The rehabilitation of George W. Bush because he says some bad things about Trump needs to stop.
Not only was Bush responsible for Iraq, he is responsible for everything that happened during it, and everything that comes from it. That includes ISIS, which absent the Iraq invasion, DOES NOT HAPPEN.
Every rape, every murder, every torture is George W. Bush’s responsibility.
His crime.
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who does not understand this is entirely part of the problem.
(I am fundraising to determine how much I’ll write this year. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating.)
V. Arnold
Ian, I find this thread very annoying; in fact, it pisses me off!!
I left that fucking country 8 weeks after that bastard, Bush, committed mass murder and destroyed the country of Iraq.
And now you bring up ancient history for what end?
Incitement? Justice? Rehash of an impotent population at the mercy of the MIC?
Cheap shot for attention.
Usian’s made their decisions, their bed if you will, and now, by god damn, they’ll fucking lay in it.
Good riddance to the lot of them…
mike
Uh, VA, you clearly missed the very visible rehab of GW going on here right now, complete with “wise” speech given and a public endorsement from Ellen. You have every right to be mad, we all are. But your ire is Mr. Welsh’s as well, as he expresses, not a cheap gimmick for clicks.
V. Arnold
mike
October 20, 2017
NO! I most assuredly did not miss the bullshit rehab attempt.
Further; it will be successful; the rotten lot will buy it lock, stock, and barrel.
And Ian knows it full well.
Jaysus; I’ve been paying attention for a lifetime; fuck all; it’s hopeless.
Mongo
When a clip of him speaking — at the ‘institute’ which bears his name, like an irreducible stain showed up on media recently, it seemed like a moment out of a Terry Gilliam film.
realitychecker
As long as nobody gets hurt . . .
Ché Pasa
Don’t forget, Bush’s rehab began at the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, in September of 2016.
The excuse was that he had been instrumental in gaining funding and approval for the museum, which he did. In the eyes of DC’s establishment at the time, that apparently outweighed his numerous crimes against humanity.
This sight was shocking even to those who held Obama in high esteem.
But then, there appears to be nothing a president can do that can’t be outweighed by a little bit of public decency on the side.
Doesn’t matter who the president is.
Ché Pasa
Also Bush’s veiled criticisms of Trump are not necessarily less valid because Bush makes them.
Hard to wrap one’s mind around, I know. But cognitive dissonance is the present reality is it not?
Ten Bears
Given that my world went to shit in the Cheney Administration, my career destroyed by a walking talking caricature of Our Tea Pot Dictator: a religiously racist, misogynous, homophobic, old testament authoritarian, dominionist no doubt Trump voting bigot with half my education and half my experience but none-the-less in a position to get away with harassing and ultimately forcing me to quit the career I had worked fifteen years and invested tens of thousands of dollars in educational expenses to have and found myself living in a van down by the river, I’m actually finding it all really rather humorous.
highrpm
ten bears,
last time i read a sentence that long was in gabriel garcia’s the autumn of a patriarch.
Chiron
Liberals and Democrats have been trying to rehabilitate GWB and his Neocons for sometime now, it’s funny to watch.
Willy
Links?
George Vockroth
Personally I’d rather see you write about meditation because none of this ranting otherwise, though modestly insightful, will make a bit of a difference in either the short or long run. Whereas what I’ve seen you write about meditation makes more sense than most and has a much greater chance of having a positive effect on your readers lives. If not you need to find a new venue and different readers.
different clue
It would appear that this post has hit a nerve or few . . . one way or another.
Mojave Wolf
Bravo, Ian!!!
Thank you.
I cannot tell you how much I share your frustration over this bit of crazy, and how many Dem loyalists I’ve gotten into heated arguments with over this exact subject.
Reading this on phone so anything further got to wait.
wendy davis
remember in april or so 2010 the billboards out and about that said “miss me yet?”
to say the truth, even that far into the Obomba administration…i almost did. (smile)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2758/4347467095_e0a1f734ab.jpg
Willy
I miss his wisdom. Profound contemplations about being misunderestimated, wings taking dream, and putting food on your family are sorely missed.
Darius
George Vockroth. Perhaps the happiness you seek lies elsewhere. As they say at Naked Capitalism, the internet’s a big place. Ian writes about what seems important to him. It’s consistently engaging and insightful. I disagree that Ian should stick to non confrontational topics that don’t upset anyone. What’s the point? It’s true that reminding us that Bush is a criminal just when liberals are making him their cuddly mascot is rude and impertinent. But you can’t deny that it’s true.
EverythingsJake
How do you fight the propaganda? It simply makes me sick, so I have no problem dismissing it, but that’s not, observably, the experience of most. Memory is short term. Legions of 18 year olds have no idea what George W. Bush really means. Truth isn’t sufficient. I’m not criticizing. I want an answer to the evil that is Frank Luntz.
Ten Bears
Thank you redline, I’ve been crafting that for a while now, though it still doesn’t round out quite to my satisfaction. Functionally, gramatically correct, near as I can tell, which is kinda’ the point. You know, thoroughly curse without resorting to profanities.
Ché Pasa
The rehab of Bush 2, such as it is, is primarily a matter of citing his (few) “good works” since leaving office, while not necessarily airbrushing his actions (and inactions) while in office.
Most of those who hail his speech the other day do so in its own context (implicitly criticizing Trump for his disastrous policies and personal failings) without simultaneously criticizing Bush’s policies and failings — which seems to be what got Ian’s dander up.
There are exceptions, however, quite a few of them. What Bush did and was responsible for during his time in office is neither forgotten nor forgiven — even by some of those loathe to mention it now because they see Trump as the Worse Evil.
As for cuddling up to Bush? Who — specifically — has done that? All the living ex-Presidents get together periodically for photo ops and to engage in some common cause or other. They treat each other with courtesy if not respect (hard to tell) and occasionally there are hugs and cuddles (ie: Obamas and Bushes at the dedication of the Museum of African American History). Beyond that, I don’t know of anyone cuddling up to him.
He’s still a pariah, and I doubt that will change.
Darius
For the liberals, it was significant that Michele Obama hugged Bush. That wiped away a lot of stigma. BTW, Obama still has pernicious influence. He pushed Tom Perez on the party. The same day Bush gave his speech, Obama spoke about Trump making politics not about “our values.” By pushing “values,” Obama replaces politics with aesthetics. Politics is about interests. To the extent values is important, it’s only as an expression of whose interests you advocate, the powerful or the powerless. Values aren’t a thing to themselves. Talk of values instead of, say, a jobs guarantee, is the triumph of image over substance, and means the speaker is hiding his true politics, which are about whose interests he advocates.
zotter
If Charles Manson wants to come out and say that murder and rape are bad, I’ll agree with him. It doesn’t mean I like him, enjoy his company, commiserate, or forgive him. It doesn’t mean I want him released from his prison sentence. But is he speaks a truth that I also hold, I can agree on that point.
I don’t like, enjoy, or forgive GWB for his crimes, but if he says Trump is a race-baiting moron with no business being President then we can agree on that point.
realitychecker
@ zotter
That seems extremely short-sighted to me–if Bush is the defective human being he has proven himself to be, and represents the Establishment that is relentlessly flushing this country right down the toilet, why would you embrace his views on ANYTHING?????
Are you really that desperate fro ammunition against Trump?
Hugh
What’s an unnecessary trillion dollar war here and there between friends? OK, so it didn’t achieve any of its strategic objectives, but nobody’s perfect, amirite?
Bush was the worst President in US history –until Obama came along. Now Bush and Obama sound positively statemanlike (a much degraded concept, obviously, nowadays) compared to this Trumpenführer wannabe.
different clue
If America ends up surviving enough to even have historians able to look back and analyze, the series of Presidents beginning with Reagan ( or maybe Carter if you can make the case) going forward will be referred to as the Free Trade Presidents. If we can finally break the Free Trade Conspiracy and begin a series of Militant Belligerent Protectionist Presidents, then the Free Trade Presidents will be referred to as the Free Trade Treason Presidents.
The last few Presidents especially, from Clinton to Bush to Obama, took America on such a smooth decline path that one might call them the Clintobusha Presidents. Trump represents a patch of turbulence and confusion possibly offering currently unknown paths of escape from the rubble for those who are smart enough to see them and brave enough to take them and vicious enough to seek to exterminate anyone who gets in their way. If that “vicious” part does not apply to any “left” which might emerge, then that “left” will be among Darwin’s Discards as mankind continues its Long March through the Valley of Selection.
Hugh
On the same topic of the false attribution of gravitas, what’s up with all this ass kissing of generals? Trump says it’s “inappropriate” to disagree with one, especially Kelly. On MSNBC, the whole lot, both the liberals and conservatives, suck up to the military, that is of the general officer class variety. General So-and-So has served his country for X number of years blah, blah, blah. Well, maybe he has, but so do a lot of other people. What about teachers? How well would our society work without them. And think of what your neighborhood would be like if that guy who picks up your garbage suddenly ceased to exist. And what about caregivers? Probably the hardest, most thankless, and yet most important job there is.
And let’s get real. In the last couple of years, there have been ten or more general grade officers who have been cashiered because of inappropriate and/or unprofessional conduct. So wearing a star is not some kind of talisman against bad behavior. But my greatest criticism is that generals by and large simply do not understand policy. They are trained to execute policy, but they really don’t know how to formulate it. And when all you have been trained to use is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.
NR
@different clue
“Trump represents a patch of turbulence and confusion possibly offering currently unknown paths of escape from the rubble”
I don’t see how anyone can possibly argue this. The Trump administration is a 100% bog-standard Republican administration, just dumber, nastier, and more racist.
witters
If this thread is any indication, the USian capacity for political self-analysis is self-negating.
Mary M McCurnin
One president who stole an election is telling another president who stole an election to calm the fuck down.
realitychecker
@ Mary
Sorry dear, but so far the only one we KNOW tried to steal the last election was the Hill-bitch. And I bet you would have preferred Bernie to Trump, just like me.
Mary M McCurnin
Realitychecker
The Repugs through gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of certain voters during the last decade or so stole the election. The Dems through lack of action sealed the deal. muthafuckas all.
Ten Bears
Flog that dead horse, boys and girls, flog it!
realitychecker
@ Mary
“muthafuckas all”
Total agreement there. They have the good cop-bad cop game all wrapped up. which is why it baffles me that outsider Trump is not more appreciated as the only hope to break down that unholy alliance.
Ten Bears
Flog that dead horse, boy, flog that horse.
Willy
A lot of people like ‘only hopes’. But we’re confused by Trump’s disguise. Normally great social heroes walk and talk like a Florence Kelley or an Earl Warren. MLK wasn’t perfect. And Teddy Roosevelt seemed to enjoy shooting stuff a bit too much. But at least they made themselves reasonably clear by walking in the direction they were talking.
Didn’t Roosevelt go up against a cabal of extreme concentrated wealth and government power without ever having to resort to pussy grabbing nativism, dumb ass tweets, or highly questionable policy decisions?
realitychecker
Some people will never figure out how to think about the big picture.
They serve as a very instructive reminder of how we got into this shitstorm in the first place.
different clue
@NR,
You are more correct than I would have wished in large part. When Trump chose Pence for VP, Pence the Koch’s servant and firm supporter helped staff all kinds of positions with typical normal Republican arsonists, looters, etc.
Yet it remains my intuitive feeling that Trump still fosters some chaotic confusion out of which escape routes through the rubble might open. He has so far thwarted the Mainstream Establishment support for Jihadi Islamic Emirates in Syria and possibly elsewhere. He may yet thwart the Mainstream Establishment’s support for the Illegal NaziNazi Banderazi coup regime in Svoboda and Pravy Sektor Occupied Kiev.
And he is sowing enough rage and discord in America that some of the aggrieved groups might transition from butthurt whining . . . to hardass planning. For example . . . how many Pink Pussy Hat Clintonites attend various recreational marches of convenience? Now . . . what if all those Clintonites were to figure out how to cut their collective consumption of electricity to half of what they now consume? That kind of cutback in power consumption would choke the Koch and stump the Trump. And maybe the Trumpster will finally go the One Outrage Too Far which pushes the Clintonites to begin a serious throttle-down of their own electricity consumption, leading to a serious strangulation of revenues to the electric utilities. This would result those same utilities buying seriously less NatGas and Coal for Electricity Generation. That would lead to a serious strangulation of coal and NatGas revenues to KochCo Incorporated.
It may not happen. None of it may happen. You may be totally and completely correct. All we will end up with will be more Republican looting, followed by another Clintonite Shitobamacrat Administration installed to ratify the looting and make it irreversible, just like Obama did after Bush.
Time will tell.
nihil obstet
@Hugh,
A big problem with the generals is that they can’t win a war. Part of “executing policy” is providing adequate information on your job to enable the policy formulators to formulate successful policy. But what general has said, “We can’t win in the Middle East”? Instead they prance into Congressional hearings wearing shit-eating grins and say that they’ll win with a surge. Let them do more of the same, only with even more resources, and they’ll win. To me, after 16 years of worsening situation, that’s evidence of either corruption or incompetence. I don’t care which. Just get them out.
Ten Bears
Perhaps a better example, diff, would be my boycott of football. Don’t just change the channel, don’t go there; don’t go to bars and restaurants that feature “the game” (or seventeen games), don’t buy and wear gangland team gear or participate in promotionals, don’t spend money on football. Now apply it to Republican businesses. Boycott Republican businesses. Bars, restaurants, gas stations, lumber yards, skanky stores. It’s easy: generally they’re the ones that are rude. Just don’t spend money at them. Apply it right up the line, certainly reduce power consumption and carbon footprint to bite into the oil revenues; one step above local is boycott Lowes/Home Depot, Whole Foods, WalMart, beer brewed in vats the size of Rhode Island, and the General Motors, Ford and Chrysler corporations. Lettuce grown in Mexico, shredded in New Jersey and shipped to Seattle.
Ten Bears
Make it painful to be a Republican.
Sid Finster
@Ten Bears: Team D is no better.
Ten Bears
Team D isn’t in charge. Unless you count complete ineffectiveness to counter a nearly successful eighty year drive to fascism Team D isn’t the problem at hand.
different clue
@Ten Bears,
That is certainly a viable approach as well. I will consider it. For now, I will continue focusing my pathetic little lay-amateur efforts on energy use cutback; specifically electricity use cutback most of all.
How ironic, some would say, that I type these words on a computer machine which needs electricity to function. To which I reply, if I can conserve more electricity away from the computer than I consume while on the computer, then I am operating at net electro-consumption reduction. Since I don’t know what this workplace computer station is consuming while I am computering on it, I can only say that the monitor is a small flat-screen Dell, the keyboard is a Dell, the hard drive box is a Hewlet Packard. Does someone out there know how much electricity this combination consumes per unit time?
And I could compare it to what I do presently consume inside my own little dwelling unit ( including what my dwelling unit consumes on its own while I am away in order to stay livable for when I get back to it.) And my electricity consumption ranges from highs of 3.2 – 3.6 kilowatt-hours per day in the bad winter months to lows of 2.1- 2.6 kilowatt-hours per day in the good spring to fall months. If that is lower than the average, then that shows that other people have room to reduce their dwelling use down from what it now is.
If I were a family of four, I would be consuming 8-10 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. What in fact does the “average” homedwelling family of four consume per day of electricity?
russell1200
I didn’t vote for GWB. So I wasn’t a huge fan. But which of our recent Presidents hasn’t gotten us into some sort of war of dubious value?
Iraq was a disaster as far as the execution of it goes; and GWB had a lot of help there.
So in my mind, I don’t need to rehabilitate him because I never vilified him beyond being incompetent: which presumably at the presidential level, he still is.