is a thriving growing economy, and that we've probably lost it ... at least for a decade ... and that this outcome wasn't foreordained ... and that most of the fault for this is on the doorstep of the Republican party. You can go look it up, for example ... most of the Republican congressmen screaming about Obama's stimulus plan voted for Bush's prescription drug benefit, something that was an even bigger ticket.
I can say about the Republicans, what Reagan said about the Democrats years ago: "I didn't leave the party, they left me."
That said, I've been a big fan and defender of Sarah Palin ... but the way it's played out she has little ability to win votes outside the Religious Right and Rush's ditto heads. Unfortunate and unfair, but I believe true.
I was very down on Mitt Romney as a candidate in 2008 ... I thought his business background in private equity would be a severe handicap. It may be just the thing in 2012.
Link
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jan 30, 06:51:00 PM:
"Really? Is there proof? Nope, I thought not."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtaLCVMIFhs&feature=related
The full version doesn't seem to exist on the Internet in English media, but the Arabic includes time-specific information that dates the tape to December, 2008.
I await with bated breath your earnest apologies.
"If you want to defend the decision to invade Iraq... But if Yugoslavia could host the Olympics and still implode over ethnic fault lines, what odds that Iraq will be a model democracy in ten years?"
If I thought for a moment that you'd take it seriously, I'd try to answer you. After all, this kind of stuff (if you haven't guessed) is my profession. But it's clear from your rhetorical questions and dismissive tone that you aren't interested in answers; just in justifying your own pre-existing opinion.
'I bet the Bush family would say X.'
Really?
"I'd bet that if you could put a referendum to the Iraqi people over whether to keep their democracy or bring back Saddam, they'd pick Saddam."
You'd lose. The Shi'a like not getting executed and raped at random and being able to practice their religion. The Kurds like not being shelled and gassed. Together they make up about 75% of the country. And everyone likes not being thrown in prison, shot, and tortured for expressing their opinions. (it was when the Sunnis, the former pet ethnicity of the ruling regime, were subjected to this kind of treatment by Al Qaeda that they turned against them and joined the US)
And since the Surge, the Basra operation last year, and some deft political maneuvering by the Prime Minister, Iraqi respect for the central government has leaped ahead. New provincial elections being held this weekend will be the first ones that the Sunnis have participated in in large numbers and finally give them a stake in the political order.
Additionally, I find it ironic that you'd ask them this question in a referendum...
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 07:41:00 PM:
I find it ironic that you'd ask them this question in a referendum...
Dawnfire, he probably doesn't even realize why what you wrote is amusing.
Btw, here's an informative VDH piece that exposes the anti-war warriors' muddled thinking on the subject:
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson013009.html
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 07:46:00 PM:
Gotta love them libs who think Clinton did a good job with terror.
At least the terrorists agree with them.
To the anon who said:
"PS, you're mother is a man."
It is unfair to call my mom a man, just because your father has a tighter pu**y.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 08:41:00 PM:
If a Democrat had been in office on 9/11, and known what Bush knew beforehand ... you'd probably have called for his impeachment. -Link
This book is a reprint of a government report from 1999, and contains the passage:
Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House.
There was a Democrat in office who knew what Bush knew beforehand and he was impeached, though for something else entirely.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 09:54:00 PM:
Nothing in that audio tape, other than generic references to Gaza and Palestine proves he's alive. And, no, there is no recent video of Bin Laden. There is no proof of life. He's dead, get used to it. I think.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 10:27:00 PM:
"We managed to invade one of the few nations in the Middle East with a secular government..."
And this is not the first time we attempt to destroy a secular government. Remember Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Communist North Korea, and of course the mother of all secular governments, the USSR?
I feel your outrage.
By , at
Fri Jan 30, 11:37:00 PM:
In Iraq a 'woman' holds up her finger that is purple, it didn't get that way because of torture from Saddams hench men,It got that way because 'SHE' voted.
In Africa a little boy lays in the sand with a skinned up knee, not because he's to weak to walk but he fell while playing a 'healthy' game of soccer during recess.In our oceans, millions of sharks, whales and other marine wildlife use all their skills to stay alive another day. They are not being harpooned just hunted by their 'natural' predators because George Bush set aside more sanutuaries than any other man in history. Recently in the white house, the carpets were becoming stained and worn. Not because of some deviant sexual fantasy continued from the 90's but because one man paced the floors daily pondering, planning and praying for the safety and betterment of this great country. That man was George W. Bush. He deserves credit for these things and many more. Fools and the ignorant see only in the darkness and become irritated with the introduction of light.
By Larry Sheldon, at
Sat Jan 31, 07:51:00 AM:
By , at
Sat Jan 31, 12:17:00 PM:
[Psssst ... want to know a secret. Bill Clinton got a BJ in the oval office. Pass the word ...]
I can change my mind. Thanks to Space Commando's tip that a 1999 government report specifically identified the threat of terrorists using hijacked planes as missiles, I went back and checked the details about what Bush had been told before 9/11. There's a lot of focus on the one memo to Bush -- debriefed in 2004 -- with the headline "Bin Laden Determined to Shrike in US" ... that's a startling headline for a bureaucratic document. Condi Rice did a good of obfuscating by saying that there was nothing actionable in this particular memo, but I think differently ... and there was more than the single memo. CIA types were giving verbal warnings that Bush blew off. There appear to be other memos as well. Connecting the dots, I now believe that the CIA were coming to Bush as a way to get what they knew over the intelligence wall to the FBI, if Bush would only have listened. Bush should have fired up the FBI by passing on what the CIA were telling him, at a minimum. The CIA were urgent, Bush did nothing.
So now I've changed my mind, and I do blame Bush for 9/11. He may not have been able to prevent it, but his inaction was inexcusable.
Recall this started with a request we give Bush a pat on the back ... NFW.
Go ahead and flame me ... I've already learned that I'm loser, a dirt bag, and that my poor dead dad has a tight pussy. Do your worst.
Because it doesn't matter what I think especially ... the larger point is that I can get 70% of Americans to agree with what I've said above and even worse things about Bush. He's the most hated man in America right now, and I think deservedly so. He won't be throwing out many first balls in his dotage.
Because this isn't just history ... it's about our current politics. What I have learned from several of the more insightful comments above is that there is a sizeable element on the right that are in serious denial about a great many things and that it's seriously infected the ability of the Republican party to represent more than shrinking slivers. Hang on to your faith in the genius and spirituality of W fellas, that's all you will have.
What I've also learned is that the flavor of the day in political discourse is snarky little observations that try to obfuscate and to shift blame ... that and the ad hominems. The Democrats may prove better at this than the Republicans ... I expect Obama and Axelrod to be very good at subtly bringing up Bush's failings at every opportunity, to cover up there own. Bush is a lot better material than Clinton.
I also confirmed that I don't want to be in a political party with the likes of many of you. I'm only one voter, but I expect I represent 30% of the voters. The Democrats will have to screw up an awful lot to make up for that.
Link, over
By Admin, at
Sat Jan 31, 05:13:00 PM:
"Really? Is there proof? Nope, I thought not.".
By Larry Sheldon, at
Sat Jan 31, 05:37:00 PM:
I have a rule about "Anonymous" postings.
I wish blog-owners would save me the trouble of skipping past them, then having to go back to figure out what remarks by people connect to.
Not really a good use of my time.
By , at
Sat Jan 31, 06:22:00 PM:
but I think differently
There appear to be other memos as well.
Connecting the dots, I now believe
I can get 70% of Americans to agree with what I've said above
He's the most hated man in America right now
I expect I represent 30% of the voters
Chock full o' facts, Link. I'd wager that bin Laden is more hated than Bush.
See you around here.
By , at
Sun Feb 01, 08:02:00 AM:
It's a shame no one understands what CIA operative Bahr had said.Clinton had Bin Laden in gunsights (literally) 5x's....and always said no.Then he fires off a couple of cruise missles?They did nothing...
As to Iraq's chemical,nuclear capabilities,it seems everyone forgot about the 23 oversized 18 wheelers leving Iraq and into Syria....Then just this yearlow and behold !!!! Syria starts up a nuke plant,which Israel took care of for us.
I really wish people who make coments,know what they are talking about.Trust me i have been there and seen the evidence.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Feb 01, 10:29:00 AM:
Link: You are so absolutely convinced of the rightness of your own opinions, based only on guesses, conspiracy theories, and made-up 'facts' that you've convinced yourself are true.
Amazing, really. I bet this is how Truthers' minds operate.
"As to Iraq's chemical,nuclear capabilities,it seems everyone forgot about the 23 oversized 18 wheelers leving Iraq and into Syria..."
I can't express how pleased I am that some people remember that.
By , at
Sun Feb 01, 02:59:00 PM:
Are you guys putting me on. You're getting tiresome.
Bush himself has admitted that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and blamed it on intelligence failure. Recall that we spent the weeks following the end of "major operations" scouring the Iraq for WMD, when we should have been securing the country. Here's Bush's interview with Tim Russert on Feb 8, 2004.
Russert: The night you took the country to war, March 17th, you said this: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
President Bush: Right.
Russert: That apparently is not the case.
President Bush: Correct.
Full transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179618/
Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are on record too. Cheney says Bush would still have invaded. Rove says no.
Or are these admissions part of some clever gambit?
Link
By , at
Sun Feb 01, 03:06:00 PM:
Let's not forget Libya's nuclear program staffed with Iraqi engineers.
I can't be the only one to wonder what the quid pro quo on that arrangement might've been.
By , at
Sun Feb 01, 11:23:00 PM:
What was it 17 U.N. resolutions. World leaders agreed and every democrat was on board when Bush pulled the trigger........then you all ran like rats off a ship when it got rough....Not so much as you were scared the ship was sinking..Just the opposite.you wanted it to sink and you saw political opportunity and the media was part and parcel. Talk about not having facts. To bad rats can swim so long.
