I have to wonder whether Bush senior’s breakdown in Tallahassee yesterday had that much to do with Jeb losing an election in 1994. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Jeb. Jeb seems like a nice guy. Floridians should remember Jeb as a genial governor who did an alright job in a state known for batshit insane politicians.
But let’s be honest, Jeb is a historical footnote. If I can analogize America to a car (it’s a blog, why not), it wasn’t Jeb who borrowed the family sedan, drove it off a cliff and now stands by the smoking wreckage alternately insisting that there’s nothing wrong with the damn car (think there is? maybe you love terrorists) and, anyhow, what’s your plan to get the car started?
You could have guessed that junior would screw the pooch. It’s in his character. Dad knew it would happen. Dad’s friends tried to warn the kid. But Junior, being Junior, took the pooch out for a broadway show and then cocktails and, well, one thing led to another.
Judging by recent events the smell of metaphorical rubber cooking in a gasoline fire has finally woken most Iraq hawks from their light-at-the-end-of-a-corner denial. Let’s recap the notable stories.
* Robert Gates, the president’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, had a hard time denying the obvious.
* John McCain has bravely taken the Friedmanesque position that America will lose if she doesn’t do exactly what he prescribes, even though he admits that doing so would probably break the Army. In other words McCain won’t let himself get caught on tape saying that America will lose this war but he doesn’t mind if you connect the dots.
* The Iraq Study Group has apparently recognized (cagily) that 1) current troop levels won’t win the war, and 2) we don’t have any more troops. The ISG won’t change Bush’s mind but they will legitimize withdrawal talk for pundits who sneered at insane crazy people like Howard Dean*.
Moving down the credibility ladder.
* Tony Snow: It depends on what your definition of is civil war is.
* Glenn Reynolds convened a blogger symposium to flex some of that rightwing intellectual muscle. Their ideas? War, war, war, war and war. Really. You f***ing killed parody, Glenn.
* Every ladder has to bottom out somewhere. Let’s tip our hat to the LGF commentariat who, now as always, think that we should nuke Mecca.
(*) Of course they will go on sneering at Dean and Al Gore and Russ Feingold. There’s nothing more insufferable than someone who got it right the first time.
Brian
On Countdown last night Olbermann asked if Bush’s tears were a tacit admission that the wrong son became president and, as a result, the real gem of the family, Jeb, will never get his chance to really shine in American politics. In other words, Bush 43’s disastrous failures have brought the Bush political dynasty to a screeching halt.
One can only hope.
Tulkinghorn
I could never figure out why W., knowing that we would get involved in one or more adventures in the Middle East, did not enlarge the armed forces by a good 50% after 911.
He would not need a draft, just issue the call for people to sign up, send the specs to Congress for as many new divisions as would be needed, and the people and the military would have taken care of the rest. Hell, if he had decided to do this in the summer of 2003 there still would have been enough good will out there to populate and fund the kind of army that could occupy and control Iraq properly by now.
Instead, anyone with any sense avoids joining the armed forces — what is the point of patriotism if the commander in chief is wasting lives and resources, and is in denial, and is happy to let you die for the sake of his own ego?
If this convinces a generation of military personnel that they should not trust the republicans, that is a small silver lining to this fiasco.
ThymeZone
The final stage of the Bush debacle is now here.
The spew of talking points from the White House now rivals the Onion for its satire and hilarity.
The Demander in Chief is in a bubble of delusion all by himself. Not even the mob’s most trusted consigliere can get through to the crazy fuck at this point.
Time for the people in positions of power to start figuring out how to run the country despite the crazy president and ignore him to the greatest possible extent.
It is now August 1974. How long before the breakdown and the tearful resignation speech?
Jake
Alas, once people who think it is a nifty idea to lie in order to justify a war get in power, there’s no point in expecting things like planning. Or thinking. Or restraint. The script called for multi-national forces (led by the US) to march in to Iraq, grab Hussein by the ear and then fend off the women eager to thank their liberators. I’m sure it never occured to this Admin. that the Iraqis would start improvising.
Andrew
This is why we need to accelerate research into virtual reality. The sooner we can put all of the Bushes into a Holodeck simulation of running America into the ground, the better. And let them deal with that dastardly Moriarty.
mrmobi
Well, TZ, that’s assuming W has a conscience. Nixon did, notwithstanding all the damage he did before resigning. You probably remember stories in the mainstream press before his resignation speculating about him declaring martial law and such.
But he didn’t do that. He made his assessment and did the right thing (after carefully making sure Ford would pardon him).
No such luck with this sociopath. Next up, several constitutional crises and lots of temper tantrums from Chimpy McFlightsuit when he doesn’t get his way. This is going to be the longest two years in American political history. Heaven help us.
chopper
god, that’s funny, but now i have a disturbing image in my head that won’t go away.
Pb
Hey, at least you know where they stand, they don’t shift in the wind! Heh.
Davebo
Does Glenn Reynolds truly have no sense of embarrassment?
I mean I know the ad revenue is probably good, but is this really worth the money?
TenguPhule
Please refrain from trying to find the pony in Iraq. The invasion and occupation was doomed from conception and should have been aborted well before the delusion that ‘more troops would have worked’ spread to otherwise rational people.
And that’s why there’s no pony in Iraq.
TenguPhule
Yes.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Area Man
I actually felt bad for Bush Sr. when I saw this. I always thought of him as a well-meaning, reasonably competent career civil servant with a latent altruistic streak. His Excellent Adventures with Bill are precisely the sort of thing that make the dittohead’s teeth grind.
Imagine what it must feel like to watch as your weak-minded, doltish excuse for a son willingly submits to becoming a clueless patsy for the closest equivalent to organized crime that “democracy” has ever spawned.
On a lighter note, its Beaujolais time! Please buy the correct cheese. And don’t forget to wear your “Vote Kerry…President of France” t-shirt.
SeesThroughIt
Dr. Moriarty! Jack the Ripper! Attila the Hun! Evil Lincoln!
“Right-o, gents, it’s another simulation gone mad, so murder and mayhem–standard procedure!”
And finally, because this line never fails to crack me up: “Spare me your space-age technobabble, Attila the Hun!
Tsulagi
All I’ve heard from McCain about Iraq is just bullshit CYA with the base for his presidential run.
He says he’s consistently called for more troops in Iraq for years. Umm, okay, other than Sunday morning talk show words what actions has he taken toward that goal? Zip. Oh, wait, he did co-sponsor a bill early last year calling for 35,000 to be added to the strength authorization of Army and Marine. In the Republican controlled Congress that bill went nowhere. Didn’t do anything after that.
Now he says his winning plan calls for an additional 20k troops to be sent to Iraq from a pool of 100k new troops to be added to Army and Marine. Riiight. Alright, let’s assume you have far more luck with the Dems than the “Support the Troops” Pubs and get that authorization bill through quickly and dipshit signs it. What does that do for you?
Allowing time for recruitment, training, procuring new equipment, etc., those new troops coming on line can play catch-up covering troop reductions from the 17k or so currently remaining in the Coalition of the Going, Going, Gone members like Great Britain. Net increase in force levels? Not much, and current levels have worked so well. Stay the course.
sglover
Bush the Elder was just a slightly less coarse and stupid version of the Bush stain. I’d be delighted if that entire germ line found its own latter-day version of Ekatrinberg.
sglover
Oops, damn, “Ekaterinberg”, I meant.
Mike P.
I see Hopper has mentioned it already, but I’d like to chime in as well – You get quote of the day honors from me, Tim F.:
“You could have guessed that junior would screw the pooch. It’s in his character. Dad knew it would happen. Dad’s friends tried to warn the kid. But Junior, being Junior, took the pooch out for a broadway show and then cocktails and, well, one thing led to another.”
That’s freakin’ great!
Pooh
Q: Mr. Snow, what does the President call his new plan?
A: The Aristocrats!
croatoan
Jeb’s smarter, taller, and better-looking than W, plus Jeb can speak in complete sentences. He must hate W with the heat of 1000 suns.
stickler
No offense, Area Man, but come on:
The man was head of the CIA. His family had some shady business connections with real, live Nazis back in the ’30s. He is also a Texas oil man.
Cynical, connected, ruthless, amoral? You bet. Well-meaning? Um, sorry, rather unlikely. Don’t cry for Kennebunkport, Kennebunkport doesn’t need your tears.
Zifnab
Was Bush any worse than the majority of our other Presidents? Probably not. He wasn’t worse than Reagan, that’s for damn sure. And he was squeeky clean enough to be the man they sent in to the FBI to clean it up after Nixon. Bush the Eldar was as good a Republican President as anyone could realistically ask for. And I think the reason America was so quick to jump behind Kid Bush was the common wisdom that the apple just can’t fall that far from the tree. But he wasn’t an altruist and he wasn’t a saint. He and Reagen sold America out to the energy industry like Johnson sold us out to the military contractors. And now he’s sitting on a shit-ton of cash and has to start working on his legacy. So he joins the Ex-Presidents club with Clinton and they drive around the world in a Scooby Bus curing AIDS, cleaning up Tsunamis, and doing what the US Gov’t should actually be doing but is too cheap/greedy/stupid to accomplish.
sglover
Bush the Elder is the “well-meaning” guy who had nothing better to offer the country than scare-mongering about Willy Horton and flag burning. The only real difference between him and his failed spawn is that he’s got a veneer of prep school etiquette, and he actually listens to the help. Otherwise, in opportunism, lack of imagination (remember “the vision thing”?) and self-centeredness, the seed really didn’t fall far from the tree at all. That entire family is a stain on the country — take a moment and check out how brother Neil Bush has made a career out of pimping family connections.
sglover
One more damning thing about Bush the Elder — Clarence Thomas. A Supreme Court nomination eclipsed only by Harriet Miers for sheer cynicism.
Zifnab
Harriet Miers is twice the man Clarence Thomas is, and I’m sure someone’s got the Pepsi can to prove it.
Pb
George W. Bush has done wonders for his father’s legacy, though, he makes his dad look like a freakin’ genius, every single day.
Jake
In this case the tree was leaning over a frickin’ cliff above the Colorado River and I write this as someone who did not care for the first incarnation of Bush the President.
Gary K
George Sr was crying because he realizes the Bush name and dynasty is swirling around the drain. He also has to realize that his own legacy is going to be tied to Jr if only because of the name. I’m sad for this myself; I voted for George Sr in ’88 but against him in ’92. George Sr was a great world leader for Gulf War I. Too Bad Jr didn’t have the same instincts.
TenguPhule
It was obvious from the start.
Put a Bush and Dick in Charge and all you’re going to get is screwed.
TenguPhule
Four words.
Terri Schiavo. National Guard.