Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

In after Baud. Damn.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans in disarray!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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Reader Interactions

60Comments

  1. 1.

    Ash Can

    Shorter Douthat: “W would have been a great president if he weren’t such a monumental fuck-up.”

    Thanks, Ross. That clears everything up.

  3. 3.

    Carnacki

    Shorter Ross Douhat: “Bush clogged the toilet by trying to flush a bowling ball, but he smashed the bowl with a sledgehammer to unclog it so he is a good president.”

  4. 4.

    Shell

    But, but, I thought Glenn Beck newly christianed it ‘the fringe media.’

    Move along, nothing to see here.

  5. 5.

    Comrade Dread

    Right. So Bush presided over economic policies and a lax regulatory environment that presided over the collapse of the housing market and the looting of the economy, but we should give him some credit for orchestrating lots of tax dollars to flow to his wealthy friends in the financial industry who, by all rights, should be eating cat food under a bridge.

    George Bush. Great President or Greatest President?

  7. 7.

    danimal

    IOW, W was given a nation mired in peace and prosperity, so he had to create a dystopic world in order to show that he’s a great president by saving the nation from the dystopic world he created.

  8. 8.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    Clearly Ross didn’t get the memo. The world was on hiatus for eight years and everything is Obama’s doing … except for the stuff that can be blamed on the Clenis. (They’ll always have the Clenis.)

  10. 10.

    ironranger

    Ross wrote that few presidents “have gone as far as Bush did in trying to repair their worst mistakes”. Huh? Ross seemed to try to give some examples of that but it was pretty mushy stuff. I’m sure George’s presidential library will clear all that up then, you betcha.

  14. 14.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    So…. by resigning, Richard Nixon brought an end to a regime of corruption, illegal manipulation, lies, and divisiveness– an act for which he could have been canonized, had he not had the miserable bad luck of being the one who had done all of the corrupting, manipulating, lying and dividing.

    I like this game.

  15. 15.

    D-Chance.

    Interesting post title.

    So you’re implying that an Incurious George was replaced by a Curious George? How… post-racial of you, Cole.

  16. 16.

    Michael D.

    One critique I’ve often heard about the way Liberally-minded educators treat students is their idea of “social promotion,” where students get sent to the next grade no matter how poorly they did.

    Rodd Douthat’s piece = Social Promotion

  18. 18.

    ChrisB

    Douthat writes about what he finds to be Bush’s two worst mistakes: the Iraq war and the “irrational exuberance that stoked the housing bubble.”

    Anyone feel like listing the dozen or so other clusterfucks that might qualify as Bush’s mistakes?

  20. 20.

    Leelee for Obama

    Yes, so many people fell for the Administration meme that real Americans owned their own homes, and therefore the way would be made by the Lords of Finance to make that glorious end a fact. And, therefore, Bush is innocent of the damage done by the irrational exuberance he, himself, engendered. Much the same way that, even though he screwed many pooches, and caused many deaths with his need to Crusade against the perpetrators of 911, in the wrong place, at least he had the good sense to latch on to the life preserver thrown by Petreaus-who was mightily sick of burying soldiers who needn’t have died in that God-forsaken place.

    Douthat is an asshat=who knew?

  21. 21.

    donnah

    Ha! Read the comments after his column in the paper. Nobody is buying the shit he’s peddling. I hope he reads them, but I suspect he won’t.

  22. 22.

    r€nato

    @ChrisB:

    I never tire of reminding others of how bad Bush was, just in case memories fade (as they always do):

    *Katrina
    *Tax cuts for the rich
    *Medicare part B
    *Politicizing DoJ
    *Guantanamo
    *torture
    *Social Security piratization
    *hiring Rumsfeld
    *listening to Cheney

    Hell, you can unpack the Iraq war itself and find about a dozen clusterfucks:

    *”Mission Accomplished”
    *the ham-handed way Bremer ran CPA which guaranteed a bloody insurgency
    *losing $9 billion shipped directly from the Treasury to Baghdad
    *not securing all those weapons caches while rushing to get to Baghdad
    *trying to push Chalabi as the leader of post-war Iraq
    *selling the war with lies and carefully-selected, unvetted intelligence which served only to reinforce desired outcomes

    bah. I guess I do tire of this. Someone else pick it up…

  23. 23.

    Surreal American

    Shorter Douthat: “Look, Bush managed to get some of the toothpaste back in the tube. So quit’cher bitchin’!”

  24. 24.

    ppcli

    Douhat could have also mentioned that it was on Bush’s watch that his ignored warning about “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” came true. But how many people give Bush credit for the fact that it was *also* on his watch that the Pentagon was rebuilt and the WTC site was cleaned up, and the scrap carted away.

  25. 25.

    JenJen

    Just read the Douthat column without even checking here, and came back over to see if anyone else had commented on it yet, so thank you!!

    There’s really only one way to respond to that steamer: OMFG.

  26. 26.

    jrg

    That is a classic. My favorite:

    In reality, many of the Bush-era ventures that look worst in hindsight were either popular with the public at the time or blessed by the elite consensus. Voters liked the budget-busting tax cuts and entitlement expansions. The Iraq war’s cheering section included prominent Democrats and scores of liberal pundits.

    …So, if a drunk redneck jumps off the roof of a barn or hits a hornet’s nest with a shovel, it’s his friends’ fault because they cheered him on after he hollered: “Hey, Yall, check this out!”

  27. 27.

    Leelee for Obama

    Whe, I wonder, will we see the Douthat Youtube immitating that dipshit defender of Brittany? That would go viral, you betcha!

    “Leave George W. Bush alooonne!”

  31. 31.

    Leelee for Obama

    @LD50: The fantasy life is fine if you write fiction-the problem come when you use the fantasy to try to run governments. If they were all Hubbard or LaHaye, we could just avoid their books and films, right?

  32. 32.

    LD50

    In reality, many of the Bush-era ventures that look worst in hindsight were either popular with the public at the time or blessed by the elite consensus. Voters liked the budget-busting tax cuts and entitlement expansions. The Iraq war’s cheering section included prominent Democrats and scores of liberal pundits.

    So now a president’s legacy is to be judged by how popular his decisions were at the moment he made them. Gotcha.

  35. 35.

    Left Coast Tom

    @LD50:

    So now a president’s legacy is to be judged by how popular his decisions were at the moment he made them.

    And if they weren’t popular then it’s OK as long as the “elite consensus” is happy. Gotta make sure David Broder gets his quail dinners.

  36. 36.

    JenJen

    @r€nato: Thanks for bringing up Bremer. One could take Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s excellent “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” in its entirety and call it “Chapter Three” of the forthcoming “President Bush’s Massive Fuck-Ups: An Annotated Collection.”

  37. 37.

    jrg

    So now a president’s legacy is to be judged by how popular his decisions were at the moment he made them. Gotcha.

    Not only that, but who are these “scores of liberal pundits”? I’m sure douchhat could probably come up with a couple of them, given the number of gutless sycophants that occupy the infotainment space, but “scores”? And of the few “liberal pundits” that bought into Bush’s hare brained scheme to invade Iraq, how many of them believed that the president would not possibly lie about something as serious as WMDs and 9/11 connections?

    Put all that aside for a moment – Bush spent most of his presidency claiming that he was going to “stay the course”, that he was not wishy-washy, and that he did what he believed was right. Now his apologists are blaming outsiders for Bush’s failures? As if peer pressure led us into 8 years of failed leadership? What a fucking joke.

  38. 38.

    Waynski

    This column is like giving someone who clogged the toilet and forced it to overflow credit for attempting (unsuccessfully I might add) to clean up their own shit. Pathetic.

  39. 39.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @jrg:

    …So, if a drunk redneck jumps off the roof of a barn or hits a hornet’s nest with a shovel, it’s his friends’ fault because they cheered him on after he hollered: “Hey, Yall, check this out!”

    That’s an excellent capsule description of the W Bush Presidency.

    Really what’s hilarious about Douthat’s gloss is the idea you get that Bush really just had rotten luck in that the things he was mopping up were his own. If only a President could scramble to try to fix complete screwups without first causing them– he’d be a hero!!

    Actually in that sense Obama’s in good shape, by Douthat’s lights. I think it’s safe to say that never has a President had more pre-made monumental screwups to correct that aren’t his own.

  40. 40.

    The Moar You Know

    The poor GOP. Poor Ross.

    They’re in the exact same position as a man who has just had his psycho girlfriend dump him. Yeah, she fucked his best friend, and yeah, she burned down his condo, and yeah, she got pretty out of hand when they’d go out partying, but goddamn, she was so good in bed. Fucking amazing. And he knows he’s got to say bad things about her from here on out, because all his friends hate her for being a crazy bitch, and it’s true – she really was batshit crazy with all that artwork she made from her menstrual blood and all that, but damn. He wants her back in the sack.

    And all his friends know it, too, because he keeps on making lame excuses for her. OF COURSE people steal from their employer to take their six cats to the vet. Perfectly normal behavior. Sure it is.

    The GOP wants some hot and nasty makeup sex. God help us all if they get it.

  41. 41.

    b-psycho

    Notice that he claims with no proof whatsoever that the massive package of corporate welfare checks averted economic catastrophe. So if the economy really gets better he credits Bush, whereas if it craters again he’ll blame Obama.

    I’ve got a better idea: how about we blame an unsustainable system that has been constructed over several decades that both halves of the U.S. political elite have gone along with? No need to worry about credit if it gets better, because for most people it’s not going to.

  42. 42.

    Zifnab

    @b-psycho:

    So if the economy really gets better he credits Bush, whereas if it craters again he’ll blame Obama.

    And even if he did the reverse, listening to Douthat for economic advise is like listening to a chronic gambler chanting “Always bet on black! Never hit on a 16 or higher! In roulette, 32 is my lucky number!” It’s completely baseless and generally ignorant ramblings from a guy that doesn’t know unemployment figures from GPD from an ass on his arm.

    The real victim of this mindless partisan appeal is genuine economics. We could be arguing over two valid strategies for recovery. Instead, we get a variation on “Four legs good! Two legs bad/better!”

  43. 43.

    Zifnab

    @b-psycho:

    So if the economy really gets better he credits Bush, whereas if it craters again he’ll blame Obama.

    And even if he did the reverse, listening to Douthat for economic advise is like listening to a chronic gambler chanting “Always bet on black! Never hit on a 16 or higher! In roulette, 32 is my lucky number!” It’s completely baseless and generally ignorant ramblings from a guy that doesn’t know unemployment figures from GPD from an poop shoot on his arm.

    The real victim of this mindless partisan appeal is genuine economics. We could be arguing over two valid strategies for recovery. Instead, we get a variation on “Four legs good! Two legs bad/better!”

  45. 45.

    r€nato

    @The Moar You Know:

    I actually have a friend who had a girlfriend kind of like that. Awesome in the sack but a crazy psycho jealous stalker outside the bedroom. She didn’t burn down his condo but she did vandalize my car because I kicked her out of my house, then she left an insane, rambling, five minutes long message on my voice mail.

  46. 46.

    asiangrrlMN

    No. Not going to do it. I read his last two steaming piles of shit, and I will not do it again. The excerpts presented here are enough to make me want to vomit. W. went to the furthest lengths to correct his mistakes? How so, please? By going on a national tour saying he couldn’t name a single mistake?

    Again, I must stab myself in the eye with a dull fork, so please excuse me. Actually, I need to take a nap. Same difference.

  48. 48.

    The Moar You Know

    @r€nato: I have been “blessed” with a few of these types throughout my life. It’s fun when you’re young and have the energy to deal with them. It gets a lot less fun past a certain age/dollar amount of destruction/reputation tarring.

    America’s not in a position to deal with any more of these “good time Charlie” folks (tell me with a straight face that Sarah Palin wouldn’t kill your cat for not calling her back) that the GOP keeps throwing out on to the national stage. We’re too broke and there’s too much broken infrastructure and institutions for us to be able to afford a political party with beliefs, practices and positions commonly held by 19-year olds.

    Sadly, they seem to be doubling down, not backing off.

  49. 49.

    bob

    The GOP wants some hot and nasty makeup sex. God help us all if they get it.

    Pretty damn good, Moar. Pretty damn good.

  50. 50.

    Luthe

    OT, is anyone else having problems getting the site to load? The main page is fine, but any time I want to read comments I get endless page time out errors.

  52. 52.

    Skullduggery

    Yes, Red Green exerts great effort to do things. Doesn’t mean I would ask him and his hilarious gang of friends to make me a car-boat-washing-machine.

  53. 53.

    DFS.

    Is it time to give Douthat his own tag yet? If it ever comes to that, I vote for “The Last American Virgin.”

  54. 54.

    Deschanel

    @LeeLee : Just wondering aloud, but maybe “owning your own home” also meant, “getting into serious debt with corporations”.
    Which is a patriotic duty!

  57. 57.

    doubter4444

    In a binary way, if driving fast towards a cliff and screeching to a halt with only the rear wheels on the pavement = living, and driving off the cliff = dying, then yes,
    Bush’s time in office were a success.
    (let’s not get into whether you should be driving fast towards a cliff in the first place)
    In a phrase, I guess he’s saying: No harm, no foul.

  58. 58.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Douthat gets a bad rap. He’s really not to shabby at practicing a certain type of low key propaganda. Or making a solid case by laying out the facts, then concluding with a misunderintrepretaion, or a plausible alternative for those not sure about Bush, but are open to his redemption,. Unfortunately for Douthat and his ilk, those folks numbers are pretty slim pickens to pull back into the fold .

    It’s easy for lazy people to read and conclude he is intellectually honest, at least. And makes it easier to overlook the fact that while what he says is technically true it is collectively nonsense.

  59. 59.

    Heresiarch

    Wait, remind me what problems Bush fixed, again?

    North Korea – has nuclear weapons
    Iraq – still fucked
    Afghanistan – still fucked
    Pakistan – still fucked
    The economy – fucked worse than pre-Bush
    The environment – purposefully fucked
    The troops – fucked
    Teen pregnancy – high and climbing
    Violent crime – rising
    Education – at least here in Arizona, NCLB is steamrolling an entire generation of poor kids
    New Orleans – still fucked
    Civil liberties – fucked
    Health care – disastrous
    National debt – worse than before
    The judicial branch – full of political cronies that are ruining the system
    The executive branch – same as the judicial branch

    Now I realize some of these are features and not bugs, but my point stands – what is it, exactly, that Bush has fixed?

  60. 60.

    Professor Fate

    but since he had so many mistakes to chose from that he held an unfair advantage over prior presidents who averaged at most oh two or three major blunders.

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