For John, BLUF: "Bush is a bottomless chasm, a deep, mysterious, emotional, profound man." Nothing to see here; just move along.
It is The Washinton Times, so you would expect the article to be pro-Bush on the day his Presidential Library is dedicated, but this was interesting:
Shortly after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, a fellow reporter who’d covered President George W. Bush all eight years told me she’d had enough of the travel and stress and strain of the White House beat, that she was moving on.And, President Bush's numbers are back up, as Columnist Peggy Noonan tells us:We reminisced about all the places we’d been, all the crazy days and wild nights, all the history we’d seen — first hand. Just before we said our goodbyes, I asked her if she’d miss covering President Obama.
“Not at all. He’s an inch deep. Bush is a bottomless chasm, a deep, mysterious, emotional, profound man. Obama is all surface — shallow, obvious, robotic, and, frankly, not nearly as smart as he thinks. Bush was the one.”
Her words, so succinct, have stuck with me ever since. By the way, she’s a hardcore Democrat.
When Bush left office, his approval rating was down in the 20s to low 30s. Now it's at 47%, which is what Obama's is. That is amazing, and not sufficiently appreciated. Yes, we are a 50-50 nation, but Mr. Bush left office in foreign-policy and economic failure, even cataclysm. Yet he is essentially equal in the polls to the supposedly popular president.
Hat tip to the Wife.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit, re the quote from Ms Noonan.
Regards — Cliff
8 comments:
A bottomless chasm of what, exactly?
I'm astounded that some people seem to believe the rest of us have such short memories that they can make up a fantasy history so at odds with the record and spew it all with a straight face.
Here's John P. O'Neill, Special Agent In Charge in Bush's FBI: "The incurious President was so opaque on some important issues that top Cabinet officials were left guessing his mind even after face-to-face meetings."
And why, should we wonder, would he be so opaque? Neocon Richard Perle once observed "The first time I met 43 two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other, that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much".
These are his SUPPORTERS.
As for the "approval ratings", the piece from which these other quotes are taken is one by Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine, which also continues to observe that Jimmy Carter's approval ratings have more recently surpassed 60%.
Bush was a man out of his depth, and he presided over an unmitigated disaster of a presidency, including the worst terrorist atrocity against this country in its entire history, one of the two worst abridgments of our civil rights in our nation's entire history, (I'm giving Adams' Alien and Sedition Act the other spot), and certainly the second worse economic collapse after Hoover's. He cooked intelligence to manufacture illegal (i.e. not declared by Congress) war against other sovereign nations and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in the process.
That you can ignore all this to pump the pabulum here is pretty much an embarrassment if you ask me.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/bush-terrible-president-also-not-a-smart-man.html
I admit to not being embarrassed to mention these things. These views are out there and nothing is gained by hiding from them.
As for Bush's Administration, it isn't EXACTLY as you describe it. I don't think we can blame President Bush for 9/11, and his initial response was pretty good. For sure, OBL was an independent actor.
I agree about the human rights problem, but, as with other events, I hold the US Congress equally responsible for the decay in human rights. The have responsibilities and they didn't live up to them. Plus, they gave us DHS and the DCI.
As for President Bush being with President Adams, you glide right over President Lincoln, the feckless President Wilson and President Roosevelt, who interned all those Japanese, Italians and Germans. Then there is LBJ and the pervasive domestic spying. I agree about the economy. I think he should have let too big to fail fail. Further, he went Keynesian when he should have gone Heyak.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Regards — Cliff
I forgot to add, Obama I is pretty much a continuation of "W" Bush I & II, PP&ACA (Obama Care) excepted
"If you didn't like the old boss, why would you like the new boss?"
Regards — Cliff
It's never complete without a "but their guy is just as bad if not worse", is it.
Why can't we blame Bush for 9/11? Because his response to an after-the-horse-was-blown-up threat was violent enough to appease our sense of populist (over)reaction? The goal of national security is actual national security. Bush's failed. You wish to excuse. Fair enough. But the BS that "no big terrorist event happened on our watch" is so patently ridiculous that I'm amazed we even let the words come out of their mouths.
And, I guess, it's also not ever complete by pointing an accusatory finger at a coincident Congress, either. Did 43 or didn't he? He did. And, since we're talking about Dubya and we're not talking about bad Congresses, (of which we've had a string of doozies alright), the point stands without qualification.
Alien and Sedition and "Patriot". (I STILL can't type it without quotation marks). Name something else that rises to their level of "screw the Bill of Rights" on a comprehensive level. Selective abridgment is heinous. There have been a litany of offenders in that category. But we're talking "everyone is a traitor that I say is a traitor"--the means for a chief executive to usurp The People's power written right there into our laws.
And, for the record, and for about the millionth time (every time I get into an argument with a Republican about the issues I have with Republicans) I don't "like Obama". To me, and as you observe, he is EXACTLY like his predecessors, and, if even humanly possible, even worse in so many ways. But you don't get to excuse a guy for doing exactly what he did via pointing a finger at the kid next to him in the back seat of the National station wagon and saying "but he did it too". It's just as ridiculous as saying "but he started it".
We The People have to start seeing these situations for what they are, and refusing to excuse them on partisan grounds.
Para 1. Fair enough. President Obama is not an excuse for President Bush.
Para 2. I don't believe I believe there was no big terrorist event on President George W Bush's watch. There was. The odds of him (or his Administration) anticipating it and heading it off were very small. I strongly doubt that a President Al Gore would have experienced a different outcome.
Para 3. It is the Constitution. The President does not live in happy isolation. The Judiciary and the Legislature are there to balance (and thwart) the President. They not only failed, they added on.
Para 4. President Bush did not emerge ex nihilo. There was precedent and it was bad precedent. It is like the lockdown in Boston in the pursuit of the Bomber Brothers, and more specifically in Watertown. That is a very dangerous precedent and many will cite it in arguing that we need to ignore the Fourth Amendment to keep the population safe. And many of the People will believe that. If we focus it all on "W" we will miss what we are losing. Look at New York City where the head of the City's Finest is calling for more cameras (as well as the Mayor of Chicago).
Para 5. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that those who are not with us are against us.
Para 6. Exactly.
Regards — : Cliff
Let's not overlook the fact that Bill Clinton didn't do much....if anything.....to deter the 9/11 attack. If anything, the USS Cole encouraged OBL. Did Bush handle the attack correctly. Who knows. Who cares. He handled it. Did Obama handle Boston correctly? Well.....at least Bush actually DID something in the aftermath rather than to make yet another campaign speech.
Bush was NOT great....but he was better than anything we had available to the country. This fact is evidenced by his replacement.
But then, with just a brief interlude in the 50's, America has not picked a real winner for decades and decades. JFK was a rich boy who capitalized on his money and his fame....for money...and fame. LBJ was a complete idiot....dumber than the longhorns he raised on his ranch....AND....he is responsible for thousands of deaths of our nation's finest military men in SEA because his FAT ego demanded that HE run the war from the Oval Office.
Nixon was a neurotic, anti-social personality.
Ford was....well....a really nice guy...but an Edsel.
Carter was an unmitigated disaster. The reason he carried Georgia so largely is that they wanted to get rid of him.
The last really great hope was RR....and we've slide down the slope ever since. WE have slid down the slope.
And today.....as evidence of that rapid decline.......we have the biggest charlatan in the history of the US Presidency.
Neal, like I said up top, this wasn't offered as a beauty contest thread--it's a "whither Dubya" thread. As such, I'd observe it's unseemly to defend your guy by having to point your finger at another guy, and I would further observe that the very fact you feel compelled to do it quite eloquently proves my point. When Cliff posts the apology for Barry here, we can all jump together on our present administration's failings, of which, as you've observed, there are plenty.
If I am still blogging in seven years.
Regards — Cliff
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