Nostalgia for Bush

Critics foreign and domestic are suffering wistful nostalgia for the Cowboy from Texas

Love him or hate him, at least you knew where he stood.  Others may have quibbled over the moral standards he set, but at least the standards were clear.

Europe in a Dither
Why?  Because America is supposed to be the publicly reviled bad cop.  That scary cop who will beat the crap out of you when the ACLU lawyers ain't around, then deny it all in court. 

Our president is not supposed to run around the world coddling bad guys, cosying up to troublemakers and currying favor with emerging powers.  He's supposed to be brass knuckling the bad guys and taking public scoldings from finger-wagging Europeans who privately egg him on because they are too cowardly to take care of things themselves.

Castigate us publicly, but thank us privately, that's the dysfunctional dynamic between us and Europe.  Well, now the bad cop is playing global social worker while little Hugo and crazy Mahmoud go wilding on the Jews and threaten to burn down the neighborhood.

Democrats miss The Decider as well 
The object of their hatred gone, the nutroots turned on Obama.  Their pent-up anger simmered and seethed for almost a year, building like a swollen red pustule until finally it exploded all over their messiah.  Note to future saviors:  If you're gonna promise socialist salvation, you better bring it.

Dems actually have to govern now, and they answered the challenge by setting up a Soviet Style Politburo, but the wall is falling and the proletariat ain't cooperating.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and chaos loves ambiguity 
President Bush provided moral clarity.  President Obama promises hope and change.  The O is empty, and Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts are filling the void. 

BS may get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Bushanomics

** Unhinged DeviledEgg Rant Alert! **

The man who destroyed capitalism in order to save it announced the launch of The George Bush Center for Big Government and Big Business: 

Former President George W. Bush, outlining plans for a new public policy institute, on Thursday said America must fight the temptation to allow the federal government to take control of the private sector, declaring that too much government intervention will squelch economic recovery and expansion.

This is the man who authorized the largest transfer ever of taxpayer funds from the US Treasury to the pockets of Wall Street banksters and corrupt corporate crybabies disguised as capitalists.

"As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control. History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much,"

This is the man who presided over more government growth than Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev combined!

Folks, George Bush is a great guy, buuuut...
... He's not the figure 21st century conservatives should rally 'round.  He has no credibility on free market capitalism or small government.  The role of government when he was in office was to roll over everything in its path.  He presided over eight years of private sector-big business-big government orgies that brought us to where we are now.  

Worst of all, he burdened us with TSA, Thousands Standing Around.  That alone is an impeachable offense in my book!

It pains me to say this.  Silverfiddle begged me not to say it.  He was in the military during his administration, and he says it literally felt like it was the military, President Bush, and good-hearted Americans against the world.  

God bless President Bush, but he's a relic of the past.  Trying to defend his crony capitalism and big government policies is a quagmire all good conservatives should avoid.

WashTimes - Bush Center for Big Government and Big Business

Terrorism threat Levels and Other Nonsense

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election. (Source: RCP)

This is right up there with Obama accusing Republicans of playing politics. Oh, the horror! Politicians playing politics!

I always thought the whole Terrorism threat levels, with its Christmas tree colors, was nonsense.

What is my 85 year old granny supposed to do with this alarming information blared out by the government? What am I supposed to do with it? Be more alert?

OK, I see two men in flowing robes and dishdashas taking pictures of a railway trestle on my way to work. Am I going to report it? Of course not! That would be identifying myself as a bigot who unfairly stereotypes people. Screw that, I don't need the hassle.

Threat levels and alerts are good things for military installations and government agencies, but do nothing for a citizenry just trying to live their daily lives.

RCP - Ridge
FEC Diary

Smart President, Dumb President

So, tell me again why Barack Obama is so smart and George Bush is so dumb?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisors with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as "proof" of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on "Earth Day," would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually "get" what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had failed to send aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt --which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate -- in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 6 months -- so you'll have three years and six months to come up with an answer.

HT to OD - Thanks for the E-mail! I don't know who wrote this, but it bears repeating.

The Professor and the Cowboy

President Bush explained himself better that President Obama has so far...

Despite his erudite, professorial mien, President Obama sure doesn't explain things well. The inarticulate Cowboy from Texas was much more thoughtful when discussing the economy, foreign policy, and stem cells than The Great Orator from Chicago. Has anyone noticed this besides me?

Obama's "Nothing should stand in the way of science, but I prohibit human cloning" is logically incoherent, but nobody cares because he looks good and sounds good spouting such inanities

The press is so enamored of this tall, handsome man, that if he came out on the front lawn of the White House and howled at the moon they would gush about how no other president in history had done it quite so well. Among the legions of scribblers and babblers, Johah Goldberg at NRO is one of the few who has dared throw the BS flag on Obama's latest verbal embroidery.

Asked about his decision to release the “torture memos” and ban waterboarding, Obama said: “I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, ‘We don’t torture,’ when . . . all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. . . . Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.”

It’s a nice, honorable statement. But there’s not much evidence it’s true.

Goldberg eviscerates Obama's misuse of history by pointing to harsh WW II British interrogation techniques, not to mention the incineration of tens of thousands of Germans upon Churchill's order to firebomb Dresden when the war was already practically won. Churchill author Arthur Herman chimes in as well in a NY Post article.

So, is the president genuinely ignorant? Is he not thinking through what he's doing? Or does he hold us in such low esteem that we just don't merit a detailed explanation or an honest accounting? So far, he has proven much less articulate that President Bush. Who'd a thunk it?

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
-- Mark Twain

NY Post - Arthur Herman
NRO - Jonah Goldberg

The Looting of America: An Inside Job

The most galling aspect of this Obama-Rama-Ding-Dong Progressive Porkapalooza celebration is that people calling themselves conservatives got this socialist boulder rolling.

This latest Kabuki theater over AIG bonuses only makes it worse. Then-Senator Obama, Senator Dodd and Congressman Barny Frank all voted for the bill that had Dodd's provision in it authorizing those bonuses, but nevermind. Manufactured outrage plays well with the ignorant boobs who vote for these charlatans.

President Obama had this to say when a reporter asked him if he was a socialist as his critics charge:

"I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn’t on my watch. And it wasn’t on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement -– the prescription drug plan -- without a source of funding."

Touche', Mr President, even if it did take you two hours of consulting with advisers to craft this riposte.

The Bush White House ("I had to destroy capitalism to save it," or something like that) started the multi-trillion-dollar run on the treasury. The Wall Street banksters needed to restock their portfolios, so they called their buddy Dirty Hank, a Wall Street investment bankster himself. They then carried out their brazen plan to loot the treasury in broad daylight.

Grab a Plunger!

I got so tired of hearing about the "bad debt" clogging the system. I kept thinking of toilets and plungers... These financial instruments were clogging the system because they were now worth 20 cents on the dollar. In free-market capitalism, the owner sucks it up or goes under. In our Wall Street welfare queen system, nobody was willing to settle for that when Uncle Sucker raised the possibility that he would buy it for the ridiculous price of a dollar on the dollar.

If you were holding these assets, wouldn't you sit on them if you believed the government would bail you out by paying an above-market price?

But what if the US government came out and said in effect "tough luck, we're not bailing anybody out," what would you do? You'd sell for 20 cents on the dollar. You'd make some meager but productive lemonade out of those lemons, which would spur some economic activity and plunger those those turds down that were clogging the system.

President Bush and a band of cowardly Republicans got the bailout bandwagon rolling, providing a golden opportunity to President Obama and the liberal Democrats to usher in a new age of redistributionist liberalism that would make FDR blush. They've grabed it with gusto. They will blame Republicans, Reagan, and Bush all the way to a permanent majority, harvesting votes from an entitlement class addicted to government handouts. At least they seem willing to entertain the masses with some liberal agitprop.

We missed a real chance to learn a once-in-a-lifetime lesson. Unfortunately, all we learned was that when you dirty your diaper Uncle Sam will change it for you, at the expense of those who have learned to care for themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/economy/27policy.html?_r=2&hp
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-budget-assess27-2009feb27,0,5874116.story
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120511125873823431.html
http://washingtontimes.com/weblogs/joe-curl/2009/Mar/08/obama-makes-oval-office-call-reporters/

Goodbye, Mr. President

If you love President Bush, as I do, please go read this article. Bush and the Bush Haters by J.R. Dunn is a fitting coda to the man's presidency.

Yes, he was not a "true conservative," he and congress joined forces to spend us into oblivion, and his inability, or disinclination, to advocate for his policies or even defend himself was maddening. He damaged the conservative cause, but I believe him to be a good and honorable man, as politicians go.

Here's an excerpt from the article. I agree with every word of it:

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.

Although everyone insists on doing so, it is impossible to judge Bush, his achievements, or his failings, without taking these attacks into account. Before any serious analysis of the Bush presidency can be made, some attempt to encompass the campaign against him must be carried out. I hope no one is holding his breath.

Dunn sums it all up nicely in this paragraph. Be sure to follow the links he provides concerning President Bush's rehabilitation. It's too bad it took his leaving the White House to see some positive commentary.

And as for the "worst president in history" himself, George W. Bush has exhibited nothing but his accustomed serenity. Despite the worst his enemies could throw at him, his rehabilitation has already begun (as can be seen here, here, here, and here). He will be viewed at last as a man who picked up the worst hand of cards dealt to any president since Roosevelt and who played it out better than anyone had a right to expect.

Farewell, President Bush.

Progressive Frowns and Circus Clowns

Do you agree with this recent statement regarding President Bush's victories in the 2000 presidential election (Florida) and the 2004 presidential election (Ohio)?

He stole the election? Prove it or shut up.
The recount shows that he won... The lying liars who say otherwise have no evidence of cheating.

I agree wholeheartedly. President Bush disappointed me on occasion, but I think he is an honest, honorable man, as politicians go. I grew sick long ago of the yapping dogs on the left refusing to let it go. A particularly harsh back and forth at the Washington Post with a rabid pack of deranged leftists finally pushed me over the edge and caused me to start blogging.

I've often used just that line of reasoning with them: Put up or shut up. You have no proof.

It is a logical riposte to those slinging scurrilous charges around. The burden of proof is with the person making the allegation.

However, the above statement was not written by a conservative, and it's not about President Bush. So, who wrote that statement and what is it about? A slobbering, Bush-hating leftist named Joe Consason wrote the quote about Al Franken's Senate campaign in a liberal net-rag called Saloon:

Al Franken stole the election? Prove it or shut up.
The recount shows that he won the Minnesota Senate race. The lying liars who say otherwise have no evidence of cheating.

Liberals are outraged! Incensed! And scandalously appalled that Republicans, conservatives and other anti-liberal bourgeois subversives have the temerity to accuse Al Franken of stealing the Minnesota Senate election. The very idea!

Is Conason serious? Is he stupid? Or is he so blindly partisan that he sees no similarities between the Franken and Bush accusations. He didn't even acknowledge the comparison in his article. Can the libs really be so blind to their own raw hypocrisy and, well... their logical blind spots? The next four years could be entertaining if we play our cards right.

Free Ramos and Compean!

President Bush has seen fit to pardon gamblers, embezzlers, car thieves, moonshiners, dope pushers, and various varieties of fraudsters. Why won't he pardon former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean?

These are the men who were convicted when an encounter with an illegal alien drug smuggler went south. The stinking piece of human garbage criminal was granted immunity while the agents went to jail. Only in America...

The only good news in this story is that Mr Davila, Ramos and Compean's "victim," was too stupid to exercise his new lease on life wisely, and is now sitting in prison:

In El Paso, Texas, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila is now behind bars serving a 57 consecutive month sentence on charges of smuggling a ton of marijuana into the United States. The ruling comes more than three years after Aldrete-Davila was given immunity to testify in the case against Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

The case of these two men is not clear cut. Perhaps they did indeed act wrongly, but they were putting their lives on the line protecting our very dangerous borders. The Federal Government ignored all that and treated them like common criminals. They are serving minimum 10 year sentences "for using a firearm in the commission of a felony," a sentencing guideline never intended for law enforcement agents. In the interest of fairness, here are links to two articles,

Rep Dana Rohrbacher, Republican of California, argues that the President should pardon these men.

Andrew McCarthy argues that these are bad men who deserve to stay where they are.

Here's the weirdest twist of all, from the El Paso Times:

EL PASO -- A candidate for assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement urged President Bush in an open letter to pardon ex-Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

Miguel Contreras, a retired federal investigative official, said he wrote the letter in hope the president will grant the two El Pasoans a pardon or reduce their sentences.

"I reviewed everything I could find related to their cases, and based on my extensive experience, Compean and Ramos should be released and reinstated to their former jobs," said Contreras, who lives in Yuma, Ariz., and retired as a federal supervisory criminal investigator. "I have not received a response."

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team recently notified Contreras he is being considered for a high-level job with ICE, and his first act after learning that was the case, he wrote the letter for the ex-Border Patrol agents.

Could President Obama, with the support of prominent lawmakers like Senator Diane Feinstein end up doing the right thing after President Bush, savior of robbers and dope peddlers, refused?

Virtue Rewarded

Kosovo Names Street For President Bush

(AFP) Kosovo decided Wednesday to name a central street of its capital Pristina after outgoing US President George W. Bush for his support of the territory's split from Serbia.

Backed unanimously by Kosovo's cabinet, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the move was "a sign of the huge state and national respect and appreciation" for the United States' contribution to independence, declared earlier this year.

Located in Pristina's downtown area, Bush Street is to be linked to the main thoroughfare named after Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Laureate of Albanian origin.

Fans of Michael Totten will not be surprised by this. His raw reports from Iraq gave us the often brutal truth, but never in a sneering, NY Times way. He was also the first to herald the good news of the Sunni Awakening and the positive results from the surge. He has written of Kosovo:

Most of its citizens are Muslim, an oddity in Europe; further, unlike most Muslim-majority nations, Kosovo is overwhelmingly pro-American, and its relations with Israel are excellent as well.

Totten has also written of Albania, Kosovo's neighboring country, which is also majority Muslim:

Albania is fanatically pro-American, which is perhaps a bit counterintuitive to many Americans since it is at least nominally a Muslim-majority country. The conventional assumption that Muslims hate Americans everywhere isn't true.

“You should have seen President Bush’s face when he came to Albania,” an ethnic Albanian man later said to me in Kosovo. “All over Western Europe he was met by protests, but the entire country of Albania turned out to welcome him. He was so happy. You could see it on his face.”

Albanian pro-Americanism resembles that of both Poland and Iraqi Kurdistan. The unspeakably oppressive communist regime pushed Albanians strongly into the U.S.-led Western camp, and the humanitarian rescue of Albanians in Kosovo from Slobodan Milosevic's tyrannical despotism bolstered that sentiment even more.

Albania, Kosovo, Kurdistan, and to a lesser extent the newly-free countries of Eastern Europe: Nations with memories of brutal tyranny still fresh in their collective minds, greatly appreciate what the US has done for them. Indeed, even the radically anti-US newspaper, Britain's Guardian headlined their story saying he received a hero's welcome.

So, take a moment to feel good about your country and your president. We've freed a lot of people.

Got Liberalism? Before The Crash

As we celebrate this Christmas looking into the abyss of total financial collapse, we need to recall how we got here. Yes, Demicans and Republicrats spent like crazy in pursuit of our votes, and we egged them on. Now we're $10 Trillion in the hole, $50 Trillion of you count all future liabilities.

But what crashed our economy? Democrats.
Led by Senator Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer and Congressman Barny "Frankenstein" Frank. Their unholy alliance with Fannie and Freddie caused this economic nightmare: Fannie and Freddie paid them campaign contributions while senators and congressment kept shoveling government money back at them while ignoring their ineptitude, mismanagement and outright fraud.

That, coupled with government coersion of financial institutions to drop prudent lending practices, is what pushed us over the edge.

Who warned of a crash and tried to stop it? Republicans.
Led by President "Compassionate Conservative" George Bush and Senator John "I'm too honorable to win" McCain. In a rare fit of conservatism, these two men tried to put the brakes on this unholy politico-financial-cluster-alliance, but were unsuccessful.

Here is a Fox News timeline on YouTube, courtesy of Proud To Be Canadian.



It is important we not forget how this happened. Every time some phoney baloney BDS sufferer opens his or her mouth about how George Bush wrecked the economy, we need to shove these facts back at them. They've got all the megaphones now, but that doesn't stop conservatives from speaking the truth.

Friendship & Loyalty, or, Scotty McClellan is a Fat Weasel

I think President Bush is a sincere man, and, as politician go, pretty darned honest. I also think he has pretty much blown it, and much of his failure stems from incompetent advisers and poor communication.

Speaking of incompetence and poor communication, Scott McClellan, former White House spokesman, has written a book criticizing his old boss. Of course, the left is all atwitter: A Bush crony spills the beans on all the nefarious plots! He should be ashamed of himself.

Scotty was the most incompetent of all. I don't know how such a blubber-headed stumble bum made it into the communications business. Instead of standing at the White house Press Room podium, he should have been selling frozen treats out of the back of an ice cream truck. His boobish ineptitude turned every White House press briefing into a pathetic cartoon. Scotty, as Porky Pig in a strange neighborhood, being chased round and round by the pack of rabid press hounds, eyes darting, not knowing whether to take a dump or go blind. If he ran, the reporter dogs tore chunks out of his rump. If he stopped, they took humiliating liberties with him. Yeah Scotty, you failed miserably in getting the President's message out, but it sure did make for some classic comedy.

Scotty was part of the problem. Only in Washington can someone turn a botched job into a goldmine. Scotty will make millions by kicking a friend when he's down. What a weasel.

A Pretty Good Defense of President Bush

Good editorial by Investors Business Daily.
"It takes little courage — or brains — to join the mob vilifying President Bush."