The Dick Whisperer:
I miss George W. Bush. I don’t miss him in the sense that I wish he were still president. If he were, we might be at war with Iran and North Korea by now, and perhaps Portugal. Neither do I miss the endless debates over waterboarding and the Iraq war – bad memories that have returned to the news as Bush has re-emerged into public view this week to launch his book…
Yes, the worst thing about the Bush years were those tedious, boring, unexciting debates about war and torture. Not, you know, the actual wars and torture.
When is Sally’s next party?
curious
staying in the boat….
Cat Lady
I miss the endless debates about war and torture too, in the sense that I actually missed them – when did they happen?
General Stuck
he misses George Bush, just like a lot of firebaggers seem to. The republicans see nothing but red hot rage.
All this racial tension in the air makes dickwhisperer uncomfy, those perched in the ivory towers, as well as others, left and right. I will laugh at them and offer some flame for their whiny arses. This is America, deal with it.
El Cid
His praise for Bush Jr. was based entirely on Bush Jr. going along with Paulson and the rest of Wall Street’s demand for a bailout. Not exactly a rebel for the cause, but I guess you could call that putting ideology aside if you assume Republican bloviating about free markets and letting them fail were ever serious.
Again, the example of Newt Gingrich screaming about tyranny and soshullism for a week before the first House vote, and then when it became clear that Democrats under Pelosi weren’t stupid enough to pass it without a majority of Republicans, and it was going to fail in the first vote, and Wall Street began screaming, Newt reversed his position and went on talk radio and the like that very day to advocate its passage as a necessary evil.
ricky
Is this real or an attempt to avoid being turned to Hummus by O’Reilly?
JPL
In fairness this paragraph should have been included
EDIT: I personally don’t miss Bush and I would like to see him brought up for war crimes.
Marmot
Fuck that guy. Remember his 2009 article about the “dueling” torture speeches of Obama and Cheney on the same day?
“A Thrilla Near the Hilla” he called it. Two speeches about torture, treated as a thrilling heavyweight bout. When he talked about it on NPR, Steve Inskeep asks Milbank: “I don’t want to ask you who won this, because that’s not really what it’s about, but who gained an advantage here, between these two.” Milbank goes on to assess the relative popularity and rhetorical tactics of Obama and Cheney.
“It certainly was good theater,” Milbank says. “I think they should rent out the Verizon Center for the next one.” It’s about torture, mind you.
brantl
Who was it who called Dana Millbank a shill? I want to send that guy some money. He was dead right.
David
Republicans never “debated” torture.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Well I guess Millbank should get down to the bookstore and get hisself a copy of Bloodlands then. It is a real page turner – a regular thrill-a-minute, if you are into that sort of thing. Interesting times are oh so very interesting when other people get to experience them.
DFH no.6
Yeah, Milbank is pretty bad at least half the time, but except for his way too cavalier expression of tedium over torture and war debates (and that can’t be slammed enough) this article actually draws the right contrast between the conservative lunatics who have just taken over the asylum and, of all people, George W(orst president ever) Bush. That was the point of the article, and I thought it was well-made.
Look, I can’t stand W, hate him, really, for who he is, what he stands for, and what he did. Just seeing that smug, smirking face alone could cause the bile to rise up, much like hearing the ditz from Wasilla’s voice. I don’t miss him one fucking bit.
But on this one thing Bush finally, maybe for the first time in his life, faced an important decision and make the right call. And that right call (in his own words, choosing to be Roosevelt and not Hoover) went against the naïve and incoherent conservative “principles” regarding the role of government and the “free” market.
It may have (I’d say, “probably”) only kicked the can down the road, and bailing out the banksters rankled the left at least as much as the right, but without it we would have experienced massive global financial collapse, and our current economic downturn would be a sunny picnic in the park by comparison with the catastrophe that would have occurred.
It’s the one thing Bush did right and, dimbulb that he most certainly is, he (at least generally) apparently understands why it was necessary. The contrast with just about all the other assholes on his side regarding this (very much including the electorate) is stark.
JGabriel
John Cole:
To be fair, it’s kind of hard to miss the actual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while we’re still there.
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brewmn
This is a really misguided post. This was a pretty-decent-to-darn good column.
As a couple of commenters (presumably the only ones who actually read the column) have noted, this is about as good as we can ever hope for from Milbank. Arguing that George Bush was a moderate compared to the Republicans just elected by the ignorant independent 40% of voters is probably the only framing that might make these zombies who nevertheless trudge to the polls every two years to vote for whomever Brian Williams tells them to vote for realize what a disaster they’re in the process of helping create.