True quote, just “edited for clarity”, as Romney would say. Actual context:
… [I]t has become clear that Mr. Bush will not be campaigning for Mr. Romney in any big way. In an interview posted online by the Hoover Institution this week, Mr. Bush said he has had enough of politics. “I crawled out of the swamp, and I’m not crawling back in,” he said.
Also from the NYTimes article:
Former President George W. Bush will skip the Republican National Convention next month, his office said Friday, continuing the relative seclusion — and self-imposed remove — from presidential politics that he has kept since leaving office…
Mr. Bush also skipped the Republican convention four years ago, because of Hurricane Gustav. He appeared only by a remote video feed, becoming the first president in a generation to miss his party’s nominating ceremony. Most other modern presidents have attended their party’s first convention after leaving office, including Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush, Mr. Bush’s father… The exceptions were Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon…
I wonder who had to explain to Dubya that he’d moved beyond “total frigging embarrassment” to “actual political liability”. Nah, I just wonder if he actually gives a shit. In the words of DogHouse Riley:
Speaking of Mitt Romney, if posting has seemed a little light around here, it may be due in part to my utter befuddlement at how the Republican party managed, somehow, to nominate its true, distilled essence despite the fact that Stupidity still outpolls Cupidity 3:1.
Look at the goddam list of people who’ve held the GOP national standard since Eisenhower. Richard Nixon is responsible for half the aggregate IQ.
Honestly, if Mitt Romney isn’t the textbook example of how wealthy families, which in their accustomed fiefdoms sent their idiot children into the clergy, now send them into finance, it’s only because George W. Bush got there first.
Robin G.
After eight years of suffering through his presidency, at least we can say he’s radioactive. If he were venerated like Reagan I think I’d puke my guts out.
russell
i vote for “he doesn’t give a shit”
BGinCHI
How in the hell did Bush get through 8 years without pitchforks and firebombs?
Let’s see. Fear? A complacent electorate? A complicit media?
Locusts?
quannlace
So yeah, he crawled out and left the rest of America in his self-created swamp. Thanks, Dubya. And that swamp remark just shows what respect he has for his own party’s politics.
So who exactly is going to be standing up for Romney at the convention? McCain? Bush Sr.? Cheney? Even Gov. Christie can’t confirm when and where he’s speaking.
BGinCHI
@quannlace: Let the billionaires and the Tea Party whackos speak.
It’s their party anyway.
HRA
Willard is buying Tweets by the zillions. Tweets are people too. “you people” must have made a nasty mark on his likeability. Oh wait…
JoyfulA
@HRA: Twitter’s sponsored recommendation for me to follow yesterday was Mitt Romney. I bet a couple of hundred million more tweeters got that recommendation, including non-English-speaking tweeters, spambots, and the DNC.
Citizen_X
@russell: I vote for “He’s drunk off his ass.”
Raven
@BGinCHI: 9/11
gbear
To repeat what I posted in an earlier thread, Tampa Bay is going to be the Clockwork Orange of political conventions. I can’t wait.
I’m going to vote that Bush and Romney hate each other’s guts.
Edit: and +1 to what Citizen X said.
JoyfulA
@efgoldman: Buy a promoted “who to follow” on Twitter. Yesterday mine was Mitt Romney; now mine is ScotTrade.
gogol's wife
@quannlace:
That’s what struck me. He thinks that HE’s the one who suffered during his administration.
WereBear
He IS the poster boy for narcissism.
Yutsano
@gbear: It’s most likely the Bush family hates Willard. Which is really close enough. Old Protestant money doesn’t exactly favour Mormonism.
johnny gentle famous crooner
Well, I give the guy credit for that much. It must be tempting to go on TV and rebut what’s been said about him by Obama, Democrats and hell, pretty much the entire country.
Either he knows he’d only make it worse, or he legitimately just doesn’t want to be a part of politics anymore. Now if only he could convince Cheney to keep his mouth shut, too.
Mark S.
And Bush I accounts for the other half.
Amir Khalid
“I knew the Swamp Thing. The Swamp Thing was my friend. You, sir, are no Swamp Thing.”
I don’t know why, but that just popped into my head.
JWL
Picture Paulie Shore as Macbeth.
Nutella
@gogol’s wife:
Well, Kanye West was rude to him once so he does have a point.
Ben Franklin
Thinking of something charitable to say gave me a headache.
This is what I came up with.
google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/m/Y/bush_umbrella.jpg&imgrefurl=…
PeakVT
Feel free to choke on a pretzel, Georgie.
Anya
At least he knows his party. I give him credit for that.
dance around in your bones
Dubya. Just keep yer trap shut, ok? kthnxbai.
El Cid
I don’t think it qualifies as crawling out of the swamp if what you do is just pull everyone else in.
BigD
I think there is a credible case to be made that Mitt Romney would be a good role model for American children as he does not have people take pictures of him drinking beer.
I’d make the argument that a President should drink beer because it helps you put things into perspective, and W would have surely been a better President if he would have hit the bottle every once in a while. But this whole Obama drinking beer for the cameras, I am a man of the people thing, is not good. This is because:
(1) It establishes a negative role model for Americans under the age of 21 who should not be drinking in the first place; and
(2) President Obama definitely does not look cool drinking a beer. It always looks like he is struggling. He is worse at drinking beer than he is at bowling.
Ben Franklin
@BigD:
Obama definitely does not look cool drinking a beer. It always looks like he is struggling. He is worse at drinking beer than he is at bowling.
…or dancing the Polka
dance around in your bones
@BigD: BOB? That you? Go bake a pizza.
David Koch
three great story lines for the Tampa convention:
1. Bush in hiding
2. Palin with her hair on fire
3. how the base hates Mittens
BigD
My time here is short Yutsano. I love you.
Amir Khalid
@BigD:
Help me out here. I’m having difficulty imagining a man struggling to drink a beer. Does Obama have a problem with his raising-glass-to-lips technique, like Robert Hayes did in Airplane! ?
Litlebritdifrnt
That is another reason that I could never run for POTUS (other than the fact that I am not a citizen), the very idea that I could not get falling down drunk for four fucking years gives me the shakes. I mean you have to be sober for that 3am phone call? Count me out of that shit.
BGinCHI
@BigD: Besides being bad at commenting, what else do you suck at?
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: you seek logic from BoB? Is the fasting getting to you? :)
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
BigD appears to be a renaming of BoB, half conservative troll, half rambling drug trip. Frankly, I still lean to BoB being a joke, a bizarre satire of a Tea Party David Brooks.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Bush may think that he quit at the top of his game and anything less than being President is beneath him. We’re all beneath him, President Bush, and he doesn’t need to bother himself with addressing us.
He can stay at his dirt ranch munching salted dicks all day for all I care.
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
It’s only been one day here. Give it time.
@Frankensteinbeck:
Like that-ah? * There’s a familiar ring to the incoherence, now that you mention it.
(*Malaysian for “Is that so?”)
Peter
You know, I’ve seen people complaining about how the Bain attacks don’t seem to be denting Romney’s numbers, and my thought is that they don’t have to. It would be nice if they is, of course, but in my inexpert opinion the most important thing they can do is give the media something to talk about all summer. Summers are the silly season, and they tend to go very badly for Obama. Just averting that is it own reward.
The Dangerman
@gbear:
Shit, half the delegates are too busy right now coloring their hair red and checking out AdultFriendFinder (the other half will probably be Ashley Madison customers). A freak show.
Stillwater
Good lord. Bush said he crawled out of the swamp of politics!!! Changing that into something else – by taking it outa context and all, I mean you know the drill, we all do – is very similar to what conservatives are doing with Obama’s recent speech where he said that he doesn’t think that business owners didn’t build anything.
No, really. He said that.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@Stillwater:
So what does that make Mitt, still in the swamp? Frikkin’ Pogo?
Dennis SGMM
Bush may simply fear being booed off the stage because he’s too liberal for today’s Republican party.
trollhattan
@dance around in your bones:
Bingo, although to be fair it should probably be “somewhat smaller than averageD”
Anyhoo, the pres looked perfectly comfortable downing the pint when he was in Ireland, so there.
WereBear
I do think a man who thinks of a “beer summit” is more than comfortable with a fine hoppy beverage.
The Sanity Inspector
I thought it was pretty classy of Bush in 2009 to turn down the press’s invitations to critique Obama’s decisions. “He deserves my silence,” he said. Contrast that to how Carter and Clinton backbit him all through the Aughties.
Hill Dweller
@The Sanity Inspector: Please. His entire f’n staff came out of the woodwork to take credit for the OBL mission. Never mind Cheney doing all the heavy lifting defending their legacy of ineptitude the minute they left office.
It’s easy to look magnanimous when you’ve got everyone else doing all your dirty work.
lamh35
Completely OT, but I’m seeing some things in my timeline about Westboro church going to Aurora tomorrow or some such day. WTH is Westboro gonna do in Aurora?
PeakVT
@The Sanity Inspector: Contrast the situation Clinton left Bush with the one Bush left Obama.
rikyrah
George W. Bush is still toxic to everyone but the 27 percent
Peter
@lamh35: Probably protest the funeral of some of the victims. No it doesn’t make any sense. They’re not in the business of making sense.
Citizen_X
@David Koch: There’s four: you forgot Ron Paul and his fanboi legions. If anyone knows how to bring the chaos to Republicanland, they do.
marcopolo
See, the thing is, it’s not W’s swamp anymore. So 1) if he can’t be king of the swamp, he doesn’t want to play there no more. 2) it isn’t like he is gonna get paid to go out on the hustings for Mittens, whilst there are plenty of rubes out there willing to pay him to give speeches at rubber chicken events. And finally, in all reality, 3) someone has probably sat him down and said “dude, you are politically radioactive to just about everyone (not for the same reasons I’m sure if you looked at the crosstabs :)), so sit down, watch some golf, and stay the fuck away from Tampa!”
Jewish Steel
Shorter Bush:
I won’t pretend I’m voting for Romney.
Villago Delenda Est
The vile deserting coward is not wanted in Tampa.
Not because he’s a deserting coward.
Because, retroactively, his assmalistration is considered to be “liberal” by the vermin that are the teatards.
Citizen_X
@The Dangerman: I was just reading some trashy Brit report, riffing off the 150,000 condoms handed out, that the Olympics are gonna be one long hookup-a-gogo. (What with the whole most-finely-tuned-bodies-on-earth and everything.)
Tampa is gonna be like Hell’s repulsive imitation of that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Citizen_X:
I seem to recall that nearly EVERY Olympics has at least one story on how many condoms are handed out.
All these young people, from around the planet, brought together for two weeks. Some the nasty will happen. Frequently. With multiple partners. I have no doubt that there are some there who plant to do a world tour of sex right in one place, London. Tonight, it’s Asia! Tomorrow, Africa!
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
They’re trolling for lawsuits.
Again. It’s what these people do. They hope to anger someone into action that is actionable.
dance around in your bones
@trollhattan:
I think perhaps if he baked at 420 he’d be happier.
ETA: to be clear, I’m talking about BOB, not POTUS.
I think POTUS looks perfectly comfortable drinking a beer, kissing his wife, or smacking down some Romneysplutz.
Tony J
@Villago Delenda Est:
And everyone, and by everyone I mean everyone, is hoping to bump into Victoria Pendleton while she’s on a winner’s high.
Did I say that out loud?
GxB
Ahh, the prescience of obscure ’90’s neo-grunge.
I come from the water
I crawled upon the shore
I left my brothers there
I got what I came for
FWIW, I don’t think Dub is as clueless as he lets on, then again having a rather large contingent bellowing “You Suck!” kind of removes any chance for misinterpretation doesn’t it?
dance around in your bones
I wish I could feel confident that Dubya has some sense of shame.
Sadly, no.
Lojasmo
@BigD:
Huh. Interesting perspective. I would say you don’t sound credible because FUCK YOU.
Bruuuuce
Sounds to me like Dubya is STILL embodying his party’s ultimate philosophy of I Got Mine, Fsck You. Now he just gets it writ on the big stage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony J: Well, duh.
TS
History will not be kind to George W Bush and Tony Blair – which is why Texas is so keen to be responsible for writing the history books studied in schools. They’ll probably get Sarah Palin to help with the text.
mclaren
Just as we always suspected…
Carl Nyberg
What’s the point of GWB releasing a book on politics and the economy if he wants to avoid politics?
Seems a bit weird.
Carl Nyberg
You notice how the “I crawled out of the swamp” line makes W not responsible for any of the bad stuff that happened?
He believes the criticism he receiving for fucking-up was somehow evidence of a defective political system.
W has never considered the possibility he screwed-up or made bad decisions. And that’s who he is.
danielx
“It was awesome, I was famous and powerful.”
All the people who used to insist that regardless of impressions, George W. Bush was really a smart guy?
They were wrong. He’s an idiot.
Every time he opens his mouth in public, it’s worth 10,000 votes to Obama, or at least non-votes for the Marquis. I have no doubt that if it was within Willard’s power, W would be held incommunicado under house arrest until after election day.
danielx
@Carl Nyberg:
Well, that’s at least one thing he’s got in common with Ronald Reagan. St. Ronnie was never swayed by evidence or facts once he had an idea fixed in his mind, and W is very much the same way. Th big difference is that Reagan, every so often, actually considered public opinion and appearances. W didn’t give a rusty goddamn for public opinion – he was The Decider and that was all that mattered.
Ed Dunkle
It kills me to say this, but one of the few politicians who could go toe to toe with LBJ was Richard Nixon. He was a bastard, but a smart bastard, at least when he was sober.
mainmati
@The Dangerman: …and there will be lots and lots of guns, courtesy of Gov. Voldemort.
Mike G
@mainmati:
Will there be open carry and concealed carry on the floor of the convention?
If not, why not? Doesn’t it “make America safer” to have everyone packing? Don’t they want Lord Rmoney and the other overlords to be as safe as possible?