Jim Newell at Gawker lets us know that “Republicans [Are] Not Too Happy About the Timing of George W. Bush’s Memoir”:
The Daily Beast’s Matt Latimer — a former White House speechwriter near the end of Bush’s reign who just sat around meetings quietly and then trashed his former boss in his own whiny memoir, released last fall — notes that while Bush’s book, Decision Points, won’t come out until after the election, the pre-release hoopla will be well underway in October.
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“Former President George W. Bush and his corral of Texas-based surrogates are preparing to flood the airwaves in anticipation of his new memoir, another step in a carefully crafted rehabilitation strategy. The publication date of Bush’s Decision Points is set for early November, one week after the congressional elections. But, as with any likely bestseller, the details of the book are certain to leak out earlier-meaning the Bush years could be re-litigated and re-explored during the final, pivotal weeks of the campaign.
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[…] “Monumentally bad timing” was the reaction of one former Bush aide who learned of the book release date. Another prominent conservative compared the Bushies’ public-relations savvy to LeBron James. “Selfish and stupid” was another noted right-wing columnist’s reaction.”…
Needless to say, the Gawker commentariat rises to the challenge. Among my personal favorites:
So it’ll be like Of Mice and Men? Bush being Lennie and Cheney being George?
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Or Sesame Street with Cheney being Jim Henson and Bush being Cookie Monster.
I would give anything to see him on The Daily Show to promote it. It will never happen, though.
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His signings are going to be at Toys R Us.
Follow the link for further chuckles…
JGabriel
If they were real objectivists, they would know it’s George Bush’s responsibility to not care what they think.
So, basically no change then. And they’re surprised by this?
Anyway, I heard Bush and Palin were supposed to do a signing together, but it had to be cancelled because they got into a slap fight over the crayons.
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asiangrrlMN
I thought selfish and stupid was the battle cry of the Republicans. Oh, wait, only if it benefits them.
asiangrrlMN
OK. Since this is a real open thread, I’ll just share here. I was part of a performance tonight that, if I may say myself, kicked ass. I was a performer in another life, and tonight reminded me of how much I miss it. I need to check out local opportunities or start writing my own performances again. I used to do what I call gorilla performances (someone would call me up and say, “Hey, you wanna be part of this cabaret?” I would say, “sure”, show up, perform, and then disappear). There isn’t anything like the high of performing.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Their main goal is to keep the plebians selfish and stupid. Then they can maintain oligarchy to the pleasure of their corporate overlords. This will throw major monkey wrenches in their attempt to remove the Islamofascocommunist Kenyan usuper by humiliating him on the national stage. In other words, it’s yet another Bush fuck-up. But this time it will only hurt them.
@asiangrrlMN: as a musician I totally agree. And there is no high like knowing you just NAILED your performance. It can be hella fun being a somewhat competent oboe player sometimes.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Oh, I see. So because W is such a pariah, even the Republicans are repudiating him, therefore, they wish he would DIAF. I agree.
Re: performing. I danced for twelve years and played the cello for ten. Neither of them gave me the high I get as an actor/performer. I suppose, then, the stage is my true calling. How you be?
MTmofo
dumbfuckya continues to display his narcissistic hubris and greed.
Narcissus
I have a sawbuck that says no Democrat is savvy enough to use this information.
Cliff
I am presented with a dilemma. I really really want a copy of the book to use as toilet paper. But I really really don’t want to give that pigfucking son of a bitch one red cent of my money.
jimBOB
If Dems knew what they were doing, they would make W the running mate of every Gooper on every ballot for the next quarter-century. Kind of the way every Dem was always a clone of Jimmy Carter.
Too bad they don’t have the wit to see it.
jimBOB
@Cliff:
Wait’ll it’s been out for a bit and buy it used. There will be tons in the remainder bins, so you shouldn’t have to pay much, and none of your payment will go to him since it’s a resale.
Ecks
@Cliff: Patience grasshopper. Once the book is released, the second run bookstores should be overflowing with zero-royalties-to-dubya copies within the time it takes to check one out from Amazon and skim the first 3 chapters. Which, depending how you are with pictures, could be up to 15 minutes.
Yutsano
@jimBOB: The book will be a bestseller, but that statistic will actually be meaningless. A lot of GOPers inflate their sale numbers by buying in large batches then giving them away at events and fundraisers and such. It’s how Bible Spice became a best selling author basically overnight, even though her book was remaindered in almost two months.
@asiangrrlMN: YAY APARTMENT HUNTING!! Actually I’m not doing too bad, I’ve sent a few e-mails, just waiting to see what happens over the next few days. I am facing the very real possibility that this could all be settled and done with in a couple of weeks! WOOT!!
Wile E. Quixote
Does anyone want to bet that Fox News will “mistakenly” identify George W. Bush as a Democrat?
Amir_Khalid
The book’s title is depressingly apt. “Decision Points” is an empty Pointy-Haired Boss phrase, well suited to an MBA holder who couldn’t govern worth shit, who tacitly abdicated his authority to an out-of-control VP, and who left the whole world much worse off in 2009 than in 2001.
Wile E. Quixote
I saw Inception tonight. Here’s my review:
Wow! Holy fuck! Wow! Shit! What does the ending mean? What a great cast. Holy shit! Fuck! What does the ending mean? What’s real? What’s not? Damn, Marion Cotillard is smoking hot. Fuck. That just totally blows The Matrix away. Wow, it’s like The Matrix and Memento rolled into one. Damn, Ken Watanabe is cool. I wish I was 1/100th as cool as he is. Hey, did I mention that Marion Cotillard is really fucking hot! Damn. I’ve got to see that again.
Any questions?
P.S. Salt blows dead goats from orbit.
Amir_Khalid
@Wile E. Quixote: Dude, that’s the best-written review of “Inception” I’ve read so far.
I suspect Nolan is saying that the movie itself is his dream, which he has just shared with the viewer the way Cobb shares a dream with his colleagues; at its end, we wake up together and return to our own level of reality.
Oh, and thanks for the warning re “Salt”.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You go, hubby! I’m so happy for and proud of you! Pics when you’re all settled in!
@Wile E. Quixote: Damn it. I have heard so much about this movie that I kinda feel I have to see it. Le sigh.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I’m thinking I might just give in myself and go see what all the fuss is about. Of course the last time that happened I almost killed the person who gave me the recommendation and cursed them for weeks. My tastes are just too damn eclectic to pigeonhole. But I suppose I only lose $10 and possibly my sanity. So maybe.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: What was the other movie? For me, it was Titanic. Except, I knew I would hate it ahead of time. I sorely underestimated, however, just how much I would hate it.
P.S. And that’s even allowing for how comely I find Kate Winslet. Of course, I also loathe Leo, so it’s a wash there.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Never seen Titanic. Never will. Overhyped swill just doesn’t turn my crank. Probably explains my extreme resistance to Avatar even though my mom tried to drag me to go see it with her. I probably would have if she hadn’t asked me on a cranky day. And to be honest, I don’t even remember what the cinematic atrocity was now. Could be I’m intentionally blocking it out.
And I’m hitting the sheets early.
Sly
I didn’t think the ending was supposed to be any kind of dramatic plot twist or anything. It’s purpose was to (a) mind-fuck the audience and keep them talking after the movie was over, and (b) bolster one of the central themes of the movie (the strength of positive emotions, in how they operate on the subconscious with respect to delusional behavior). Either outcome of the “guessing game”, in the end, is immaterial.
Overall I thought the movie was entertaining, and fairly immersive given the complex nature of the plot.
Bnut
So is chimpy’s book going to be connect the dots? I’m holding out hope for paint by numbers. Reminds me of my favorite insult ever: Steve Spurrier, then head coach at Florida was asked to comment on the recent dorm fire at Auburn University in which several textbooks had been lost. “The real shame is that some of them weren’t even colored in yet”
Michael
@Yutsano:
The only good part is the last 30 minutes, when everybody dies.
Lesley
Too funny.
George Bush wouldn’t have a memoir if it the GOP hadn’t engineered his rise to the Presidency and supported him for ten dreadful years.
Eat it, shitbags! He is You and You are He.
SRW1
Is it known who composified the text and proofreadificated it for W?
Bill E Pilgrim
I thought the George W Bush Presidency was fairly entertaining, especially the part at the end when it was revealed that it was all some sort of bizarre dream.
I’m not sure the book will be able to do it justice though, something that surreal and nightmarish is really made for cinema.
machine
Dubya = Buzz Windrip
Cheney = Lee Sarason
Rumsfeld = General Haik
…and so on
Michael
Another awesome triumph of the financial free market and austerity measures imposed by bankers.
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-sheriffs-seizing-assets-in-record-numbers–99616734.html
So do we have an over/under on Ireland reverting back to the soft socialism it used to embrace?
bemused
Over at C&L, I was reading about the GOP “Tread Boldly, Solutions, Hard Work And No Regrets” summer workshop pamphlet. To excite and fire up republicans, they chose to put photos of Reagan, Ike, Jack Kemp, Teddy Roosevelt, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Lech Walsea on the cover. They couldn’t find any current, living republican inspirations? And Lech Walsea, a labor organizer? Just bizarre.
Using the word ‘Tread’ in the title immediately made me think of the Tea Party ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ signs.
WereBear
Still with the decision making? It’s called Decision Points?
I can imagine it now: here’s where I upset Muslims by using the “crusade” word, here’s where I bullied everyone into my war, here’s where I made fun of the countless dead by pretending there were WMD’s under my desk, here’s where I claimed I was giving up golf until the war was over; here’s where I decided not to; and decided not to again; and again.
Oh yeah, this puts Six Crises in the shade.
Asshole wanted to be a war president. That alone should chill some blood.
Besides Cheney’s, which is already cold.
JGabriel
Wile E. Quixote:
SPOILERS
It means: We’re gonna make you think we’re profound by cutting away before the top stops spinning, so you’ll wonder if he’s still in a dream or not, or if we’re all dreaming.
Seriously, I liked it. I thought it was good, but not great. Thought-provoking, but, for me, not emotionally engaging.
Here are the problems I saw with it:
1) Marion Cotillard’s character never really becomes sympathetic. Maybe this could have been fixed by having her portrayed with husband and kids before setting her up as a manipulative suicidal bitch. But, yes, she is hot. So, so, hot.
2) Ellen Page’s introduction to dream archictecture suggests a whole universe of infinite dimensional warping possibilities that are ignored afterwards in the inception run. What was the point of showing us all that cool stuff it they weren’t going to use it? Kind of disappointing.
3) The ambiguous ending is a cop-out. It’s like, after everything Nolan put the lead character through, he didn’t have the nerve to give the character the hard-assed irony he deserved – i.e., show him smiling and hugging his kids, then cut to the top spinning flawlessly. The guy seduced his wife into suicide by implanting the idea that the dream world was real and the real world a dream. He deserved the clear-cut irony of remaining unambiguously trapped in a dream world at the end.
4) Dicapprio’s acting has gone way downhill. His delivery frequently reminded me of Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones. Dicapprio used to be pretty good in his teens and early twenties. I don’t know what’s happened to him.
Ultimately, I thought it was a fun puzzle-box ride, excepting that it didn’t use the cool stuff Ellen Page showed us. But it didn’t really engage emotionally. I was expecting it to, so I left a little disappointed.
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gnomedad
@Wile E. Quixote:
lolz, it’s the only way to be sure. Thanks for the chuckle.
JGabriel
@WereBear: I can write Cheney’s obituary right now: Let x equal the current year minus two thousand. It’s x years too late.
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dmsilev
@Michael:
Favorite memory from that time: Seeing a mother and daughter walking on the street. Daughter is wearing a T-shirt with a publicity shot from the film (the one with the two leads looking all romantic while standing at the bow of the ship); mother is wearing a shirt which read “The boat sank. Get over it.”.
dms
ET
Rank and file Republicans – and those Republicans still around after Bush trashed the party are reaping what they sowed. They latched onto Bush for what he could do for them while he was president and now that he and his hard core allies don’t have to worry they are doing what they always did that most Republicans never seem to have understood – looking out for Bush Loyalty was always a one way street for that crew. You owed it to him, he was not obligated to return the favor.
Marshall
“Selfish and stupid” would make a good epitaph for George W.
JGabriel
I want my epitaph to be “No Dancing.”
Picture it.
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...now I try to be amused
It’s just like that vindictive, ornery bastard to deliver one more FU to his party. May he keep doing so.
thomas
@SRW1:
FTW
Svensker
@Michael:
Oh crap, you gave away the ending! Now I’ll never go see Titanic.
TooManyJens
Shorter GOP: “Waaah! How dare George Bush remind voters of what our party stands for so close to the election!”
Tax Analyst
@Cliff:
I see a 99 Cent Store stack in the future for this book. Give it about 3 to 6 months after its release date.
asiangrrlMN
@Michael: After an ungodly amount of time running around and screaming. An hour into the sinking, and I was thisclose to standing up and yelling, “Fucking die already!”
frosty
@asiangrrlMN: Three times in that movie they go back down below decks where all the water is. I counted. Three times! What, you’re safe, dry, close to the lifeboats and now you want to go back down and get trapped? Sure, why not, the movie’s only been running an hour and a half so far, the ship ain’t sunk yet, and we’re out of plot.
asiangrrlMN
@frosty: You counted? I was in such deep trauma at that point, my mind shut down. I will admit I cracked up when Rose says to Leo, “I’ll never let you go,” and then lets him go (while hanging onto the ice floe). That was the best part of the movie.