A few days ago, Josh Marshall remarked that it wouldn’t be long “before pundits decided it was time to be “counter-intuitive” and start “reassessing” the Bush legacy”. Today, the UK Telegraph publishes a classic Bush reassessment piece by nut job Andrew Roberts. What’s most remarkable here is that it’s almost entirely the same old arguments — “victory” in Iraq, Libya out of the axis of evil, the subprime crisis was Democrats’ fault, the elites just hate Bush cos they’re elite, etc. But I haven’t heard this before:
this charming, interesting, beautifully mannered history buff who, were he not the most powerful man in the world, would be a fine person to have as a pal.
Or this (italics mine)
With his characteristic openness and at times almost self-defeating honesty, Mr Bush has been the first to acknowledge his mistakes – for example, tardiness over Hurricane Katrina – but there are some he made not because he was a ranting Right-winger, but because he was too keen to win bipartisan support. The invasion of Iraq should probably have taken place months earlier, but was held up by the attempt to find support from UN security council members, such as Jacques Chirac’s France, that had ties to Iraq and hostility towards the Anglo-Americans.
If you don’t have the patience to read the piece, you can just watch this:
harlana pepper
As I was just commenting on the presidential address thread, 1000 or so years from now, Bush will be remembered like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great is today and you will all feel like a bunch of fools.
Johnny Pez
I’m also a charming, interesting, beautifully mannered history buff, but since I’ve never run any businesses into the ground, I guess I’m not qualified to be president.
harlana pepper
Btw, pundits have been reassessing Bush in a positive light ever since his ratings started to tank. This is nothing new, but it *is* shameful and vomit-worthy.
cleek
that is the stupidest half-sentence ever written.
when given a chance to acknowledge his mistakes in the 2004 debates, he declined the opportunity.
but Americans have been acknowledging Bush’s mistakes for him, for quite a while now. his approval rating has been under 50% for the last four years.
Johnny Pez
Fix’d.
grass
I’d rather push cocktail sticks into my ears than listen to that.
Rick Taylor
Tardiness? Tardiness?!?!? That is sick. An American city died while the federal government blundered, and he calls it "tardiness." That is sick. What is wrong with these people? It seems the only tragedy that touches them is 9/11.
Tattoosydney
What a piece of crap.
Bush still seems to think that his real mistake in Katrina was pissing people off by not landing his fucking plane. When has he ever acknowledged an actual mistake which wasn’t about messing up the PR? His "Mission Accomplished" comments were the same – the mistake he admitted wasn’t any substantive error in starting or running the war, but about the White House fucking up the message.
What the hell does this mean? The whole war would have been a success if, instead of pandering to cheese eaters, we had invaded in November or December rather than March? If the US had invaded months earlier, its invasion force wouldn’t have been too small to actually control the country after they invaded? Maybe the plan to run the country they hadn’t bothered to establish would have magically appeared?
No wait, I get it – this is the "if we had invaded earlier, Saddam wouldn’t have been able to smuggle his WMDs into Iran" argument…
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Mr Andrews needs to get up off his knees and wipe off his chin.
Josh Hueco
That was quite the bit of codpiece polishing by Roberts. The whole article reads like the same arguments against critics of the Iraq invasion after it became quickly obvious the WMDs weren’t there: "Just you wait! History will show they were in Syria! Just you wait! Someday they’ll be found in those trailers!"
I think the only line he left out was, "You can’t whip up a big batch of Freedom Toast without breaking a [few hundred thousand brown -ed.] eggs."
Johnny Pez
I think Josh Marshall was talking about non-wingnut pundits. Of course the wingnuts are going to continue fluffing Bush — that’s a given. Marshall was predicting that allegedly serious pundits like MoDo and JokeLine would start doing it too. And he’s probably right.
assclown
This is ridiculous. My take – punditry, and much of the US media, is obsessed with being "fresh" and "dynamic". The facts don’t matter, only having some new and semi-controversial view. If it gets his name out there as the guy who wrote that crazy opinion piece on Bush, hey, alls the better. Who cares if it has very little basis in reality.
wilfred
Crikey, like attracts like some some giant dumbfuck magnet.
I was watching the Arab equivalent of a Live Aid video for Gaza, which included dozens of photos of abu Ghraib, dead Iraqis, Afghans, etc., all ‘success’ stories.
Americans will be paying for a generation for the crimes of this fucking imbecile and his gangster pals.
Rick Taylor
And by the way, Bush was not a wonderful mild mannered history buff, he was a cretinous self-centered jerk who thought nothing of using a passing technician’s sweater to clean his glasses or of giving a spontaneous massage to a head of state, who spoke with his mouth full and was generally embarrassing when talking to Tony Blair, and never took responsibility for anything he did. He took the nation to war for the most superficial of reasons, and hundreds of thousands died and millions became refugees as a result. Even now, when people are feeling sympathy for him because he looks unhappy, to me looks unhappy because of the damage to his ego; I don’t think he gives a damn about the damage he did to his country. What’s really on his mind now is how in years to come, people will look back and recognized what a great President he really was.
I rarely go this way, because I think it’s irrelevant; if he was all this and a great President I wouldn’t care a bit, just as I don’t care about Clinton’s marital infidelity. But with people getting all warm and fuzzy about him, I feel some need to push back.
Gravenstone
Dunno where you found that fucktard video, but I made it all of 20 seconds in before I had to bail to preserve my sanity. That’s an evil evil trick to pull on a fine Friday morning Mr. Cole.
Tony J
There’s nothing surprising about this. Roberts knows that there is a well-paid sinecure at the Court-in-Exile for a ‘respected’ historian willing to Buddhist-monk his professional reputation by repackaging discredited wingnut tropes into readable English and selling it back to said wingnuts in book form as ‘their’ history.
It’s only a matter of time before Murdoch’s publishing wing offers someone a five figure advance for writing the true 5-volume history of the Bush Years. This is just Roberts’ audition piece.
Josh Hueco
The comments for the article are magnificent. One guy’s posting the link from that Weekly Standard story about how Saddam and Osama were buddies.
Bob In Pacifica
For all the people who wanted to have a beer with him, I hear the guy’s a mean drunk and an ass clown. If he weren’t born to wealth and power and a scion of the American aristocracy and lived with the hoi polloi I could see him spending his Friday nights getting his ass kicked in local bars, or getting shot when he ticked off his coke dealer. But Daddy and Daddy’s friends have been around to bail his ass out.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
Utter bullshit from an uninformed sycophant, so what else is new?
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
I saw a replay of Bush’s speech last night and all I could see was that it was missing a "MAD MAGAZINE" background. He looks more like Alfred E. Neuman than Alfred E. Neuman.
Dreggas
kinda O/T but this is hilarious
Lupin
Worse than the article are the comments. It’s like lifting a rock and seeing the roaches.
The fact remains that Bush almost destroyed America and the jury is still out as to whether we can recover.
Nicole
Does anyone know a safe substance to clean a laptop screen? (Note to self: do NOT take mouthful of beverage right before clicking on any video posted to Balloon-Juice)
libarbarian
I had forgot that rocking ballad.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
According to the financial newsletter I receive, the answer is "highly unlikely".
Apparently Federal Home Loan Banks are sinking now and that’s going to take us down.
Reverend Dennis
"Those on the right will try to characterize Mr. Bush as weak for not wiping off his dick on the East Room drapes during his farewell address. History will show that Mr. Bush wiped off his dick on every American’s drapes."
Joshua Norton
Apparently Mr. Roberts has Bush confused with Doris Kearns Goodwin. An easy mistake to make.
DougJ
I’m glad to have introduced some of you to "Bush Was Right." It’s an internet tradition.
kay
In my opinion, people are much more practical than that. I’m summing up Bush’s legacy by the local, small business (former) wingnuts who look like they got kicked in the stomach.
One of whom told me last week "no one made any money". Someone did, of course, just not him, or anybody like him, but I didn’t say that.
They’re now telling me that Democrats put up a "weak" candidate and Bush was the lesser of two evils in 2004. I remember, though. They loved him, but he didn’t love them back. Obama-mania is nothing compared to what I saw here, regarding Bush. It was hero-worship, and it was belligerent and full-throated. Anything else is revision.
Gus
The Editors might as well call the race for the 2009 Fluffy award. This will be unbeatable.
R-Jud
@CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX:
We bought a new fridge recently. Should we keep the box? You know, just so we have somewhere to stay.
GSD
It is a never ending Bush-kakke with these mooks.
-GSD
maya
Up to, and including, his last news conference and his last address to the Amerikun people, I am saddened by the fact that nobody ever asked the Bush family Crest and Escutcheon Protector why he wanted to get into Iraq 10 days after he took office.
(And David Gregory says there "is no merit" to Scott McClellen’s charge that the WH press corps didn’t ask the tough questions.Humpff!)
I guess we’ll never know the answer to that non-question now as Barney’s saddle bags are packed and will shortly be mounted and ridden off into the Texas sage never to be seen again.
Survived by Osama.
Replaced by Obama.
I will just have to be content with poetic irony.
The Moar You Know
I wonder which fast food establishment the fatass neckbeard and his retard band members are working in these days?
zzyzx
@Gravenstone: If you bailed that soon, you missed the great verse about the wonderful Bush economy. I bet they wish they could retract that one now…
DBrown
Bushwhack the puppet and how history will treat him is a lot like steaming shit in the sun; shit is the only thing that smells less after being baked a long time in the sun. So, some years from now Bushwhack’s shit will be eaten by the wingnuts with glee like the shit from the asswipe Raygun who is now treated by them like he was some type of deity.
Baked or fresh, shit is still shit. Bushwhack is the first one to have the honor of creating the biggest pile of shit for anyone else to clean up in history of this country.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
R-Jud,
My magic eight ball says: You may rely on it
El Cid
My prediction is that the Bush Jr. years will actually be treated in quite a complex propaganda fashion.
It will both have existed and not have existed.
Most of the time it will vanish, the problems it created or exacerbated or through negligence allowed to grow treated as if they created themselves fully formed the very moment Obama takes over.
Occasionally it will be referred to as evidence of how better it is to use force against some difficult foreign policy question — in the same way that now THE SURGE has come to be used as short-hand to say that the Iraq occupation is now basically okay.
But mostly I think it will be treated as elision. As proof of nothing.
ppcli
.
You mean as someone who replaced a great republic with a dictatorship? No, but he sure tried.
.
Bush should count himself lucky that the lame duck amendment gets him out of Washington before the ides of March.
Joshua Norton
Mr. Roberts may have really performed a public service. I’m going to keep a copy of his article in the medicine cabinet in case I accidentally take poison some day and need to induce vomiting.
Comrade Dread
You should have linked to footage of blowjob, it would be more apt.
But expect more of this shit. These people are blindly in love with power and the institutions of government, and to be presented with evidence of monumental failure and a Daddy President who is a felon, probably a war criminal, and deserving of censure and a lengthy prison sentence would shatter their world view.
Hence, the white wash.
"Bush wasn’t that bad. He was a nice guy. Pretty funny. He couldn’t have possibly known that Iraq wasn’t one day away from launching a nuclear first strike against us, the economy is Clinton’s (now miraculously Obama’s) fault, Katrina wasn’t that bad. Torture? We don’t torture. We use ‘enhanced interrogation’ and only a few bad apples took it too far, despite all evidence that these tactics were approved at the highest level."
These people aren’t reporters. They’re disgusting sycophants, court loafers kept close to the halls of power where they live in comfort and have access to the king and bleat (or write) what they’re told to write.
Brian J
This is only tangentially related, but my friend at work who is a fairly strong conservative insists that history will favor Bush and that he’s displayed character by sticking to his guns. There’s definitely something to be said for doing that, but I don’t think that entirely explains Bush’s behavior nor that of his supporters. I think it’s better explained by a more extreme world view than most people will associate with Bush and a stubbornness, a lack of intellectual curiosity, and a desire to be surrounded by yes men that contributed to what we have now. For my friend, the idea that he’s simply sticking his instincts in a way that reveals something heroic is just a convenient cover.
jake 4 that 1
Does anyone else hear slobbering noises?
MikeJ
Wait a minute, I thought all the pointed headed intellectuals were evil liberals. That being the case, we get to write the judgment of history. Why would they think we’d ever let anything nice be said of Bush?
Bad Horse's Filly
A friend created this, you guys might enjoy. For me, I’m so tired of Bush and friends, I’m numb.
Tanks for the Memories
Just found out the oldest of my brothers was/is a McCain/Palin card carrying anti-abortion….oh, hell I could go on, but let’s just say I’ve been asking myself what happened in the last few years to bring this on.
cleek
shorter Andrew Roberts: Bush is a man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius.
Brian J
Say what you want about Bill Maher and his tone, but he is a pretty sharp guy. I’ve always thought one of his more insightful comments was that if Gore had been elected and then 9/11 happened, Republicans would have argued over and over that he was unfit for reelection because it happened on his watch, no matter what else he did. I completely agree with that, and the fact that there was another massive disaster on his watch that’s brushed aside is incredible. Of course, the criticisms come from the way he handled it as opposed to letting it happen (he can’t stop weather, of course), but it’s still valid.
Tsulagi
Why that Veletta Cheese Rock video? I thought the weblog voting was over.
harlana pepper
whoa! I missed that part first time around.
So, basically, the jack-off that wrote this piece is telling all of us with two brain cells to rub together and adequate reasoning abilities that everything we thought/think about Bush is the exact OPPOSITE of what’s true! Brilliant!
The question remains, what is HE getting out of it? A "top position" perhaps?
El Cid
@Brian J: I have always said that if Gore had been allowed to be President like he was elected to be, and had somehow he had allowed 9/11 like Bush Jr., there would have been right wing mobs at the White House the week after 9/11, maybe sooner, complete with pitchforks and torches demanding his resignation or worse.
Cris
I was not aware of that.
Incertus
A straight-up porn track, all synthesizers and bass, would be more appropriate, I think.
Mazacote Yorquest
Oh YEAH?!! Well tanks for NUTTIN’!
Remember that Nation cover in 2000, with the Alfred E. Neuman Bush cover and "Worry"? Jesus Christ, even the Nation has to look back and say "Honestly, we really had no fucking clue."
http://supak.com/George_W_Bush_worry.jpg
Comrade Kevin
Translated:
TenguPhule
I have found a stupider sentence fragment.
The Grand Panjandrum
I guess I’m finally to the point now, that until Bush and Cheney are swinging from the end of a rope I really don’t give a fuck what the "media" has to say about them. I know it probably won’t happen (I doubt they ever go to court) but hope springs eternal.
MikeJ
95 hours, 59 minutes.
chris mohr
I watched this music clip for about a full minute laboring under the assumption that surely this band intended the song as a deadpan satire of the sort that begins by accurately reciting the object’s own words and framework to demonstrate how absurd they are even taken at face value, before moving along to more openly hyperbolic verses. It took that long for me to dissolve my disbelief that these guys might actually believe what the words in the song were saying…but then it sank in: these asswipes were probably sincere, and no giggles were to be had from this, except perhaps from their stunning patheticness. But that limited value wasn’t nearly worth putting up listening to this crap any further, and I shut it off.
But John’s right: a few seconds listinging to this band to cut to the chase saves a lot more wasted time than actually reading the fuck-tard’s delusional reframing of perspective on the Bush administration.
gwangung
These historical revisionists would feel right at home in Maoist Red China.
Tor Hershman
For the comedy scoop on Bush II – play song #5 @
for Bush I – listen to #4
harlana pepper
K, I made it through the article AND 1 minute of that video. I deserve a frickin’ medal.
Comrade Kevin
"The Right Brothers". Fucking horrible. Their website is full of unintentional laughs, total wingnut stuff.
Brian J
A little Mussolini-style vengeance is your game, eh?
Comrade Dread
Or we could turn them over to the Iraqis and see just how grateful they are for all he’s done for their country.
Sam Simple
Bush’s "legacy" project is a gigantic waste of taxpayer dollars and not since Josef Goebbels and the Third Reich has there been such a massive propaganda effort to promote utterly fictional ideas. Bush is an incompetent criminal who is leaving nothing but a hideous legacy of war, debt and pollution. Bush did not "keep us safe", but rather was asleep at the switch and allowed 9-11 to happen after being warned repeatedly in great detail of an impending al-Qaeda attack. A competent, intelligent president would have prevented 9-11, like the real winner of the 2000 election, Al Gore. Bush needs to go to prison for the rest of his pathetic life.
John Cole
I can’t decide what is more embarrassing- the video or that column.
Despite the obscene and unseemly fluffing present in the column, I am going to have to go with the video. That took more than one person, multiplying the shame, and it took a great deal of equipment and time to create.
The column from Roberts, on the other hand, probably only required a computer, a bottle of scotch, and a wetsuit.
JMonkey
If you liked that video from the Right Brothers, their latest song and video — "The List" — achieves an even higher standard of sublimity.
TenguPhule
The Purple Underpants Award, for seeing what should be best left unseen.
chris mohr
The band members in that video are probably much too preoccupied with their don’t-give-up-your-day jobs at some convenience store and doing what they have to in order to keep from getting kicked out of the room in their parents’ basement to have enough time to reflect much on embarassment over their song lyrics.
harlana pepper
Laughing so hard, I’m gonna frow up!
Tho I will venture to guess it was a *double* wetsuit for that piece of work.
harlana pepper
JMonkey, thanks, I now have a no. 2 pencil lodged in my eardrum
Whammer
Don’t you mean two wetsuits and a dildo?
Internet traditions and all……..
Mike
As a gay, epileptic, warmongering would-be dictator? If you say so.
Tony J
Good point. The resulting mountain of shoes would be so high NASA could use it a convenient jumping-off point for a mission to Mars.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@John Cole: The column from Roberts, on the other hand, probably only required a computer, a bottle of scotch, and a wetsuit.
The Telegraph published it. If nobody there had to sign off on Roberts’ article explicitly, someone is still culpable for having hired him.
Whammer
I think folks might need a little refresher course on Republican theology.
Presidents don’t impact the economy, their policies are not important to job creation, everything is the result of the magical free market. Ronald Reagan was a great president because of what he did to improve the economy.
Lowering taxes is always a great idea. Even though Clinton raised taxes and the economy grew, that was because of Reagan. Even though GHW Bush raised taxes before Clinton, the economy was growing in the early Clinton years because of lower taxes. Even though the highest marginal income tax under Reagan was 50% through 1996, it was very important for Bush to lower the tax rate to 35% and run big deficits.
Although you can’t correlate a country’s growth with its marginal tax rates, the USA only grows when its tax rates are lowered.
Deficits don’t matter when a Republican is president. The only way Clinton balanced the budget was due to the heroic efforts of deficit hawks in the Republican congress. The fact that those same deficit hawks allowed GW Bush, WPE, to roll up huge deficits is because of mean Nancy Pelosi and gay Barney Frank. Now that Obama is about to be president, deficits are the worst thing ever.
Communism is a bankrupt, failed system, that could never work. This is proven conclusively by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan defeated Communism and caused the collapse of the Soviet Union through his brave buildup of defense spending. Cuba is weird.
Michael Moore is Fat
Al Gore flys on planes and uses electricity
The Clenis
gnomedad
Same here. I saw the logo and thought of the (old?) New Republic column. :) Ha ha, great snark! Complete with "nyah-nyah" motif.
The journey to pure self-parody is complete.
Nicole
@Whammer: Godd*mnit. I just finished cleaning my computer screen and had settled in with a nice fresh cup of tea…
harlana pepper
Whammer@76, you forgot, 911 changed everything. Um, that is, for 7 years it changed everything. Staring Jan. 20, it’s going to be Obama’s fault.
Duros62
The invasion of Iraq should probably have taken place months earlier, but was held up
Because you don’t release new products in August.
I thought that was well established.
Mnemosyne
Even worse — they’re obsessed with being "contrarian." If something is popular with their social circle (which, on either coast, is going to be liberal and upper-class), they have to do/believe the opposite so they look like leaders, not followers.
It’s like the people who claim that they’re being "edgy" by using racist or sexist humor even though it means they’re making the same jokes Henny Youngman did in the 1950s.
zzyzx
@JMonkey: Actually that song converted me. After all, what could be more persuasive than reciting a list of people’s names and then saying that you don’t like them?
Whammer
@harlana pepper, very good point, my bad. Among other things 9/11 is why I can no longer bring my large tube of "toothpaste of mass destruction" onto an airplane any more.
I can’t help but think of the evil terrorists who might be conspiring to bring deadly weapons onto planes, contained in small tubes of toothpaste. Once on board they will gather and combine their dangerous contents into one giant ball of doomsday gloop!
In other news, 9/11 was Clinton’s fault. Not for the usual reasons, but because he cut defense spending while he was in office (I actually saw a wingnut on another blog make that argument). And the whole anthrax thing didn’t count as terrorism. And as soon as Obama is president China is going to be a huge threat to us.
bago
That whole Beltway Sniper bit wan’t no terrorism thang either.
AnneLaurie
Dubya’s whole life is an illustration of why one of America’s founding principles is that we have no hereditary aristocracy.
Even if that principle is more in its breach than its observance.
jenniebee
@DougJ:
I think I liked that song better when Billy Joel sang it.
I never thought I’d put those words together in that way, but there it is.
Janet Strange
@Mnemosyne: Y’know contrarians used to just annoy me, but now I really hate them. By definition, they bring nothing but "Look at ME!! Look at ME!!" to any discussion. That self-absorption, of course, has always has made them unpleasant to be around.
But the contrarian pundits of the past 10-20 years have been trying to attract attention to themselves by spewing downright dangerous and vile ideas. And I really hate what it’s done to this country.
binzinerator
@“Fair and Balanced” Dave:
No shit. I simply cannot imagine how Roberts can sustain himself for years exclusively on Bush’s semen without it having some sort of deleterious effect.
Apparently he can’t:
That shit is gonna be like cadmium or syphilis. His brain can never get rid of it, and the cognitive degradation is long-term, cumulative and irreversible.
I only offer a hope he is in the late terminal stage and we soon cease to suffer his slavering gibber.
AlanDownunder
Murdoch’s Aussie rag, The Australian, today runs GREG SHERIDAN: What went right for Bush.
Predictable. If the Cheney administration could be said to have a foreign resident courtier, or Murdoch a suckarse stenographer swathed in self-estimated seriousness, Sheridan has earned both tags in spades.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh my God that video was horrible. And here I was thinking that America, We Stand As One was the worst rock video ever until I watched that. Damn you Doug J! Damn you to Hell for taking my innocence away! Oh God, a Republican version of We Didn’t Start The Fire. It’s like America, Fuck Yeah! except these guys are serious. Teh Horror. Teh Horror.
slightly_peeved
I did hear Bush was fond of Virgil’s Minor Works. Maybe this lickspittle doesn’t get satire.