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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

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Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

In after Baud. Damn.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

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It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I was promised a recession.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Morning Open Thread

Saturday Morning Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  April 5, 20148:31 am| 168 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Assholes

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20140405-081139.jpg Does anyone else find it embarrassing and pathetic that George W. Bush unveiled amateurish portraits he painted of world leaders at his presidential lie-berry? I continue, Dixie Chick-like, to be ashamed that he was ever our president.

But nothing became Bush’s presidency like his leaving of it; he has mostly kept his trap shut and not criticized his successor as President Obama tackled the Augean Stables-scale mess Bush left behind. And now he wants us to look at his pitchers, like an obnoxious third grader you don’t really know or much like who insists you affix his scribblings on your fridge with a magnet? Fuck that.

I did the above “portrait” of the worst president in living memory using a free LiveSketch app on my phone. I might actually visit the Bush II presidential lie-berry if they held a show displaying regular citizens’ portraits of the Bushes. As it is, I’ve seen enough Bush performance art to last 10 lifetimes. Go the fuck away, Bushes.

What are y’all up to today? I have to go to a little kid’s birthday party. There will be bouncy castles and swimming!

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Reader Interactions

168Comments

  1. 1.

    greennotGreen

    April 5, 2014 at 8:42 am

    I actually rather like his paintings; he’s improved a lot since the bathtub.

    As I said elsewhere, Bush makes the second world leader who would have left the world a better place had he stuck to painting.

  2. 2.

    Wag

    April 5, 2014 at 8:43 am

    I get to go skiing with my twins. Clear, blue Colorado skies and soft spring snow. It doesn’t get any better than that.

    Unless there were bouncy castles involved.

  3. 3.

    JoyfulA

    April 5, 2014 at 8:44 am

    Funeral. No swimming or bouncy castles, as far as I know.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    April 5, 2014 at 8:44 am

    Dropping the truck off for some minor repairs, getting a western omelet from the Du Kum Inn (a heart attack on a platter, but I can’t resist), picking up the mail, then returning home to stare wistfully at the garden. I don’t dare step in it as I would no doubt sink up to my knees. 5+ inches of rain in 2 days will do that.

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    April 5, 2014 at 8:44 am

    When I said I would go to my friend’s walkathon benefit for the humane society, I never imagined it would still be winter weather in April. Gearing myself up for spending 3 hours walking in sleet.

    Made the mistake of clicking on the link to the “pitchers” and even worse those quotes. His presidency was disastrous. You have to be delusional or evil to think otherwise.

  6. 6.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    April 5, 2014 at 8:45 am

    As an amateur artist, a professional art historian, and a developer of museum exhibitions at the Smithsonian, I continue to be appalled at the fawning over these horrible images – that anyone cares about these daubs is more embarrassing than the quality of the daubs themselves. They are no where near as interesting or creative as the Outsider Art portraits by Lee Godie.

    Please BJers, think good thoughts about my karma so that no idiot approaches my organization with a request for a traveling museum exhibition of this crap. I find eating really good chocolate helps my karma and appeases the museum gods and goddesses, so go for it.

  7. 7.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    April 5, 2014 at 8:48 am

    Seems to be a theme here. Maybe the next thread can be about Jeb’s chances in 2016? Better yet we could have a contest to title the imaginary children’s book Shrub and Cheney publish.

  8. 8.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 5, 2014 at 8:50 am

    Since the water temperature at the beach I love is a hair under 40 degrees F, swimming today is out of the question. Tomorrow, too, probably.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    April 5, 2014 at 8:54 am

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    Maybe the next thread can be about Jeb’s chances in 2016?

    Jeb! Because third times’s a charm!

  10. 10.

    Poopyman

    April 5, 2014 at 8:55 am

    @Cheryl from Maryland: I think you could argue that his work has neither artistic nor (at present) historical merit, and since I can’t find any evidence that Carter’s furniture was ever exhibited it looks like you couldn’t be accused of political favoritism.

    I’d quit worrying about it, and maybe ask somebody above you what the odds would be if the idea came up. Then pray that Jeb! never gains the White House and makes the request.

    Probably gonna be a lazy day today, although I might finally get the garden beds turned over and winter detritus removed. I also need to put in a few more beds over the course of spring, but I don’t know if I’m up to that.

  11. 11.

    K488

    April 5, 2014 at 8:55 am

    My reaction to the photograph at the link of the corridor lined with paintings was, who ever picked that shade of blue for a junior high school?

  12. 12.

    Poopyman

    April 5, 2014 at 8:57 am

    @The Ancient Randonneur: “My Pet Guantanamo Detainee?” I’ve got a great cover lined up.

  13. 13.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2014 at 8:58 am

    http://m.9gag.com/gag/93794/fridge-of-shame

  14. 14.

    Poopyman

    April 5, 2014 at 8:59 am

    @K488: Having spent far, far too many years in government buildings, I’ve concluded that institutional paints are mixed from leftovers from higher-paying jobs.

  15. 15.

    mai naem

    April 5, 2014 at 8:59 am

    I just want to say my niece did better artwork when she was 7 years ago and her report card for art class was that “her art is interesting” which is teacher tawk for make sure she’s prepared for another profession in case she decided to pursue this artwork thang.

    I just cannot get beyond the disaster that Bush was. If he gave away all his money and all he did was raise money for victims of his wars, I would still that wasn’t enough. The only person I despise more than this twit is Dick Cheney.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    April 5, 2014 at 9:00 am

    FWIW, I think criticizing Bush’s art is kind of lame. Criticizing the media fawning over his artwork, however, is completely legitimate.

  17. 17.

    Dr J

    April 5, 2014 at 9:01 am

    Betty, I thought you might appreciate my Rick Scott joke. I thought of this the other day when I was reading something about Florida being one of the few states that doesn’t restore voting rights to convicted felons who have been released from prison. So the joke: What does Rick Scott call a convicted felon? Amateur.

  18. 18.

    satby

    April 5, 2014 at 9:01 am

    Absolutely not going to go look, I was looking forward to a peaceful Saturday and that link to Shrub’s doodles would ruin it. My morning routine of belatedly enjoying the late night blog threads was already dashed by Little Boots trashing the two I tried to with her obsessive drivel.

  19. 19.

    The Pale Scot

    April 5, 2014 at 9:02 am

    First thing Saturday morn’ go next door and set up the Ohio polka radio for neighbor (WZIP), then turn on Hot Tuna over here to drown out the polka.

    Browse Craigslist; Free Stuff, Computers, see if there are any garage sales near by.

    Today:

    S.H.A.D.O.W UFO club seeking members

    Membership is $20.00 per year, Benefits includes:

    1. ….. you will get 20 acres of land located on the Moon……

    4. We will have T shirts, caps, and other items with the S.H.A.D.O.W
    logo for sale which you will get to sell and make money.

    Mortgage the moon property to cover the membership fee. the rest is pure profit. Rollin’ in the Benjimins Baby.

    I wonder if there is any connection to the Shadow Proclamation?

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    April 5, 2014 at 9:05 am

    I am a big believer in Karma.

    I do think Jeb! is continually walloped by the sheer fact that Junior is a giant slab of stupid and yet still gets all the breaks. His mere existence will continue to bar the path of his smarter, taller, and better looking brother, that this has been true since the day he was born, and nothing will ever ever change.

    I know these people are rich in money, but would anyone want to live in this family? What the heck turned Babs from a gorgeous intelligent woman in her youth to an aged-before-her-time hateful harridan? Do any of the stories that come out about their lives ever make anyone want to join them?

    I’m sure Laura thought she could enjoy the money, read her books, and be left alone. It didn’t turn out that way. Everyone is assimilated.

    And made miserable.

  21. 21.

    big ole hound

    April 5, 2014 at 9:08 am

    @Poopyman: No. That is the color you get after three committees, six meetings and a retreat to decide the exact color.

  22. 22.

    Mustang Bobby

    April 5, 2014 at 9:09 am

    Going out for bagels and coffee with a friend later this morning, then home to fold laundry and work on the epic unfinished novel.

    I had a scare this morning when my computer did not recognize the external drive. All it took was unplugging/plugging in the power and USB and rebooting, so that’s a relief.

    Hey, if there’s anyone out there using Chrome, has Google come up with a vertical bookmarks bar yet? I know it’s fast, but bookmarks across the top instead of along the side is a deal-breaker for this old set-in-his-ways dude. That’s more than just moving the food dish; that’s putting it out on the back porch in the rain.

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    April 5, 2014 at 9:10 am

    @big ole hound: Actually, I think Poopyman is right. No one makes those colors.

  24. 24.

    Debbie

    April 5, 2014 at 9:10 am

    It’s like he wants the world to make fun of him.

  25. 25.

    mai naem

    April 5, 2014 at 9:12 am

    It looks like Bush didn’t do a portrait of Angela Merkel. Maybe he listened in to Merkel’s phone calls after their meetings and found out that she thinks he’s a major twit. I noticed there was only one woman in the lot and I couldn’t figure out who it was – either the Irish PM or one of the South American female leaders??

  26. 26.

    Debbie

    April 5, 2014 at 9:12 am

    @WereBear:

    Having three brothers myself, I think you may be right.

  27. 27.

    Svensker

    April 5, 2014 at 9:14 am

    @Baud:

    FWIW, I think criticizing Bush’s art is kind of lame.

    If he kept it in his own house or gave it to his friends, I’d agree with you. But hanging the paintings in the library with his comments — oy. They are now public and embarrassing. That room with the blue walls and those paintings and those comments and those weird “gifts” from heads of state is strange and pathetic. Which kind of sums of George W. Bush. Without the dead people, of course.

  28. 28.

    Schlemizel

    April 5, 2014 at 9:16 am

    @WereBear:

    I lived in Florida when JEB! first ran for Governor and we were assured the JEB! was the stupid Bush by our Republican friends.

    For the record his first campaign was a disaster. He selected a running mate who was on the record making bad comments about old people and Cubans (if he had said something about Jews it would have been the Florida trifecta) and he ran into a buzz saw of a ‘Aw shucks, I’m jus a good ol boy” Lawton Chiles who made JEB! look like a total idiot (not that hard) in a debate.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    April 5, 2014 at 9:18 am

    @Svensker:

    After Jeb! becomes president, they’ll be in the Smithsonian, so you better get used to them. ;-)

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    April 5, 2014 at 9:20 am

    @WereBear: I have a similar view of that odious clan. I think Poppy breaks down in tears so often not because he’s a sentimental old fart but because he’s ashamed of the embarrassing fuck-up W, and I think Jeb chokes on his own bile like Michael Corleone passed over in favor of Fredo in a parallel crime family universe. I think Laura Bush regrets not smothering W with a pillow in the 70s after one of his Beam benders. I tell myself these things because I can’t bear the injustice of those bastards getting away with world-historical perfidy completely free of consequences.

  31. 31.

    gene108

    April 5, 2014 at 9:21 am

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    Please BJers, think good thoughts about my karma so that no idiot approaches my organization with a request for a traveling museum exhibition of this crap.

    The lack of crowds, in the TPM, link makes me think you are safe from actual people wanting to see it and thus hopefully safe from demands of anyone wanting to put the exhibit on the road.

  32. 32.

    Betty Cracker

    April 5, 2014 at 9:22 am

    @Schlemizel: I loved that time Lawton Chiles rolled out the “he-coon” line and Bush looked pole-axed. It was a cracker classic!

  33. 33.

    Poopyman

    April 5, 2014 at 9:23 am

    @WereBear:

    What the heck turned Babs from a gorgeous intelligent woman in her youth to an aged-before-her-time hateful harridan?

    Her personality shone through. You do get the face you deserve.

  34. 34.

    WereBear

    April 5, 2014 at 9:25 am

    @Schlemizel: we were assured the JEB! was the stupid Bush by our Republican friends

    I find that breathtaking. Though W is the standard by which all stupidity is now judged, IMHO.

  35. 35.

    Debbie

    April 5, 2014 at 9:25 am

    @WereBear:
    I’ve got three brothers. I think you may be right.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    April 5, 2014 at 9:27 am

    @gene108:

    Really, no one cares except politicos and the Village media.

  37. 37.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Does anyone else find it embarrassing and pathetic that George W. Bush unveiled amateurish portraits he painted of world leaders at his presidential lie-berry?

    No, I’m glad, actually, because think it just shows — nay, puts on display — all that he is: a non-entity with no idea how he appears to the world.

    And why should I feel embarrassed? I am not responsible for what he did or does. (If you’re asking whether he feels embarrassed, the question answers itself.)

    And “pathetic” is a word I’d reserve for his victims. What he arouses in me is disgust (it used to be anger).

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    April 5, 2014 at 9:30 am

    @Svensker:
    If I painted portraits as bad as George Walker Bush’s, I would be too embarrassed to hang them up at home, never mind in public. In fact, I would quit painting portraits.

  39. 39.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 9:32 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Maybe they’ll make it for you with egg-whites only.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    April 5, 2014 at 9:34 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Too bad Bush didn’t share that sentiment when it came to governing.

  41. 41.

    geg6

    April 5, 2014 at 9:35 am

    @WereBear:

    Yup. Totally this.

    @Betty Cracker:

    And this, also too.

    As for me, I plan a fairly lazy day. Some grocery shopping and cooking dinner, but nothing much more ambitious. It’s a bit chilly, overcast and damp today here in Western PA, so it’s a good day to veg out. And I deserve it. Such a busy time of year and now, with my promotion and my director’s new duties at another campus, it’s twice as busy as it’s been in the past. Plus events in the evenings and weekends. First Saturday in a while that I’ve had the chance to just slob out.

  42. 42.

    MikeJ

    April 5, 2014 at 9:37 am

    @Amir Khalid: To be fair, if you were ever going to paint good portraits you would have to paint a lot of lousy portraits first.

    Pity he wasn’t able to do his bad work as a kid. He could be good by now. A gentleman’s C will get you through business school, but art school is a bit harder.

  43. 43.

    Felonius Monk

    April 5, 2014 at 9:39 am

    I now have this image in my head of Dubya sitting at a card table in the corner of the Oval office with his crayolas and a sheet of paper while the supposed adults carried on the serious business at the big table.

  44. 44.

    IowaOldLady

    April 5, 2014 at 9:40 am

    A retired guy taking up painting is fine. My dad did that too. But nobody put my dad’s paintings on exhibit. Once again, born on third, thinks he hit a triple.

    It’s been one of the sad revelation of my life that a lot of the world works that way.

  45. 45.

    Soonergrunt

    April 5, 2014 at 9:40 am

    We’re pouring new concrete on the back patio, which started cracking almost from the moment the original one was poured last year. The builder, who has been amazing, is standing by his work, and this one is being done by a different sub than the last one. So we have concrete curing, laundry, and no TV because our TV died and I’ll be damned if I’m buying a new one when this one is under warranty. We’ll just have to find other things to amuse our selves until the repairs get done next week.
    We might go see the new Captain America movie today. I hear it’s pretty good.

  46. 46.

    Amir Khalid

    April 5, 2014 at 9:41 am

    I know scholars must on occasion look at the papers left behind by former presidents. But do regular people actually visit presidential libraries to look at their old stuff?

    I just had a brilliant idea: instead of a posh-looking gallery with blue walls, George Walker Bush’s paintings should be exhibited on a mock-up of a giant refrigerator. Unframed, but stuck to the fridge with magnets.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2014 at 9:41 am

    First time he hasn’t totally failed in oil.

  48. 48.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 9:44 am

    @Cheryl from Maryland: The Smithsonian’s mission has always been to support the “increase and diffusion of knowledge” so I can’t imagine how a G. W. Bush connection might come up.

    But you’re right: one never can be sure. It’s a funny world.

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    April 5, 2014 at 9:47 am

    @Soonergrunt:
    One thing I’ve always admired about Cap is that he doesn’t just bust heads for America. He’s a thoughtful and scrupulous patriot.

  50. 50.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2014 at 9:48 am

    @Amir Khalid

    Yes, people do.

    Most have rotating exhibits and some sort of regular appearances of speakers. (And a gift shop. Sigh, what’cha gonna do?)

    Don’t have a direct link, but some years ago, C-SPAN aired a series touring through and interviewing curators at the various presidential libraries. Fairly sure it was hosted by Brian Lamb, and it was quite interesting. The programs are doubtless archived somewhere on the C-SPAN site.

  51. 51.

    Tokyokie

    April 5, 2014 at 9:48 am

    The reaction to Shrub’s paintings reminds me of my parents fawning over the poetry I wrote in third grade, which even then I knew was crap. All I can say is at least it’s a harmless pursuit, which given the tendencies of his prominent criminal co-conspirators, is something.

  52. 52.

    MattF

    April 5, 2014 at 9:49 am

    Personally, I’m willing to let sleeping dogs lie wrt the BushArt. The media reaction is appalling, but considering that this is all the news they’re getting about GWB, it could be much worse. Just think about what Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove are currently up to. More to the point, GWB is not spending all his time attempting to defend what he did while in office. I’m assuming that remorse is not in GWB’s behavioral repertoire, so Bad Art will be all we’ll get from him.

  53. 53.

    donnah

    April 5, 2014 at 9:51 am

    I’ve been an artist all my life, and resent very much that the crappy paintings Bush is so proud of are getting attention. There are thousands of talented artists who deserve exposure and gallery time, and it goes to this no-talent failure. Burns me up.

    And just for the sake of comparison of former presidents, look at the resume for Jimmy Carter, a real national treasure, vs Bush. Carter’s tireless work for Habitat for Humanity, his battle against those parasite worms in Africa, his published books about human rights…and then Bush’s pitiful collection of shitty paintings. Seriously.

  54. 54.

    Tokyokie

    April 5, 2014 at 9:52 am

    @Soonergrunt: Oooh! A visit to the Warren theater in Moore! One of my favorite places to see one! Too bad I don’t attend movies based on comic books.

  55. 55.

    Soonergrunt

    April 5, 2014 at 9:57 am

    @Amir Khalid: And those are so rare in the real world. When you look at the history of Marvel Comics, you find almost all of their hero characters were people of depth, with multiple shades of right and wrong, even for the bad guys. If only they treated their heroine characters the same way…

  56. 56.

    boatboy_srq

    April 5, 2014 at 9:58 am

    @Cervantes: I haven’t seen the flick yet, but I caught a bit of Bob “sold my soul to Koch” Edwards on NPR this morning interviewing Errol Morris about Unknown Knowns If you want self-unaware and obscenly self-satisfied, Rummy is your critter. I had once thought that his appointment was a mistake: reading your comment I wonder whether his tenure as SecDef wasn’t a reflection on the pResident who appointed him.

    Working today (that makes seven straight days and one night in the office this week). Sleeping tomorrow.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 5, 2014 at 10:00 am

    @mai naem:

    It looks like Bush didn’t do a portrait of Angela Merkel. Maybe he listened in to Merkel’s phone calls after their meetings and found out that she thinks he’s a major twit. I noticed there was only one woman in the lot and I couldn’t figure out who it was – either the Irish PM or one of the South American female leaders??

    Nope, it’s Merkel — if the Washington Post can be believed. Scroll down to No. 4.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:01 am

    @WereBear:
    The Borg! No, it’s the Bush family.

    OK, same difference.

  59. 59.

    boatboy_srq

    April 5, 2014 at 10:03 am

    @donnah: Just a reminder: Democrats tend to elect people genuinely interested in making government; the GOTea, since it’s convince that gubmint doesn’t work, are more inclined to find convenient idiots and scofflaws to fill the various posts. Your comparison fits the model.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2014 at 10:03 am

    @Tokyokie

    Just curious if you saw Men In Black? Probably 99% of people had (and still have) no idea that it was a comic book first.

    Also if you might have seen any of the Barefoot Gen films.

    And The Walking Dead TV series was a comic for years before the boob tube picked it up.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    April 5, 2014 at 10:04 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: God help us, here’s a closer view of it.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:10 am

    The idiot’s art reminds me of Monty Python’s twit routine.
    Has no idea that what the world thinks of him(or anything really), and all the while has to very publicly flaunt his idiocy. Mass marketing, and buying off the Supreme Court really works.

  63. 63.

    Elizabelle

    April 5, 2014 at 10:14 am

    GW Bush is improving at painting. I’m glad he enjoys it.

    He was no more qualified to be president of the US the day he left office than the day he assumed office.

    Worst. President. Ever. Hands down.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:14 am

    @IowaOldLady:
    Not sure he knows what a triple is.
    I believe he thinks he landed on third by magic. Or, for him the same thing, destiny.

  65. 65.

    maya

    April 5, 2014 at 10:16 am

    What! No Putin? I plan on visiting his presidential library right after I see Ronald Incitatus-Rectumus Reagan’s library. Which would be, never..

    Edit: Oops, Vlads there. Those eyes.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2014 at 10:16 am

    @Elizabelle

    As good a painter as he was a rancher.

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    April 5, 2014 at 10:19 am

    Peter Baker is the NYTimes reporter who wrote yesterday’s “They’re gathering to celebrate GHWBush’s presidency 25 years out” story.

    Baker used to write for the WaPost, and did a book about Clinton’s impeachment.

    He wrote an article a few months ago about Obama’s arrogance, and you would not believe the level of trollish comments the NYTimes allowed on its reader comments thread. Right down to mocking Michelle and the daughters, and talking about Obama as a terrible father.

    The Times usually doesn’t do that; a moderator intervenes. The NYTimes cares that its comment threads not become the cesspools found at other news sites.

    Baker’s article allowed hundreds upon hundreds of bile comments from the political right.

    Peter Baker goes on my list of journalists to be wary of. He is less stupid than Mark Halperin and Jonathan Karl, but what does that say?

  68. 68.

    Soonergrunt

    April 5, 2014 at 10:20 am

    @NotMax: And better at both than he was as President.

  69. 69.

    srv

    April 5, 2014 at 10:20 am

    @Cheryl from Maryland: I would like to commission an exhibition with paintings from Bush and Hitler. What should we title it?

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:22 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Worst. President. Ever. Hands down.

    Agreed.

    Some historians might give you an argument, but it would end up to be a pretty weak one.

  71. 71.

    ruemara

    April 5, 2014 at 10:22 am

    Woke up to an overdraft alert. It seems when I started the disentanglement of the joint accounts, for some reason, BoA decided to change the account names on my banking screen. I didn’t. Which means when I did the adjustment of the monies, I shifted things into the wrong account and gained an overdraft fee. Cannot wait to ditch this bank too.

  72. 72.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    April 5, 2014 at 10:22 am

    This recovering alcoholic and agnostic agreed to go to a “god wants you up at seven” AA meeting to meet with my sponsor. Said sponsor overslept, and didn’t come.

    #GodDoesNotCareIfYouAreUpAtSeven

  73. 73.

    p.a.

    April 5, 2014 at 10:22 am

    @Betty Cracker: who the hell was it that had a fantastic pictograph of Bush family connections from WWII Swiss banks financing Nazi Germany up through Junior’s failing upwards in Texas? Was it Quiggin at uggabugga? Don’t feel like searching. It was depressing to read. As Drift glass says,”there is a club. We are not in it”.

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 5, 2014 at 10:26 am

    @Baud: Yet another reason for my nym.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  75. 75.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:26 am

    @ruemara:
    Yes Bunch of Assholes live up to their name every day. The day I walked into my branch and closed my account was fun. When asked by the manager why I was closing I gave them the run down. No employee said a word in defense of the bank. I think they wondered why more people didn’t leave. My accountant said it best, “They are all the same”. He didn’t mean it in a good way.

  76. 76.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 10:28 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    But do regular people actually visit presidential libraries to look at their old stuff?

    Of course. Millions of people trek through them each year, many of them kids on school field trips (who may not have had a choice), and many of them tourists.

    Most of the Libraries are run by the National Archives (whose current head used to be a librarian at MIT). If you’d like to see how the whole enterprise is marketed to potential visitors, look here. (You’ll notice the Lincoln Library is not mentioned. That’s because it is not a federal operation. The state of Illinois runs it, and it’s a more popular destination than any of the federal ones, perhaps because it’s still relatively new, having opened in 2005.)

    Anyhow it’s not just a matter of looking at “old stuff.” When next you visit the States, you should see if you can get to one or more of these facilities. Most of them are worth a visit, even (or especially) Nixon’s.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 5, 2014 at 10:29 am

    @Elizabelle:

    Worst. President. Ever. Hands down.

    Well, let’s just say he was the worst President since James Buchanan, for sure.

    I did not think it possible for a President to be worse than the shitty grade Z movie star. The deserting coward proved me wrong.

  78. 78.

    am

    April 5, 2014 at 10:30 am

    So help me I like them. Wouldn’t buy one, but I’ve seen worse. Visually pleasant synthesis of impressionism and mild cubism. I have seen a lot better, but it would be a pretty sad world where only people who were good at things could pursue them. One can naively and stupidly hope that this would result in a bipartisan effort to improve funding for arts education in primary and secondary school.

    The fauning over them is decidedly embarrassing and pathetic, just like the coverage of every possible ratings-boosting story in the past n years (for a large value of n). Is it sad that I find it a welcome break from wall to wall flight 370 coverage and whatever lunatic psychic/pseudoscientist is willing to talk about how it was caught in a wormhole or hit by a small black hole?

    Anyway, I have a 100% ironclad personal vow to never criticize anyone’s painting, singing, or any other art. His politics were a trainwreck for the world and country and will remain so.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:31 am

    @p.a.:

    ”there is a club. We are not in it”.

    As much as some of the trappings of the club might be much better than my current life, I still wouldn’t want to be in that club.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    April 5, 2014 at 10:31 am

    @Ruckus: All the big banks may all be the same, but credit unions most definitely are not like the big banks. So we have that going for us.

  81. 81.

    rda909

    April 5, 2014 at 10:31 am

    And in the exact same week the major TV networks deny the President of the United States airtime for a national address to talk about where we’re at now with healthcare, and how everyone can partake in the new system and join the millions and millions who are already benefitting from the new rules.

    W. Bush and his “reporter” daughter are allowed on to show elementary school painting and yuk it up at the same time. But as I’ve learned from the modern progressive brain trust, it’s DEMOCRATS who SUCK AT MESSAGING is the problem. If Odroner would just use the bully pulpit more…duh! Not sure I’ll even want to vote for these losers in the midterms. I’m so depressed!!!

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    April 5, 2014 at 10:32 am

    @srv

    Turd Reich?

  83. 83.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 5, 2014 at 10:34 am

    @am: His art is a trainwreck, just like his entire watch as President.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    April 5, 2014 at 10:34 am

    GW Bush is what you get as President when Big Money chooses your options.

    Compassionate conservative? Not.

    Appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court’s Reign of Error?

    Check.

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:35 am

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):

    He is a spiteful dude isn’t he? I believe he made mornings just to fuck with us. We invented alarm clocks just to prove him right.

  86. 86.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 10:35 am

    @boatboy_srq: I did not catch the NPR interview. I will look for it, thanks.

    The movie we have seen already; I plan to watch it again tomorrow.

    It sounds as if you need a break from all that work. Glad to hear that you will get it soon.

  87. 87.

    rda909

    April 5, 2014 at 10:38 am

    @Betty Cracker: From that article:

    “So is it possible to read into this work a subtle dig at the man who succeeded him as president?

    George W Bush says his portraits would not have been possible had he not invested so much time in personal diplomacy.

    He got to know the family details of international leaders – those useful conversation points. Many of them, like Tony Blair and the former Australian prime minister John Howard, were invited into the inner sanctum of his Texan ranch.

    Barack Obama’s approach is noticeably less chummy. He is often criticised as being more aloof and of not investing enough effort in working on the personal chemistry that can reap diplomatic dividends.”

    Easily worst president in history, when looking at the totality of death he brought on and leaving an economy that was losing literally 800,000 jobs PER MONTH, and the BBC puts out a report talking up this same man because painted elementary school level art, and somehow turns it into a negative about President Obama, one of the best presidents in history.

    But my gawd, Obummer is SO BAD at MESSAGING!!! /modern progressive

  88. 88.

    Tokyokie

    April 5, 2014 at 10:38 am

    @NotMax: I saw Men in Black before I started boycotting movies based on comic books. And I will admit to distinguishing between comic books and graphic novels, and decidiing on a case-by-case basis with the latter. I think the last movie I saw based on a comic was The Dark Knight, but it was the utter crapulence of X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-Man 3 that made me see what a creative dead-end the genre is for the most part, and Hollywood’s continued flogging of both those franchises led me to the decision that it would be best if I were to avoid such films altogether.

    It’s not that I dislike action movies, it’s that I can distinguish between an action movie and an SFX-palooza. John Frankenheimer’s The Train and Henri-George Clouzot’s Le salaire de la peur are great action movies. But they’re not overly reliant on special effects. When Frankenheimer needed to blow up a rail yard or wreck a couple of trains, by golly, he blew up a rail yard (with Burt Lancaster, not a stunt double, dashing through the explosions) or wrecked a couple of trains. I am of the firm belief that CGI is the one of the worst things to ever happen to movies and that films are decidedly dumber because of the overuse of CGI. Comic-book movies are chock-full of CGI — judging from the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the CGI version of Andrew Garfield gets more screen time than he does. And by avoiding comic-book films and sequels, I also miss out on the worst of the CGI reliance and the resulting stupid.

    It also greatly simplifies my summer moviegoing.

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 10:41 am

    @WaterGirl:
    There are small banks that are not nearly as ruthless and greedy. I’m at one now. Eight branches. Closest one is nine miles away, not open on Sat, closes at 4:30. They know my name and greet me when I walk in the door. This is my second local bank in 4 yrs. I moved 400 miles from the last one so had to change. That’s a pain but it is worth it.
    And yes credit unions are another way to go, most of them seem to be pretty good.

  90. 90.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 10:42 am

    @NotMax: If they don’t use that title, it will be a crying shame!

  91. 91.

    Xantar

    April 5, 2014 at 10:45 am

    As it happens, I’ve visited the Bush Library II: The Bushening.

    I made a YouTube video about it which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bB2YFWUK8

  92. 92.

    shelly

    April 5, 2014 at 10:46 am

    Go the fuck away, Bushes.

    But, but isn’t Jeb the lastest anointed by the 2016 desperado’s?
    *******
    Wow, that painting of Putin looks like his head was modeled in Silly Putty.

  93. 93.

    shelly

    April 5, 2014 at 10:50 am

    But the real question is, does he stretch his own canvas’s?

  94. 94.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 10:51 am

    @Soonergrunt:

    We might go see the new Captain America movie today. I hear it’s pretty good.

    It is.

  95. 95.

    gene108

    April 5, 2014 at 10:53 am

    @Elizabelle:

    GW Bush is what you get as President when Big Money chooses your options.

    Bush, Jr is what happens, when the Religious Right and Big Money both back the same candidate. In 2000, Bush, Jr ran explicitly as “a person of Faith” and was the most open about bringing Christianity to the White House of any candidate before or since.

    Too bad for his legacy the Religious Right now considers him a liberal sell-out, with his signature accomplishments being expansion of government power with Medicare Part D, Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold, and NCLB. The thinking on the Right is if Bush, Jr “ruled” as a true conservative things would have been better, instead of trying to compromise with Democrats.

    And so we now have a Republican base that views governing as a bad thing, as governing requires compromise between different factions. The Republican base wants to rule. They are very authoritarian in their view of what ideal government should be.

  96. 96.

    Cain

    April 5, 2014 at 10:54 am

    @Baud:

    FWIW, I think criticizing Bush’s art is kind of lame. Criticizing the media fawning over his artwork, however, is completely legitimate.

    Yeah, I agree. Let’s hit the guy for his record as president. He totally sucked at it. But at least he’s off the political stage and if he wants to do painting that’s great and we can look at that on its own terms not through the lens of Bush the shitty president.

  97. 97.

    Betty Cracker

    April 5, 2014 at 10:59 am

    @rda909:

    Not sure I’ll even want to vote for these losers in the midterms.

    But you’ll do it anyway. Or else you’re part of the problem.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 11:01 am

    @Elizabelle:

    GW Bush is what you get as President when Big Money chooses your options.

    As was Reagan – IIRC, he was the product of a group of West Coast businessmen getting together and agreeing that they wanted him as the front man for their investment in government. The rest is history…

    @gene108:

    Too bad for his legacy the Religious Right now considers him a liberal sell-out, with his signature accomplishments being expansion of government power with Medicare Part D, Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold, and NCLB. The thinking on the Right is if Bush, Jr “ruled” as a true conservative things would have been better, instead of trying to compromise with Democrats.

    It really is funny (black humor) watching the world through that distorted lens. They can tell that something’s wrong, they can see that what’s happening isn’t what they were promised, they can vaguely sense that the people at the top don’t actually give a shit about them or their values… but because they live in a binary world, they interpret it all as “aha! These people are really liberals! Or at least appeasing and surrendering to liberals! Let’s go looking for someone purer!”

  99. 99.

    maya

    April 5, 2014 at 11:03 am

    @shelly:

    Wow, that painting of Putin looks like his head was modeled in Silly Putty.

    This is why.

  100. 100.

    cmorenc

    April 5, 2014 at 11:06 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Does anyone else find it embarrassing and pathetic that George W. Bush unveiled amateurish portraits he painted of world leaders at his presidential lie-berry?

    Actually, though the quality of Bush’s portraits is obviously a light-year or two short of Rembrandt’s work, they’re actually quite good for the hobby work of an avid amateur. What’s annoying to me about these portraits hanging in Bush’s Presidential library is this: where in the Hell was the kind of focus and attention to detail and nuanced observation it takes to create passably decent portraiture when it really mattered during his Presidency? Instead, we only got the kind of effort and depth of thought and understanding necessary to draw stick-figure cartoons instead of nuanced, decently accurate portraits (albeit a light-year or two short of Rembrandt). My take on George W. Bush is not that he is lacking in raw intellectual ability, but rather that he is intellectually lazy and shallow, and narrow-minded. He fumbled so often on speaking articulately, uttered so many malapropisms not due to raw stupidity as much as sheer disinclination to put in the necessary work to produce polished thoughts and articulate speaking habits.

    True, his family connections got him a slot to be trained as a non-fighting fighter pilot in the AF National Guard, but the required level of flight training you have to get through to pilot a fighter jet without crashing it is fairly intense and demanding (including vast amounts of critical detail) – and Bush did successfully get through it, but in the end only just enough to get him through the course and keep him safely in the guard, and the moment he was no longer at risk for going to Vietnam, he shucked all further effort and commitment toward it. That same quality exhibited itself time and time again during his Presidency, even aside from the conservative fiscal and social policies that were so disastrous of themselves.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 11:07 am

    @cmorenc:

    My take on George W. Bush is not that he is lacking in raw intellectual ability, but rather that he is intellectually lazy and shallow, and narrow-minded. He fumbled so often on speaking articulately, uttered so many malapropisms not due to raw stupidity as much as sheer disinclination to put in the necessary work to produce polished thoughts and articulate speaking habits.

    This.

  102. 102.

    Just One More Canuck

    April 5, 2014 at 11:12 am

    @satby: you mean to say that 100-post threads with 70 of them from Little Boots begging Omnes to respond doesn’t hold your interest?

  103. 103.

    mai naem

    April 5, 2014 at 11:16 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: I guess it is Merkel but from far it doesn’t really look like her. For a start, I thought her hair is lightish brown.
    @ruemara: I know all big banks are assholes but IMHO BofA is the worst. BofA intentionally makes rules so that you that they can nickle and dime you with their fees. You hand them money and they charge you for more for them keeping your money then you get in interest. What a great business plan!!!

  104. 104.

    mai naem

    April 5, 2014 at 11:20 am

    @cmorenc: All you say is true but you also need to take into consideration that by the time he got to the presidency he was either still drinking or was a recovering alcoholic. Either way, I honestly believe he had neurologic issues related to the drinking.

  105. 105.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 11:24 am

    @Just One More Canuck:
    Nor mine.

  106. 106.

    gene108

    April 5, 2014 at 11:24 am

    @cmorenc:

    where in the Hell was the kind of focus and attention to detail and nuanced observation it takes to create passably decent portraiture when it really mattered during his Presidency? Instead, we only got the kind of effort and depth of thought and understanding necessary to draw stick-figure cartoons instead of nuanced, decently accurate portraits

    Great attention to detail was paid in Bush, Jr.’s statements about al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Bush, Jr. never said there was a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Never. Not once.

    Yet 70% of Americans or whatever felt Saddam was responsible for 9/11/01 after he finished speaking.

    That was some amazingly detailed level of focus on word smithing his public utterances, so that he could draw the comparison in people’s minds, without actually saying it.

  107. 107.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    April 5, 2014 at 11:30 am

    @srv: Look what happens when people can’t be artists?

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    April 5, 2014 at 11:34 am

    @Ruckus:

    One of my friends ended her relationship with BofA by standing in the middle of their lobby and screaming, “My money would be safer in a mattress than it is with you people!”

    I’m at Union Bank (plus I have a credit union account). I like them pretty well.

  109. 109.

    GregB

    April 5, 2014 at 11:38 am

    I hear he is working on his piece de resistance that will incorporate all the dogs of the world leaders sitting around a table playing poker.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 11:52 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    I was ready to do that but restrained myself. I tried to put on my public political face that I’d had to use in my job before that and be polite but ruthless. I may have for once pulled it off.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    April 5, 2014 at 11:56 am

    @mai naem:

    Chase may be worse. We got a great re-fi interest rate from them (3.75% ! ) but after they became totally unable to set up the auto-draft payment. If we signed the voided check, they sent it back, and if we didn’t sign the voided check, they sent it back.

    Mrs J R finally went to the local bricks and mortar Chase store, and the real estate guy there just sighed, completed the forms just like Mrs J R, and sent them off. We are totally convinced that it is a deliberate plan to enable more people to lose their homes by making payments more difficult.

    Mrs wonders which law enforcement agency to provide the whole stack of contradictory instructions to… there has to be some penalty for wilfully refusing to facilitate your customers’ ability to pay timely on their loan. And the accumulated contradictory instructions paint an unmistakable picture not of incompetency but deliberate and intentional abuse of customers.

  112. 112.

    p.a.

    April 5, 2014 at 11:57 am

    Late, but here it is

  113. 113.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 5, 2014 at 11:58 am

    @J R in WV: This story is why the summary execution of banksters should be absolutely legal.

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    @GregB:
    And he’ll do it on cardboard instead of velvet.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    April 5, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    @J R in WV:

    Mrs wonders which law enforcement agency to provide the whole stack of contradictory instructions to… there has to be some penalty for wilfully refusing to facilitate your customers’ ability to pay timely on their loan. And the accumulated contradictory instructions paint an unmistakable picture not of incompetency but deliberate and intentional abuse of customers.

    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

    Choose SUBMIT A COMPLAINT from the links at the top of the page.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 12:05 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Guns for bankers. Aimed at not held by.

  117. 117.

    ? Martin

    April 5, 2014 at 12:10 pm

    @greennotGreen: I rather like them as well. And I’m happy that he’s putting them out there. We have an ugly problem in this country of attacking less than perfect work, particularly amateur (not for money) work. Good on him for being proud of his paintings. And we should all be thankful that he’s spending his energy painting rather than working for the GOP or the next war.

    I still think he was a shit president, but perhaps a decent not-president.

  118. 118.

    imonlylurking

    April 5, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): I seem to recall you are a person of the Twin Cities persuasion. Is that correct? Cuz if it is, I have a friend who runs a non-religious AA group. If you are interested email me (user name at yahoo) and I will get the two of you in touch. (Put something about recovery in the subject line so I know you aren’t spam.)

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    April 5, 2014 at 12:18 pm

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):

    Keep on keeping on. Don’t let the irritations be an excuse to backslide.

  120. 120.

    Josie

    April 5, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    @Just One More Canuck: You mean you don’t care for his comments? Will you like him better if he posts a you tube video for you? Huh? Huh?

  121. 121.

    scav

    April 5, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    For the record, I think todays internet has already gone based on Guardian comment

    Frances56
    05 April 2014 11:01am
    Supposedly he painted one of Osama Bin Laden but he just can’t find it.
    Share this comment on Facebook

    This Guardian, not the Jonathan Jones one. Can we keep our threadage down to a blessedly single one and done?

  122. 122.

    Steeplejack

    April 5, 2014 at 12:51 pm

    @satby:

    Little Boots (who I believe is a guy) is the least toxic “troll” this blog has. More like a garden gnome.

  123. 123.

    rda909

    April 5, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Of course I am. I was obviously being sarcastic toward common comments you see around “progressive” sites ever since America elected President Barack Hussein Obama in a landslide. If one is an actual progressive or liberal, they should be ecstatic to vote for Democrats and work harder than ever right now for the midterms, considering the historic amount of liberal policy that has been enacted since President Obama has been in office. There should be no “holding my nose and voting” for Democrats this fall.

  124. 124.

    am

    April 5, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I honestly don’t think his art is bad. In previous (similarly obsequious) articles on the subject, I’ve seen his sketchwork and he has a good grip on realism & still life. These are clearly abstractions.

    Since he is by far and away my favorite author/philosopher, let me leave a few Kurt Vonnegut quotes of varying degrees of relevance.

    “If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

    “Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don’t. You don’t have to say why afterward. You don’t have to say anything.”

    “The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.”

    “Science never cheered up anyone. The human situation is just too awful”

  125. 125.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:16 pm

    Need help with something.

    Somebody stated the other day that Frederick Douglass forgave one of his former masters. Now, in what sense is this true? I don’t remember this from his autobiography and in fact he stated that he had angry towards all of his masters because even in one of his better situations (when he was a domestic servant in Baltimore getting hired out to do carpentry work–the level of freedom gave him time to learn to read on the sly) the master-slave relationship destroyed whatever friendship might have existed between human beings. It was a major point in his book.

    So even if he said, “You know what, life’s too short to carry a grudge, I’m not going to torture myself with this any more” could he really have forgiven them?

    But I know he had a whole career post 1860s, so maybe there’s something I don’t know?

    Need enlightenment here.

  126. 126.

    notorious JRT

    April 5, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    I do not find it embarrassing. I like that he has found a passion outside of politics. Clearly, from the number of pieces he is producing, he is passionate about it. I say, “Paint on, Dubya!” But, I will be seriously vexed if his art leads to a revisionist, forgetful view of his inept, destructive time as POTUS.

  127. 127.

    satby

    April 5, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    @Just One More Canuck: @Ruckus: uh, no. And one thread is bad enough, but to keep going all night? Talk about NPD

  128. 128.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    @Poopyman: Are you kidding? When I was a kid in Massachusetts the adults (eta: involved with the school) told me they actually bought knock off remixed leftover paint from an outfit in Washington state. The downside was that even though it came in “colors” every hue had a sickly kind of look to it. And since my high school went with the insanity of “orange and blue” you never knew how many vomitous shades marigold “orange” could arrive in as portions got repainted over the years.

    Of course, you know, Yankee thrift. I’m sure Floriduh buys their paint new. Lord knows they aren’t lavishing that money on teaching staff or textbooks.

    You know who else thought “orange and blue” were great school colors…?

  129. 129.

    Dave

    April 5, 2014 at 1:26 pm

    @cmorenc: I wonder if that sort of sense of self preservation is what allowed him to focus sufficiently to not attack Iran during his second term something Cheney would have done in a heartbeat (or an electric pump or something). He focused just enough to realize what a disaster it would have been. It’s long been a sobering thought that he was actually the adult in the White House during his second term how terrifying is that?

  130. 130.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 1:26 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I was quoting a black conservative at CPAC who talked approvingly about how Frederick Douglass forgave his former master (right before the teabagger in the audience told him “for what? For giving him food and shelter?”) I have no idea if it’s actually true, or apocryphal like so many of their quotes from historical figures, so if anyone else does know the facts, I’m curious too now.

  131. 131.

    satby

    April 5, 2014 at 1:29 pm

    @Steeplejack: an obsessive, whiny, needy troll that posts a gazillion “where are you Omnes” comments and makes a 25 comment thread into a long pointless one. Yeah, I can skip him/her and would, but after about 60 comments I realize there’s no point in scrolling further because it’s all going to be the same. At least T&H has occasional entertainment value in between bannings.

    Edited to add: just venting, I was really disappointed there were no good threads for me to catch up on this morning.

  132. 132.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Laura Bush has this frozen little smile. You can only imagine the hell her life is between her husband, pretending her husband is the person people wish he was, not who he is, her daughters acting up, her mother-in-law, the political life, etc.

    And for an overgrown sorority girl she’s actually fortunate, I mean, she could have been dumped years ago for a younger model. But apparently if women are one of W’s vices it’s been kept on the QT. Nope, just decades of substance abuse, failing upwards, and “the Decider”.

    Bush was interesting in having these very close professional relationships with certain women, such as Karen Hughes and Condaleeza Rice, both of whom have been extremely loyal. I wonder if for a woman like Laura Bush that’s another thing. (Not really a whiff of impropriety in those relationships. But when you look at the partnership of Barack and Michelle or even Bill and Hilary even though Bill was a ho and did lie to her about that, Laura probably had little influence on W except with regards to the girls and probably not a great deal even then because they went to DC and went to prove they could be wild like daddy. How emotionally frustrating is that.)

  133. 133.

    cckids

    April 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    @Baud:

    Jeb! Because third times’s a charm!

    If we’re going with “three” superstitions for the Bushes, I’d stick with the “don’t light three on a match” from WWI.

    Having a 3rd Bush as President just might bring Armageddon down on us.

  134. 134.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    @Amir Khalid: That sounds quite appropriate

    @Dr J: What does Rick Scott call a convicted felon? Amateur.

    Nice.

  135. 135.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:45 pm

    @Chris: It’s easy to get angry about the enraging comment by the t-bagger, after all, the master Douglass escaped from beat the hell out of him because he was a pathetic, angry little man. Douglass was in that adolescent defiant mode and this guy bought him and is all “I’m gonna break you” and Douglass is all “The hell you will” and that man just beat the shit out of Douglass. I think in the end he just seems pathetic because he was brimming over with rage on a daily basis and guess what, he didn’t break Douglass one bit.

    I’m very reminded of the parallels between that and the beatings in Mein Kampf except of course that Hitler was younger and the assailant his own father. Hitler swore he would not be broken but of course he was… it turned him into a sociopath. But Douglass escaped slavery with his spirit intact. He was a very strong person.

  136. 136.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:48 pm

    From reading slave narratives, it seems that reconciliations between former slaves and masters were rare*. Which really just goes back to the abolitionists’ point that slavery poisoned everything.

    *-this is not to say that before slavery was over and even in the decades afterwards, former masters wouldn’t send letters to slaves trying to get them back as paid laborers or former slaves wouldn’t write to ex-masters attempting to extract favors on the strength of their prior relationship–which is not forgiveness and reconciliation

  137. 137.

    cckids

    April 5, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    @Svensker:

    That room with the blue walls and those paintings and those comments and those weird “gifts” from heads of state is strange and pathetic. Which kind of sums of George W. Bush.

    My opinion of GWB is summed up as follows: In 2008, due to many issues, my son needed to have a colostomy. One of the nurses teaching us how to deal with it told us to give it a nickname; we could then refer to it around others without embarrassing or grossing out anyone. The spouse & I exchanged one look & in unison, said “George”.

    Where this comparison falls down is that, though the colostomy bag is frequently full of sh*t, it is necessary & fulfills a useful purpose. Can’t say the same for GWB.

  138. 138.

    Dave

    April 5, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: –Douglass and Lincoln are hands down for me the two greatest American personalities (ok Mark Twain as well) of the 19th Century and possibly of the whole damned thing. Douglass is just amazing,

  139. 139.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    It’s kind of sad to read the hopeful note in African-American letters when slavery ended. The backlash was delayed a little, so not swift, actually snail-like, but truly severe. Debt peonage, then convict labor was Slavery II. (Debt peonage is illegal in the United States but the federal courts were and are shit at prosecuting. Maybe somebody should start a rumor that it involves money laundering drug money.) Slavery II and Jim Crow/Klan terrorism (to attack the rest of the population which wasn’t knuckled under debt or tenancy serfdom or enslaved in the convict labor system) initiated a fresh and pervasive round of trauma to a population already economically disenfranchised and traumatized by the forced family breakups, rape, and other abuses of the slavery era.

    And since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we’re actually in Round III with the “War on Drugs” with the most massive peacetime incarceration in the 1st world, some call it Jim Crow II.

    I need a drink.

  140. 140.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 2:00 pm

    @Dave:

    I had never heard of Thaddeus Stevens until the Lincoln movie, but from what I read of him afterwards, I really like that guy, too.

    @Another Holocene Human:

    And since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we’re actually in Round III with the “War on Drugs” with the most massive peacetime incarceration in the 1st world, some call it Jim Crow II.

    Took me a while to see, but yes, I’d agree with this. (And of course, now they’re bringing back the poll tax concept…)

  141. 141.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    @Dave: Hey, don’t knock Malcolm X, America’s greatest philosopher. Yeah, I’m sorry y’all, for me Malcolm X knocks Sartre right out of the water. And MLK, rightly up there with the 20th century’s better presidents in a lot of people’s minds because of how his leadership changed this country.

    But 19th century, yeah, both Lincoln and Douglass (not Douglas, heh heh) loom large over the era for me. Douglass is this progressive hero, really brilliant but also compassionate, got involved in just about every important political movement of the mid-19th. Great speaker, writer, broke stuff down in relatable language, very influential.

    As far as his speaking goes one might also think of Ingersoll, Bryan, Cady Stanton, and who can forget Sojourner Truth? But the thing about Douglass that made him such a visionary is that he had a broader political philosophy and kind of crossed over and forged alliances, kind of presaging the sort of politics that really gained momentum a century later.

  142. 142.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    @Chris: You should read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. You will be boiling by the time you’re done, very well researched and laid out. She’s got a website and twitter feed, too.

  143. 143.

    John Weiss

    April 5, 2014 at 2:10 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: AHH, the nausea factor rather depends upon what orange and what blue. Wild flowers do it well.

  144. 144.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:12 pm

    @am: Hitler was NOT elected.

    Hitler was not elected. Hitler was not elected.

    Hitler got a core group of supporters/allies to twist Hindenberg’s arm–you know, the guy Hitler LOST TO in his bazillion attempts to run for President?–to appoint Hitler Chancellor. I don’t know how controversial this bit of it is, but I am familiar with an account that there may have been blackmail as Hindenberg, who was some sort of Wehrmacht decorated general dude, became von Hindenberg with some sort of squirrelly jacked up land deal. At any rate, Hindenberg HATED that son of a bitch but was getting old and frail and owed a lot of fucking favors to other people.

    The NSDAP did have a plurality in the Reichstag, but you need a majority coalition to rule. HITLER WAS NOT PM. EVER.

    Hitler used political thuggery, which included street violence by the SA and a large bloc in the legislature to be appointed to an executive office. From which he and his party were able to illegally seize power, shut down the legislature and reopen it as a Cromwell-style rump that rubber stamped all of Hitler’s edicts.

    IT WAS A FUCKING COUP FOR THE 50TH TIME.

    I’m not excusing the German nation for their part in the mess and they don’t excuse themselves either. But it’s just a fucking LIE to say that Germany elected Adolf Hitler. A lot of Germans did vote for him BUT HE LOST THE ELECTION DECISIVELY. End of fucking story.

  145. 145.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    @rda909:

    Barack Obama’s approach is noticeably less chummy. He is often criticised as being more aloof and of not investing enough effort in working on the personal chemistry that can reap diplomatic dividends.

    Sounds more like a middle class person than an aristocrat. Given that the aristocratic approach gave us World War One, I think there’s something to be said for being a stodgy, middle class homebody.

    The royals and nobles educated in languages, manners, horses, and rapine were ejected from their pinnacles, sometimes head first, from 1789 through the 1930s (and proscribed in a more gradual fashion since 1945, with tax policy and stuff like that). Yet the dream lives on in Burkean Oakshottian hearts.

    Okay, I threw Oakshott in there on behalf of Andrew Vile Tory Sullivan. I know what Burke (spit) was about but honestly have no clue about Oakshott.

  146. 146.

    am

    April 5, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I was only quoting Vonnegut…. I was trying to paint a scene with the quotes I selected, nothing more. I am aware the actual history is more complicated (and to be fair to the quote, the intent was a GWB put-down, not historical accuracy)

    That being said, you clearly know a lot more than I do about it, and I hate spreading stupid. So thank you for the correction!

  147. 147.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:25 pm

    @rda909: A couple of years ago I sat in while a communications flack for the unions give a training. She was all about messaging, blah blah blah. Just a few months ago I got to do a training with her again. Totally new paradigm, onto the whole “authentic stories” thing that has worked so well for Democrats, did put some stock by focus group words but not treating them like magic. I think that some Dem activists have learned–the hard way, even–that Frank Luntz was full of shit, that the GOP partially rode a demographic wave which is blessedly receding, and that Democrats win when they GOTV.

    Of course, two Obama wins are kind of erasing all the DLC-era bullshit everyone was programmed with after Clinton’s second term.

  148. 148.

    Dave

    April 5, 2014 at 2:25 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: You know I’m not as familiar with Malcolm X as I should be but the little I do know about him is that yes he is also a very impressive individual any. And I should change my ignorance of Malcolm X because the little I know indicates a fascinating journey on his part.
    And yes Douglass not Douglas. I will say this for Stephen Douglas, and it’s faint praise, he could have been worse.

  149. 149.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:32 pm

    @Dave: Just read Malcolm X’s autobiography, it is well worth it. (Alex Hale helped him do it and you do get the impression from Hale of being in the shadow of a great man, and you think, well, don’t sell yourself short, Alex Hale, but then there was the plagiarizing and stuff of that nature. It’s fortunate that Malcolm X’s voice is such a strong one, otherwise one might worry that Hale had, er, edited the contents. In fact, you can hear late Malcolm editing early Nation of Islam Malcolm, though he didn’t live long enough to finish the work in the state he had in mind.)

    Eyes on the Prize did some pretty good segments on Malcolm X as well, but there’s no substitute for reading the autobiography. It lays out his entire political philosophy and puts those snippets of his soapbox corners speeches and TV appearances in context.

    It’s also just a really rewarding read as you get to follow Malcolm on not one but two personal journeys of transformation. It’s a truly inspiring book.

    The movie to me is kind of meh. It says more about the director than about Malcolm X. I think Malcolm X’s autobiography would be better dramatized as a stage play. Because Malcolm wants you to THINK. Go deeper. And the movie is kind of flashy and shallow. (Also, I think it was bell hooks who criticized it at the time for misrepresenting Malcolm X’s relationship with his wife as well as what Nation of Islam was.) And if it was a different AA feminist I apologize, hooks has certainly not stinted in her criticisms of Spike Lee on feminist grounds over the years at any rate!

  150. 150.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    @am: Apparently at one point MLK jr was making a point and said, “Remember, everything Hitler did was legal.” But I mean no, it kinda wasn’t. Once he was declared Fuehrer and the Reichstag only consisted of his supporters then, yeah, it was all “legal”.

    I mean, that speaks to MLK’s actual point, which was that the elections being carried out under Jim Crow in the South were also “legal”. Just as the NSDAP imprisoned Communist Party members, assassinated SPD leaders and carried out not-free and not-open elections which they of course “won”, the Dixiecrats with their widespread voter suppression “won” elections which did not represent a mandate of the entire populace and before the VRA it was all “legal”.

    But people born many years later and with less depth of knowledge about it can kind of twist that quote into thinking MLK was talking about a popularly elected democratic leader. He was actually talking about Potemkin democracy, during the Nazi era and the Jim Crow era. He was making the point (and hopefully in doing so, pissing off the right people) that the situations were one and the same.

    eta: I put legal in scare quotes because MLK’s point is that it may have been done under the color of law but it was immoral

  151. 151.

    Tehanu

    April 5, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    @am:
    Agree with everything you said. I actually thought the Putin one was rather good, though the rest weren’t very interesting. It’s similar to the way I feel about Frank Sinatra’s music: love every note he ever sang; despise him as a human being. As somebody else upthread observed, this might even give a tiny impetus to putting arts education back in the schools. Doesn’t change the fact that he was a terrible President who ought to be pursuing his hobby in a prison somewhere.
    @cmorenc:

    …where in the Hell was the kind of focus and attention to detail and nuanced observation it takes to create passably decent portraiture when it really mattered during his Presidency? Instead, we only got the kind of effort and depth of thought and understanding necessary to draw stick-figure cartoons instead of nuanced, decently accurate portraits (albeit a light-year or two short of Rembrandt). My take on George W. Bush is not that he is lacking in raw intellectual ability, but rather that he is intellectually lazy and shallow, and narrow-minded. He fumbled so often on speaking articulately, uttered so many malapropisms not due to raw stupidity as much as sheer disinclination to put in the necessary work to produce polished thoughts and articulate speaking habits.

    Also a good point. Criticizing Dubya for his amateur artwork is pointless. Criticizing him for what he did to the country and the world as President is what we should be doing.

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    April 5, 2014 at 2:52 pm

    @satby:
    I find this to be a problem in a lot of late night posts. I’m a west coast nightowl so I see this trolling going on a lot. When I tune in and see the first or second post belongs to little boots, I’m outta that thread.

  153. 153.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    @Amir Khalid: The real Cap from the comics is sadly nowhere to be found in these movies. I’m watching anyway but it makes me sad. Cap was, always has been, and is an unabashed liberal. I mean, there was a storyline where the level boss was an Evil Uncle Sam who represented imperialism and white supremacy, and Cap led an army that looked like the crowd at the 2012 Democratic National Convention to destroy the evil spirit with love, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. style.

    According to his backstory (from what I understanding talking to SEK) he was an “ethnic white” from a poor neighborhood in NYC, the sort of person who indeed formed the ranks of liberal footsoldiers in the 40s-60s. This nation was never all conservative–that’s a conservative myth. I’m more familiar with 80s/90s Cap, personally. Part of what defines Cap in my mind, too, is his friendship with Black Panther. Those comics go back to the 50s, pretty shocking considering where DC was at at that time (extremely uncomfortable with Wonder Woman, stealing other publisher’s intellectual property in court, and definitely no major characters of color). No wonder people like Lee and Kirby created characters like Spiderman and X-Men at Marvel. (Kirby of course worked for more than one publisher.)

    Charlton Comics in the 60s hired, um, Ditko? Who created a bunch of Objectivist-inspired characters. No joke. They were made famous by Alan Moore’s parody of them in WATCHMEN. (Rorschach is The Question, Big Blue Junk is Captain who gives a fuck, seriously, blanking on it but it’s the same character concept, just a lot less well thought out.)

    eta: and I think that owl guy was blue beetle? seen some 60s frames of him infodumping Randian bullshit, it’s kinda sad

  154. 154.

    Another Holocene Human

    April 5, 2014 at 2:58 pm

    This piece of 90s TV kind of always framed for me why The Black Panther was so extraordinary:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Beyond_the_Stars

  155. 155.

    am

    April 5, 2014 at 2:59 pm

    @Betty Cracker – Also, I really like your sketch! Post more art if you’re that good.

  156. 156.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    @cckids:

    Can’t say the same for GWB.

    He did have a purpose — just not a public one.

    Did he fulfill it? For a time, yes.

  157. 157.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 3:24 pm

    @satby: Compassion helps, if you can muster it.

    Not that I can, always, but that’s a separate matter.

  158. 158.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I never expected that big budget action movies would be as political as the comic books were, but I wasn’t that turned off by the MCU’s take on the character. The last movie borrows heavily from Brubaker’s run on the comics, if you like these (which I did. Especially the Death of Captain America arc, with its teabagger-ish “Third Wing” mob screaming about taking its country back).

    The thing that made me do a double take in the run up to the first movie was when one of the producers said, “The biggest opportunity with Captain America is as a man ‘out of time’, coming back today, looking at our world through the eyes of someone who thought the perfect world was small-town United States. Sixty years go by, and who are we today? Are we better?” Rogers, of course, is an immigrant city boy from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, so the notion that they might reinvent him as one of Sarah Palin’s “we grow good people in our small towns” cliches really made me groan. Thank God, they stuck to his roots.

  159. 159.

    daniel quinn

    April 5, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    I thought it was lie-bury.

  160. 160.

    TR

    April 5, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    These paintings absolutely belong in the presidential library.

    They’re flat, crudely drawn, two dimensional pictures of foreigners. What better way to depict his administration’s foreign policies?

  161. 161.

    TR

    April 5, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    @cckids:

    Jeb! Third Time’s the Smarm!

  162. 162.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 5:12 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Somebody stated the other day that Frederick Douglass forgave one of his former masters. Now, in what sense is this true?

    Do you have a link to the statement or, at least, a quotation?

    Meanwhile: Not sure about forgiveness but when Thomas Auld, one of his former “owners” was dying, Douglass met and reconciled with him. (By then, Auld’s daughter had been a Douglass supporter for a while.)

    Also, years before that death-bed meeting, Douglass had written (now-famous) letters to former owners, including Auld and his brother, Hugh. In one of these letters he even says he loves the man but hates slavery (still not sure about forgiveness). I imagine you can find the text of these letters on line. (There’s a relevant collection at Yale, for instance.)

  163. 163.

    satby

    April 5, 2014 at 5:33 pm

    @Cervantes: I keep trying, but c’mon. I usually do what Ruckus does and just bail on the thread. I was too much of an optimist this morning; I kept digging thinking there’d be a pony in there. Like I said, just venting because I was bit disappointed that there was nothing good to read (on any of my bookmarked blogs). It’s done.

  164. 164.

    Mnemosyne

    April 5, 2014 at 5:52 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    @Cervantes:

    Douglass wrote a scathing open letter addressed to Auld in 1848 that you can read here. Douglass did eventually meet with Auld when Auld was on his deathbed, but it’s not beside the point that Douglass only forgave and reconciled with Auld after the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished. I would call Douglass’s actions those of someone who was able to be gracious in victory.

  165. 165.

    Chris

    April 5, 2014 at 5:53 pm

    @Cervantes:

    Do you have a link to the statement or, at least, a quotation?

    That was me. Or at least, I brought it up. But I was referencing something that happened at CPAC where that was asserted – http://www.pensitoreview.com/2013/03/15/tar-heel-teabilly-at-cpac-frederick-douglass-should-have-thanked-his-former-slave-master-for-giving-him-food-and-shelter/. Like I said, I have no idea if there’s any truth to the story, or if it’s apocryphal like so many of their citations from famous people.

    ETA: oh. Okay. Thanks, Mnem.

  166. 166.

    Arachnae

    April 5, 2014 at 6:51 pm

    As someone who hated every minute of the illegitimate Bush regime, I must say I’m more embarrassed by progressives’ reflexive sneering than by Bush’s artwork.

    It shows more sensitivity than I gave him credit for to vanish from public view in ’09, rather than headlining a think tank or spewing vile justifications like his former veep. And it’s not clear to me that we’d even know about his retirement hobby if someone hadn’t hacked his email.

    As for the artistic merit, at least his portraits are recognizably the person he is portraying, which is more than I can say, after trying and trying to capture likeness in pastels. Likeness is harder than people who’ve never tried it might suppose.

    Honestly, is this what we’ve descended to? If you ask me, someone should be teaching Jeb to knit, and for godsake, get Cheney into a sculpture workshop NOW!

  167. 167.

    Betty Cracker

    April 5, 2014 at 8:54 pm

    @Arachnae:

    And it’s not clear to me that we’d even know about his retirement hobby if someone hadn’t hacked his email.

    Great point…except for the fact that he staged an elaborate multimedia exhibit at his presidential library that was covered in the global press.

    Bush deserves every drop of derision that can be heaped on his sorry ass on any conceivable topic from now until the end of time.

  168. 168.

    Cervantes

    April 5, 2014 at 9:34 pm

    @Chris:

    That was me. Or at least, I brought it up. But I was referencing something that happened at CPAC where that was asserted – http://www.pensitoreview.com/2…..d-shelter/.

    Asserted thus, you mean?

    SMITH: Here’s an example: When Douglass escaped from slavery, I think 10 years or 20 years after he escaped, he writes a letter to his former slave master and said, “I forgive you for all the things you did to me.”

    As I said above, I’m not sure about the assertion. It’s vague. I mentioned letters to the Aulds. The letter to Thomas Auld is not particularly forgiving. A little more so is the letter to Hugh Auld, written twenty years after Douglass escaped to New York and thence Massachusetts.

    Like I said, I have no idea if there’s any truth to the story, or if it’s apocryphal like so many of their citations from famous people.

    Sure, I’d guess Karl Smith (at CPAC) was making an effort to be truthful. As for his interlocutor, the less I say the better.

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