As Election Day nears, the battle for King Shit of Turd Mountain, i.e., the contest between Charlie Crist and Rick Scott for governor of Florida, has produced a shit-storm of negative advertising. Commercial after commercial projects images of the combatants in sinister poses and evil lighting, accompanied by strained voiceover accounts of their misdeeds in office.
Obviously, the Crist Photoshop team has the cushier job: I don’t think there’s a photo in existence of Rick Scott where he doesn’t look like an alien creature from a reptile off-world come to foreclose an orphanage and grind the inhabitants into feed-paste.
But yesterday, there was an ad I hadn’t seen before featuring former Governor Jeb Bush excoriating former ally Charlie Crist as a career politician only interested in personal aggrandizement. The stones. The fucking stones on those Bushes.
Bush 2016: The Restoration is apparently a thing. Here’s a puke-inducing paragraph from a NYT article published yesterday about the alleged upswing in Jeb Bush’s political prospects:
Just six years ago, at the end of the last tumultuous Bush presidency, this would have been all but unthinkable. But President Obama’s troubles, the internal divisions of the Republican Party, a newfound nostalgia for the first Bush presidency and a modest softening of views about the second have changed the dynamics enough to make plausible another Bush candidacy. And while Jeb Bush wants to run as his own man, invariably this is a family with something to prove.
Unpacking that paragraph is like opening a rancid diaper pail, but let’s brace ourselves and give it a go: “President Obama’s troubles?” Yes, he has them, mostly traceable to Stately Bush Manor and exacerbated by the Bush-aligned vandals in Congress.
“Internal divisions of the Republican Party?” Oh, you mean that GOP rebranding campaign gone awry in which the Republican Party nominated scads of pekoe-huffing troglodytes who lost winnable races and turned the GOP presidential primary into a crackpot bake-off?
“Newfound nostalgia for the first Bush presidency and a modest softening of views about the second?” Bush I is a doddering old fart who occasionally weeps with shame in public over his fuck-up namesake. He will be forever overshadowed by the half-wit he served as VP, and his son empowered a cabal of sociopaths to complete the cycle of destruction Poppy’s boss set into motion.
And now we’re seriously being asked to countenance another Bush run at 1600 Pennsylvania? Just shoot me now. (You can get away with it here in Florida — thanks to Jeb’s partnership with the NRA.) I can’t be objective because I utterly despise them all. But is there really a Bush restoration movement afoot outside of the Bushies, their minions and political columnists? Y’all help me out here: I haven’t seen any evidence of it.
God, that article. “This is a family with something to prove?” Fuck them. “The Bushes, Led by W., Rally to Make Jeb ’45’?” From the current generation until the sun goes supernova and vaporizes this planet, fuck the Bushes, and fuck the putrid media hacks who enable them by framing the ambitions of that clan of psychotic leeches as if writing a human interest piece on a sports dynasty.
When the Obama administration decided not to pursue its vile predecessors for their ghastly war crimes and corruption, I understood the rationale, even if I didn’t agree with it entirely. It would have paralyzed the government in the midst of a cascading global crisis.
But the question of justice denied aside, this spectacle of the Bush family rehab alone is evidence that the dirty fucking hippies were right: We should have driven a stake through the fat black heart of that bunch when we had the chance.
Boudica
George P. Bush is running for land commissioner here in Texas. He’ll win. But one of my ultra-conservative library patrons told me he won’t vote for him…too liberal on immigration and this is just a stepping stone for higher office!
chrome agnomen
all those bushes should be planted in someone’s yard.
BGinCHI
On the flip side, let the “smarter Bush” run against Hilary and see him torn to shreds.
He doesn’t stand for anything and has the charisma of a bald tire.
Plus, well, Bush Again, motherfuckers??!! Yeah, those ads are hard to write….
Cluttered Mind
Jeb Bush 2016: Because bad things happen in threes.
gogol's wife
Your commentary on the NYTimes is channeling my thoughts this morning when I picked up the paper. We’re going to have Bush vs. Clinton again? Please stop!
C.V. Danes
I heard the rational, but I never agreed with it. The Bush cabal are war criminals, and the fact they were never pursed as such continues to be a dark day for our soul as a nation.
Snarki, child of Loki
Jebbie better hurry up and get a relative in the Governor’s mansion in a critical swing state, because there’s just no better way to steal an election, amirite?
Hal
Which only works if you stay out of the spotlight. Diving back in and being a reminder of your kid brother’s stupidity isn’t going to help you.
Keith G
There is, and has been for a while, a line of thinking among some Democrats that tried and true laws of political physics can be side stepped if one is mature, thoughtful, and reasonable enough.
Of course the Bush family will not go away. They have not been (politically) beaten up enough. Democrats remind me of teenagers in the movie Halloween: They knock Michael down, but then they turn their back on him and slowly walk away.
boatboy_srq
Manuel Noriega. Clarence Thomas. GW1. Recession (the original “it’s the economy, stupid”). Exactly what the BLEEP is there for nostalgia here? I mean, really.
We’ve had Bush. We’ve had Shrub. What’s next – Potted Palm?
KG
@BGinCHI: I am dreading Clinton vs Bush, the Reckoning. Despite being in public life for 22 years, I can’t quite figure out what Hillary “stands for.” Nor would I ever call her particularly charismatic. The idea that this is where we are going to end up is just so utterly depressing to me.
Sinnedbackwards
There was another attempted “restoration” involving the number 45. As I recall, didn’t turn out to well.
Mandalay
Excellent rant, and you certainly have a point considering the source. It is also a lie to claim that Crist is only interested in personal aggrandizement, and I will be voting for Crist.
But Crist is undeniably an opportunistic fucker who will flip like a teenage gymnast if it helps his career. As unfair criticisms in political ads go, this one barely registers with me.
Do you have a link for the ad in question?
Alex
The current administration is, to this very day, actively aiding the effort to conceal the war crimes of the previous administration (see, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/politics/peace-prize-laureates-urge-disclosure-on-us-torture.html; http://nyti.ms/1Fj0SnW). Perhaps it had less to do with a “cascading global crisis” than with the fact that the President and his acolytes are more devoted to the preservation of the political establishment than with achieving transparency and some form of justice, however attenuated.
That’s just one person’s uneducated take, though.
shortstop
@Hal: I think the problem (not my own dismay at another Bush-Clinton faceoff; the bigger problem) is that US politics have polarized even more in the last six years. The GOP’s tribal instincts have only grown stronger. These people are now looking us straight in the eye and claiming Dubya was misunderstood and unfairly maligned.
I don’t expect Jeb to beat Hillary — he won’t. But I expect him to get away with a whole lot of shit he shouldn’t on the campaign trail just because so many people will be flat-out denying what happened between 2000-08.
catclub
This is hopeful publishing from the grey lady. Hoping the GOP is still sane enough to pick Jeb.
Keep those knickers untwisted.
I think that train has gone. Jeb, besides being out of practice for politics, has been on the wrong side of his party on key issues the last few years. Immigration, and Core Standards for starters. He will have a very hard time catching up.
Keep those knickers untwisted.
Cluttered Mind
@boatboy_srq: Well, GHWB successfully contained Saddam Hussein without blowing up the entire Middle East. That said, Saddam Hussein was only a problem in the first place because of the resources provided to him by GHWB and his old boss Reagan, so it’s kind of a wash. Still miles ahead of his son’s foreign policy though.
ETA: I loathe the Bush family and all they stand for. This post was just intended to list something from the GHWB administration that people might possibly be nostalgic for (sane middle east policy) given current events.
Another Holocene Human
“pekoe huffing troglodytes”
catclub
@boatboy_srq:
Invasive weed.
Another Holocene Human
@Cluttered Mind: GWB was so feckless he made old school corrupt Anglo-American CIA foreign policy look sane by comparison?
bemused
Jeb said Fox news is too negative and he can’t watch more than a few minutes a day. That won’t make him popular with most Republican voters. Maybe he’s counting on holding their noses and voting for him if he did run and get the nomination…anyone over a Dem.
Mandalay
@KG:
In alphabetic order:
– Bombing brown people
– Israel
– Wall Street.
I’m not sure of the actual priority order, those are surely the top three.
catclub
@Cluttered Mind:
I am always willing to praise GWBush for telling Cheney to stuff it as far as invading Iran was concerned. Low bar indeed.
Amir Khalid
Jebush is not too old yet to run for President. But if he wants it, he’ll have to work up the courage to run in 2016 or 2020. 2024 seems too late: he’ll be 71 years old and 17 years out of political office.
Cluttered Mind
@Another Holocene Human: Sounds about right, yes! Can always count on the Republican party to show you that what you thought was the bottom of the barrel is just a flimsy piece of plywood and there’s a lot farther down to go.
chrome agnomen
We’ve had Bush. We’ve had Shrub. What’s next – Potted Palm?
i think it’s slime mold’s turn.
Ruckus
@catclub:
The bushes are kudzu?
The puns, run away from the puns.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: Kudzu is edible.
More like one of those poisonous ornamentals.
drkrick
If he gets nominated, he starts with 45% of the vote, just like Romney did. But how does he get nominated? Between his sane positions on a few issues and the people claiming they never liked Shrub anyway I don’t see how he gets there.
I see no evidence of anyone outside the 27% softening their views about Bush the Younger. It’s sort of the opposite of the 100,000 out of 10,000 who claimed to be at Ted Williams’ last game – a complete mystery where that other 22% of the vote came from in 2000 and 2004.
Gin & Tonic
@KG: The idea that this is where we are going to end up is just so utterly depressing to me.
This, a million times. If that’s the 2016 choice, I’ll bet actual cash money that turnout sets a new record low.
C.V Danes
@Alex: Your uneducated take seems very reasonable to me :-)
Mandalay
@Amir Khalid:
Agreed, but it is worth noting that if Clinton wins she will be 69 when she becomes president. That would make her our second oldest president, after Saint Ronnie of Hollywood.
Joel Hanes
But is there really a Bush restoration movement afoot outside of the Bushies, their minions and political columnists?
Oh, hell yes.
The more-or-less-sane-but-greedy money boys in the R column are not happy being fronted by Teahadists — the plan has always been to provide a surface appearance of normalcy while looting the store, as during the Hoover, Ford, and GHWB Presidencies, but the dumb “values voters” keep breaking from the script and alarming the rest of the nation. Bankers really are conservative, and don’t really look forward to the clumsy declasse policy lurches we’d get from Rand Paul or Huckabee or Christie.
The 0.1% (which comprises much of the Beltway and the nation’s prominent punditry) really wants an anodyne front man to hypnotize the marks, someone”strong” who triggers all of the Right’s submit-to-tribal-authority reflexes, someone “normal” that can put the culture warriors back in their box, someone from our American aristocracy of great wealth to provide that essential patina of legitimacy to the economic rapine going on behind the scenes. Someone discreet; someone opaque
Someone with “stature” (trans. “went to Yale”).
John Weiss
Damn Lady! How do you *really* feel?
feebog
I think Jeb!, Mittens, and the Outlaw Jersey Whale will be playing musical chairs for support from the money branch of the Republican party. I don’t think any of them can bet HRC, but Jeb! has the best shot IMHO. Mittens has the stench of loser hanging around him and Christie is one step ahead of an indictment that hopefully will come down in about 8 months. That leaves Jeb! as the last man standing for the money guys.
Alex S.
This race is over! Newsmax has just endorsed Scott.
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Human:
Well yes this is true. But how many ornamentials grow like weeds and do not seem to be able to be eradicated without huge damage to the surroundings? That sounds a lot like the bush dynasty. There’s too many(much) of them, they keep coming back no matter what, they are worse than useless, they are dangerous, they stifle surrounding life whenever they take over……
srv
@bemused: Imagine how positive Fox News can be about Jeb’s presidency! Everything will be coming up roses!
We just need to figure out who Jeb’s Veep will be. Bush/Santorum has a certain grinding gravitas to it.
C.V Danes
@Mandalay: Yes. And, sadly, if she decides to run and wins the nomination, she’ll still be the “better” choice.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: Here you go.
ETA: I don’t think it’s an “unfair” ad for the reasons you mentioned, but it takes a lot of gall for a fucking Bush to scold another pol for being in the race due to “personal ambitions.” After their clan played out their daddy issues on the national stage with such disastrous consequences.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: Air potato. Melaleuca.
Whatever bush that is that provides rodent habitat who become Lyme disease carriers in the Northeast.
catclub
@Joel Hanes: Jon Thune, a nation calls out to you.
Sherparick
Our Ivy league dominated MSM and their High Broderism believe that Republicans will behave and be satisfied with simple corruption if there is a Establishment Republican in the White House and it is just to nasty with a Democrat and besides, they all Hate Hilary (who unwisely shows that she returns it in spades). Besides, they and nobody they know gets food stamps, unemployment disability, or has problems getting an abortion if they need it, so a Bush III administration will be no skin off their nose.
El Caganer
2016: the Year of Recycling. Jeb Bush vs. Willard Romney, HRC vs. Joe Biden. So it goes.
bg
@Mandalay: Crist actually has shown some flashes of political courage, like embracing the stimulus when we really needed it, even though his party was going in the opposite direction; holding the polls open so people could vote even though his party was pressing him not to; digging up the racist stinking mess and dead bodies of children in that juvenile detention facility in north fla. I don’t feel half as bad about voting for him as I thought I would.
Tokyokie
I think a large part of the Bush family calculus is that if the Democrats go for a dynastic choice, then why not the Republicans? If not for his family name, Jebbie would be a long-forgotten big-state governor who’s hasn’t held office in a while, like, say, Dick Celeste. He is only viable (and was only elected in the first place) because of his name. And given the sordid history of incompetence and corruption of his family in its performance of its birthright official duties, Jebbie should be about as popular a candidate as a bag of plague rats. But if Hillary is nominated, then it’s BOTH SIDES DO IT, and any mention of the astonishingly horrible reign of Jebbie’s older, dumber brother is going to bring a fresh slurry of Clinton-era pseudo-scandal mongering, as well as the disclaimer, that Hillary, just like Jebbie, would have no political viability were it not for her last name.
The Democrats need to field a viable alternative to Hillary, and as much as I would prefer that she stay in the Senate, at this juncture, the only one I see is Elizabeth Warren. Hillary can easily beat any of the other clowns the Republicans have to offer (and I’d certainly support her in the general). But if Jebbie isn’t forced to embrace the unmitigated horror of W.’s term of office — and don’t think the Village won’t abet him even more than it helped destroy Al Gore’s candidacy — then she might not be able to wade through the sewage that the GOP machine will be spewing with the pumps set at high and the valves wide open.
As it should be, W.’s misrule is THE issue regarding Jebbie’s campaign if the Democrats run anybody but Hillary. But if Hillary’s the nominee, then it’s off the table.
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: I think they’re trying to demotivate Dems (although it’s a little late). It’s not to sway any undecideds because Rick Scott is even more of a bounder, and any GOPers who are going to split their ticket and vote against Scott are probably super sympathetic to Crist because they feel like the Fla GOP left them too. Or maybe it is a hail mary play for those voters because they did vote for JEB! But that could backfire because it could remind them of the good old days and how the GOP did turn on them.
So probably meant to make D’s give up and stay home, I think.
It’s kind of a coup for Scott, I guess, since hardly anybody wants to cop to supporting Scott but JEB! was broadly popular.
Mustang Bobby
I’m pissed that the Florida Democratic Party is so wilted that the best it can come up with is a used Republican as their nominee. If Crist loses, then who is there to run in 2018, and who are they going to put up against Marco Rubio when in two years?
And even if Crist wins, he’ll be up against a Republican legislature with a supermajority that can override anything he vetoes, or at the least full-tilt gridlock in Tallahassle. (But they’ll pass another 100 specialty license plates, including, I’ll wager, “Stand Your Ground.”) So get ready for four years of gridlock that would give Mitch McConnell a boner.
As for Jeb as the GOP nominee in 2016, he’s shown fits of humanity in terms of immigration and he doesn’t sound like Louie Gohmert, which gives hope that he won’t be able to attract the base of the party, but I’m pretty sure that if they smell a possibility of getting back the White House, they’d unite and nominate Teddy the Wonder Lizard if they think there’s a chance of beating Hillary Clinton.
Bobby Thomson
@Sinnedbackwards: Colt 45? Works every time.
Betty Cracker
@Tokyokie: That may well be what the Bushies are counting on viz-a-viz Jeb vs. Hills, but as little stock as I put in my fellow citizens’ discernment, I can’t see such a scenario working out for them. They can stack all the Clinton pseudo-scandals up as high as they like — and even throw in some actual malfeasance and mismanagement on the part of Mr. Clinton — and it doesn’t begin to approach GWB’s Mount Everest of incompetence.
Another Holocene Human
I was going to rant about Dems who hate Crist but I baleeted it. I still don’t understand the hate given his record. He did a lot of things that are pretty progressive at personal cost to his career at the time. So why all the hate?
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker: Thanks. That ad actually cheered me up. As others have pointed out, Jeb unfortunately has little chance of getting the nomination, but if the pudgy, mild-mannered Mr. Reasonable somehow managed to run against Clinton he would end up going into the wood chipper head first.
Mustang Bobby
@Another Holocene Human: I don’t hate him, I just wish that there was more to the Florida Democrats.
Bostondreams
@Mustang Bobby:
Still a better choice that having Rick Scott for four more years, with this legislature. And as a teacher, I still appreciate Crist standing up for us during his governorship. He IS the best candidate the party could put up, because there are really no strong Democrats with state wide recognition at all.
Gravenstone
@Ruckus: Bamboo.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Jeb wears glasses. He must be the smart one.
Another Holocene Human
@Mustang Bobby:
Florida Democratic Party has yet to lose the last of the Dixiecrats. It’s coming, soon, but keep that in mind.
Florida Democratic Party has only started to get enough of a respectable image, as in not totally self-serving, corrupt, and racist, for socially liberal suburbanites to start replacing their moderate GOP pols with Democrats. (And the Florida Democratic Party is doing their best to fuck up a good thing, for example allowing Alex Sink to bigfoot a winnable race and toss out a local Dem with a good base, turn the screws on labor to pour gallons of money they didn’t have on her, and then lose anyway because she’s a bank exec and a lousy campaigner and a lot of people were disgusted by her and the party for letting her waltz in there like that, all connected and moneyed and entitled. The GOP guy had no such baggage.)
The GOP also gerrymandered the state severely so that prevents the Democratic Party from developing statewide viable politicians. Crist is statewide viable. He appealed to a lot of D voters back when he ran for gov the first time and also when he ran for Senate. That’s just a fact.
The Democratic Party structure is rife with grifters, rife with people comfortable with permanent minority status, rife with wealthy suburbanites on the local level who have no fucking clue how to expand a base or run a competitive campaign or reach out to people who aren’t wealthy suburbanites who can raise enough money for a county commission campaign at one fund-raising house party.
Just take Debbie Wasserman-Schultz — please. As crooked as anyone hired by Hilary Clinton back in the day.
The only thing that makes us keep going is that the demographics are shifting on the I-4 corridor and that means both local and state politics will change. And the GOP going nutbar is going to bring a group over to weigh down the D side. And the AFL-CIO changed tactics about a decade ago and has started to get results which should be less 3rd world bullshit and more democracy. Of course many of the upper middle class “moderate GOP” and limousine liberal Dems are all for more democracy but not when it comes home, I mean those people don’t know what’s best for them.
Elizabelle
Something that bothered me tremendously: The WaPost declined to endorse in the one NoVA congressional race that needed one (they went with the sure-bet Democrats who are locks in their races).
Here’s the Post’s “reasoning” (although I would call it irrationality and outright cowardice):
Got that? The Democrat is solid at his job, has political experience, and understands the issues, but he’s a lackluster campaigner and spouts “Democratic talking points”.
The Republican “has taken hard-line positions at odds with the interests of many Northern Virginians.”
The Republican “in her four years in Richmond, has been the sort of inflexible politician that has led Congress to paralysis.” She was among the minority in her own party to sign a pledge against raising taxes under any circumstances.
She voted against a bipartisan transportation bill last year supported by the GOP governor and leadership. Transportation is a huge issue in NoVA
The Republican is a “partisan warrior” whom the Post hopes will magically transform upon election.
However, the Washington Fucking Post cannot make a choice between the two candidates, or an endorsement.
Sick, sick, sick.
Interestingly, there’s not been much polling in the Foust-Comstock race. The WaPost’s finger in the wind may be failing them here.
bemused
@srv:
Fox would pretend Jeb never said they were toxic along with Fox fans is my guess. Still it would be fun to see how other right wing media would react.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I see another issue. It isn’t so much the actual malfeasance of W, it’s how much of it reaches the electorate? Those of us already against jebby know the issues, we may still have nightmares about them. How much of the stink is going to make it to the press/public? Onside political memories are short and notoriously unreliable anymore, the other side gets another chance to defeat the side that elected a black man. I’d bet that’s all it takes for conservatives to forget completely about W’s wonderful adventures and elect a “real” politician from the clan.
Chris
“Newfound nostalgia” for Bush Padre. God. NOBODY FUCKING REMEMBERS HIM – you’d have to go back to Ford for a guy who made less of an impression. This is pure Village bullshit, putting out what they wish was public opinion in the hopes that it’ll become that.
Another Holocene Human
I agree about the Rubio race. That’s winnable, but not if the Dems don’t have a real candidate.
4 years ago Kendrick Meeks, who I had never heard of, ran in the primary as I guess the establishment pic. They thought Crist would win the primary so ran a sacrifice guy. Then this Republican from California ran in the Dem primary as a Democrat and ran non-stop attacks on Meeks. (I don’t know about TV but I got a lot of mailers.) Maybe he was just a deluded Sillycon valley ubermensch or maybe it was dirty tricks. Don’t know. Anyway, the state GOP cracked like an egg and it ended up being a Rubio, Crist, Meeks threeway. In a competitive threeway the wingnuts always seem to win. See: LePage.
Mandalay
@bg:
Yes he has, and your examples are good ones. But he has also shown signs of real cowardice, such as going above and beyond what was politically necessary – even as a Republican – to get a ban on gay marriage signed into law in Florida.
The bottom line for me (and probably many other Floridians) is that whatever his failings, he is infinitely better than Scott, who is a really nasty piece of work.
Frankensteinbeck
This is the most Village phrase I have ever read. They loved them some George Bush, and they’re just furious that his bungling incompetence is held against him. Bush always had the right ideals – cowboy strutting, showing the world who’s tough by invading random countries, giving the rich whatever they want, and letting the poor suffer. Why can’t the country understand that Bush’s mistakes were trifling and unimportant compared to Obama’s grotesque sins of being black and wanting to help people?
@Joel Hanes:
Never underestimate that to be ‘rape the country’ style rich, you must also be a complete asshole (like John Schnatter!). Decent rich people understand that helping the poor helps themselves. The Chamber of Commerce branch of the GOP is motivated partly by wanting enough stability to let them loot freely, but also by most of the same ‘fuck the other guy’ attitudes of the cultural conservative base. They just get embarrassed by how real cultural conservatives talk. It makes oppressing blacks, kicking the poor and sick for fun, starting wars, and other asshole policies sound… well, like something an asshole would do, rather than mature and responsible like their friends in the press keep assuring them.
EriktheRed
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Youberite.
Tokyokie
@Betty Cracker: The Villagers will emphasize the Clinton-era (mostly non-) scandals, then mention in passing the truly disastrous tenure of W., as though replacing the the White House travel office is commensurate with starting a war on false pretexts, then throw up their hands and say BOTH SIDES DO IT. It doesn’t matter if they’re comparing a mound of rubbish to Mount McKinley, the picture can be framed so both look equally large and substantive. You and I and most Juicers know that that’s bullshit, but when the bullshit is blared loudly and at length, a lot of folks will think there must be something to it. And we all saw how this dynamic played out in the news media in 2000.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Bamboo is not worthless. It has many uses, some of which are not well known. You can make bicycle frames out of bamboo. A well known custom bike maker has gone to Africa several times to teach them how to make strong, relatively cheap bicycles out of renewable resources. And it has been working.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: Sure we do. “A thousand points of light” satirized as “a thousand pints of Lite”, his silly appeal to white blue collar “lunch pail” voters, trying to overcome his supermarket scanner obliviousness, also Texan hat and pork rinds, since Dukakis went to an Ivy, talk about that as if it disqualifies him, hope nobody calls you on the fact that you’re a Yalie’s Yalie, and guess what? Nobody did. And “read my lips: no new taxes” but he raised payroll taxes and huh, wouldn’t ya know it, the little people consider those to be taxes.
Not sure why GHWB got tagged as a “weenie” while Reagan got all the love. Maybe busting unions was schadenfreude for those without. Anyway, Perot, populism, Clinton. Bush called Clinton Slick Willy up and down but he was the one trying to avoid the “liar” charge.
Another Holocene Human
@Ruckus: bamboo makes flooring, paper
also it was habitat for passenger pigeons, but as cane was destroyed as “waste plants” that and avid hunting of them did the species in
shelley
Because they made such a miserable showing the first time around?
Shalimar
@Another Holocene Human: You’re overthinking it. Most people know what kudzu is without explanation. George P. Bush’s nickname needs to be Kudzu.
In addition to the plant motif, it has an added benefit: most Republicans will assume it’s a racial slur and use it too.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly. In fact, I’d fucking love it (purely as a Democratic partisan) if Bush/Clinton 2016 turned into a contest of “who would you rather have back, Bush’s brother or Clinton’s husband?” Because I know how that one’s gonna go down with the public, and Bush ain’t gonna like it.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay:
Methinks – and many others do too – that he was protesting too much on that one.
He also secretly got married and his secret wife is nowhere to be seen.
Let’s just hope there are no inappropriate texts to those children the Florida Lege uses as pages with little supervision. (I think it’s really creepy. If they need interns/pages they should be at least HS seniors. The building itself is such an Escher-nightmare that you really fear for these kids physical safety. Too many blind corners.)
(Maybe he has a fish fetish like Troy McClure, lol.)
Betty Cracker
@Chris: That was my impression too. 100% fabrication.
Ruckus
@shelley:
Because they made such a miserable showing the first and even worse the second time around?
fixed for you
Another Holocene Human
@Shalimar: Funny story (not actually funny, awkward, yes): turns out any vaguely obscure, comical sounding noun used in the context of insult around parochial, lightly educated people comes off like a racial slur.
*hangs head in shame*
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: I remember that Bush said that he’d safeguard the environment and ran endless ad buys about Boston Harbor (WHICH WE FUCKING PAID FOR NOT THE FEDS YOU LYING PIECES OF SHIT ahem) but then turned around and redefined the term “wetland” to take millions of acres out of protection.
Dick move, GHWB. Dick move.
boatboy_srq
@Cluttered Mind: All that says is that Poppy was less bad than Dumbya. I’d still prefer a better grade of pResident.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Meanwhile, here in California, Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari is running a commercial where he throws a little kid into a pool and then pulls him back out in the nick of time. (Okay, they conveniently leave out the “throwing in” part, but Kashkari’s the only other person there, so ….)
This is the same guy who ran a commercial of himself shooting off a gun during the primary. And he was the LEAST insane Republican candidate — one if them was an avowed white supremacist.
The good news is, Kashkari is going to lose by a landslide. Wish I could say the same for Scott in Florida.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: WaPoo.
Then again, when has the Post ever given much of a shit about Northern Virginia? Maybe something changed?
Mike in NC
@Chris: There’s a very good chance that Poppy Bush won’t live to see 2016. Should he kick the bucket, expect lots of media stooges holding JEB’s hand as he chokes up during interviews over memories of his dear old dad.
linda
Betty, please chill. Nobody wants the Bushes back except the political.shills who planted this story with a gullible.political writer. My wingnut brother is not even pining for a Bush restoration.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That commercial reminds me of the faked-rescue-death scandal in THE CONTENDER.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
My theory is that GHWB took the fall for Reagan’s fuckups. He got stuck with the deficits from eight years of Reagan’s drunken sailor spending, which on top pf the bad economy meant having to break his “read my lips: no new taxes” pledge. Since he wasn’t the iconic cowboy pretty talker Reagan was, and was never the right wing of the party’s candidate (he’d been the East Coast establishment’s candidate against Reagan in 1980), it was easy.
(This applies in foreign policy too, by the way, where he had to clean up two dictators who’d spent the eighties gorging themselves on sweet Pentagon cash – yet somehow he’s not the one Republicans remember fondly and heroically. Ronald “I sold arms to the Ayatollah after cutting and running from his suicide bombers in Lebanon” Reagan is).
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: Have to wonder why he wasn’t for bombing Iran. It surely wasn’t his keen political instincts. Saudis saw an Iran war as disadvantageous?
ThresherK
@gogol’s wife: As much as I have not decide which Dem I want to take the banner, I would suggest that this “dynasty backlash” never seems to pop up in the mainstream media when it’s merely a Bush.
Once Hillary is named the press corps goes into their “we’re tired of her aren’t you isn’t everyone?” schtick the way a new Bush never gets.
low-tech cyclist
@chrome agnomen:
At the standard depth of six feet, preferably.
Betty:
Even so, I thought they could have simply made public the records of the Bush Administration, and let private actors inclined in that direction do the work of developing the legal case against Dubya, Darth Cheney, and their underlings to the point where Holder would have eventually been all but forced to take the Bushies to court.
Similarly with the banksters, by the way.
And fuck the media for reporting on the Bush clan “as if writing a human interest piece on a sports dynasty,” as you say. I’m rooting for the Royals in the World Series, but if the Giants win, everyone’s lives (other than those in the Giants or Royals organizations) will be the same next week, next year, etc. But our elections are ultimately about policies that will affect tens of millions of people.
That some people are monsters is something I accept. That’s never going to change. That the bothsidesdoitist media enable the monsters by treating it as a game and burying the true stakes is something that makes my blood boil.
Alex
@C.V Danes: Thank you. Obviously, I wouldn’t attempt to read Obama’s mind on this issue. But, he’s certainly allowed his administration to become captive to the sordid elements of the professional security class who are determined that we never, ever, confront the lurid realities of what our government wrought after 9/11.
Anonymous for this post
@John Weiss:
Me Too! Betty, thanks for showing us the way to deal with the Bushites.
People forget that the evil slime for blood IS hereditary – GHWBush’s father, W’s Grandfather, was Prescott Bush.
Here’s the source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Prescott got elected to the Senate anyway.
his father, Samuel Bush did much the same thing in WW I :
Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104×633661
So Jeb and George Walker Bush come by their slime as honestly as the Bush clan ever came by anything. Slime all the way back.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
I think even he was realistic enough to see that with the military stretched to the extent it was and the first two wars going so badly, Iran would just be too big a disaster. In military terms, in terms of the budget, and in PR terms. Cheney was just crazier.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle:
Leave it to WaPo to believe that Teahadists can “recast themselves” in any mold other than Full Metal Wingnut.
One dim spot: Dem canvassers came to the door yesterday: not exactly inspiring folk. Canvassing is hard work – but if the two that visited me were any indication, Foust’s volunteers are as “lackluster” as WaPo thinks his campaign is.
One bright spot: the Foust campaignstuffs are much more plentiful than last cycle’s poor attempt by Cabral (who lost 58/39). Foust has a good deal more visible support.
Mandalay
@low-tech cyclist:
We can all stop posting; you have just won this thread. Well done.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: Reagan’s crimes were so much more ballin’ and outlandish that the criminal class can’t help but admire/fap to them.
Have you ever noticed that some people’s reaction to an insane/horrible act is to bow down and worship the person who did it?
Kinda weird in a democracy but … we’re more like South Africa than Norway, aren’t we?
Gene108
@C.V. Danes:
The opportunity to drive a stake in the heart of the Bush Cabal was during the Iran-Contra affair.
After the crooks walked and were rewarded by the right-wing welfare circuit, the monster knew it was invulnerable to conventional methods of prosecution.
In short, Republicans have made themselves above the law, with the blessings of the media and about half of the voting public.
C.V Danes
@Gene108:
Yup. Who knew that merely wrapping yourself in the flag could make one so immune?
catclub
@Gene108:
I would not be the first to note that Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon was the first, not GHWBush pardoning himself and others over Iran-Contra.
The Other Chuck
@Another Holocene Human:
The House of Saud sees any regional instability as threatening their hold on power. There are a lot of pissed off fundies (one of whom was named Osama) who would like to see the whole dynasty brought down.
Mustang Bobby
@Bostondreams: Oh, don’t get me wrong; I’m voting for Crist. I’ve been in the Florida public school system for twelve years now and I know what Crist did and what Scott did. I want that Dickwithears out of office as much as anyone. But we need a strong bullpen (hey, it’s still baseball season for a couple of days at least), and we haven’t got that in the Democratic party.
I’m with you, Another Holocene Human; we need to get some energy and some viable candidates that don’t just sound like they’re only from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and the Keys.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Alex:
Don’t forget the other half of the equation — many prominent Congressional Democrats (including my senior senator, Dianne Feinstein) were just as knee-deep in war crimes as the Bush Administration was. If Obama had pushed hard for war crimes investigations and damn the consequences, the US would have had its first successful impeachment of a president, because guilty Democrats in the Senate would have voted for Obama’s conviction rather than face prosecution themselves.
HR Progressive
One thing I think I would enjoy, should Jeb actually run, would be watching noted lunatics like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz (and/or Senator Man On Dog) tear him apart during the primaries.
Cruz and Paul in particular will show no fealty to the Bush Family or the Cheney Regency, so. There’s GOP-on-GOP Crime, but that might make for particularly good popcorn moments.
mai naem mobile
As long as Crist can do executive orders regarding voter suppression stuff I’m happy. Thats all you can expect with a super majority state legislature.
I think Scott Walker becomes the leading contender if he wins a second term. Then, Kasich. Kasich can just say he didn’t want to let free money go as far as the ACA. Cruz is just a fantasy for the cra cra in the GOP. Pauls possible but I don’t see him making it through the primary without making a major faux pas.
JCT
Jeb Bush? The guy who turned poor Terry Schiavo’s name into a verb for having your end-of-life medical rights/wishes put through a woodchipper?
Bring it on, Jeb. He has the personality of wet paint, is mendacious and is thin-skinned. Should be some awesome primary.
He’s is positively loathsome, that guy.
RaflW
As I was having my morning … uhhh … read, I thought pretty seriously, as Clinton v Bush 2016 festered, “I may just have to become Swedish.”
It may take some work, but my mom was a Sewdish citizen a couple decades past my birth. I have several delightful cousins there who could help me resettle (as a political refugee, perhaps?).
I just can’t take it any more. Alas my partner only wants to vacation in the land of high taxes and nanny-statism (I exaggerate – well, not on the taxes). So we’ll see.
But he’s from WI, and we live just west of Walker’s folly. If he (and others like him around the country) wins again, and that abhorrent turtle is maj. leader, fleeing the country my be the only sane choice.
Violet
@RaflW: Did you see any of “Welcome to Sweden”? It was on NBC this summer. It’s about an American who moves to Sweden to be with his Swedish girlfriend. Amy Poehler’s brother Greg is the star. She’s in it off and on. I think it captures some of the cultural differences. Maybe worth a look if you’re really thinking about moving. Half of it is in Swedish and subtitled.
RaflW
@Violet: Wow. Didn’t know about that show. Will check it out.
I’m kinda venting, but if thing keep getting shittier in the US, I’m at least entertaining the notion…
Elizabelle
@boatboy_srq:
Lackluster people at the door. That’s depressing. And entertaining, frankly, in a dismal way.
I am hoping Mark Warner will have enough coattails to carry John Foust, and I don’t understand why there’s not more enthusiasm for Foust. Seems like a genuine public servant, and we have enough pants on fire idiots in teh Congress already. Boring and competent sounds good to me.
Saw plenty of Foust and Warner signs yesterday. Definitely parity, or more, than the Comstock signs. Maybe I was not in the (wrong) neighborhoods.
Hello there, boatboy!!
Steeplejack
@Violet:
I saw a handful of episodes of that show when I was housesitting for my brother recently. It was a little uneven but pretty good.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
One thing I have noticed about the Comstock ads is that they never mention that she is a Republican! Even the fine print (on the ones I’ve bothered to check) is not “This ad sponsored by Republican something something” but “This ad sponsored by the Committee to Elect Barbara Comstock” or some such.
I have noticed the same thing about other Republicans’ ads, i.e., a certain forgetfulness about their proud party affiliation. Are Democrats dong the same thing (maybe in red or reddish areas)?
danielx
This.
I don’t ever again want to see another Bush within a mile of the Oval Office, not even for a photo op. We haven’t begun to see the end of the disaster that was the Cheney Regency, which cost us our good name (such as it was), our freedom (so long to everything except the Second Amendment), the lives or health of a hell of a lot of soldiers/airmen/Marines, and trillions of dollars. That doesn’t even count what it cost a million or so Iraqis, namely, their lives.
No more Bush do-overs.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack:
Interesting about the no party label for Comstock. I wonder what Foust does with his signs? It would seem “Democrat” might have some cachet after the troubles the GOP has had in Virginia.
Mostly, I think Comstock’s whining about Foust disrespecting her as a working mom is thin gruel. Especially since he’s married to a physician with a full practice with whom he raised two sons. Women notice those details.
Don’t watch much TV, so miss all the ads, thank dog.
Violet
@RaflW: @Steeplejack: Yeah, I can’t fully recommend it. I think it’s an acquired taste. I have some familiarity with Swedish culture so for me some of it was hilarious. I think it was originally made for a Swedish audience so the cuts for commercials on American TV were awkward. I think it captured the cultural sense of the Swedes, so for me it was kind of fun.
Amy Poehler’s brother Greg is married to a Swedish woman and lives there–or has at least (not sure if he does now) and it’s loosely based on his experiences.
danielx
@boatboy_srq:
At that, it might show a little more affect (as a shrink would say) than did Shrub. Sumbitch’s nickname should have been Legume.
xephyr
A lovely turn of phrase.
SteveinSC
I’m still in with the “drive a stake in their fat, black hearts,” and a 100,000 volt, 500 joule Tazer for ex-president Cheney.
ed
can’t believe someone hasn’t posted this h/t Dave Weigel
Steeplejack
@ed:
Link fail.
Tree With Water
“We should have driven a stake through the fat black heart of that bunch when we had the chance”.
What do you mean “we”, kemo sabe? It was perfectly clear at the time, obvious to any and all, that the democratic party abdicated its Constitutional responsibility during the Iran-Contra business, for gutless reasons I will never understand. I certainly knew what was going on.
Rich Gardner
Dubya: “Forward my minions, forward! America is still somewhat intact! There are still a few bricks on top of others! Hope still lives! Onwards!!!
dww44
@Another Holocene Human: That phrase is worth remembering, isn’t it. Betty is pretty good at this sort of writing, dont you think?
dww44
@Steeplejack: Yep. Sadly, tis true in this quite red state just beginning to tilt purple.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
If you list yourself as a republican on all your mailings and ads then people can tell that your policies are crap. The ones that don’t want crap policies will never listen to anything you have to say. They want to sneak in under the radar and have name recognition rather than party affiliation. I’ve seen Dems do it also. On the mailings I look for who has endorsed first. If in doubt I check the ballot I have(mail in, yea!). This eliminates all republicans right off the bat.
mclaren
If you haven’t seen any evidence of it, Betty, you haven’t been paying attention. Here’s a headline in the Washington Post from March of this year:
Influential Republicans working to draft Jeb Bush into 2016 presidential race, The Washington Post, 29 March 2014.
But the Republican efforts to draft Jeb Bush in a presidential run go way back. Let’s take a look at the year 2012:
A Draft Jeb Bush Movement in 2012?
That was back in early 2012.
So yes, Betty, there has been a “draft Jeb Bush” movement among influential Republicans for a long time, at least 4 years now. And it’s still going strong. The only reason you haven’t noticed is probably that you’ve averted your eyes from the horrific sight, the way people instinctively look away from someone getting burned alive right in front of you.
But we have to face facts, Betty. The Republicans love the Bushes. The dote on them. They adore the Bushes, and want more of them in the Oval office. And why not? The Bushes are corrupt, greedy, sadistic, unprincipled, illiterate, incompetent, sociopathic — everything a Republican wants in a leader.
The only problem Republicans have with drafting another Bush into a presidential run, frankly, is that they suspect the public won’t stand for it. But, as Republicans have learned to their delight, the servile gullible ignorant American people will stand for a lot — a whole lot more than even the most cynical observer would think.
I mean, c’mon, Betty! I was the one who linked in 2012 to a “draft Dick Cheney” movement among Republicans. They wanted that little piece of human pathology in the Oval Office. And only the cold hard shock of reality, the prospect of masses of ordinary people surging toward the White House with pitchforks and torches, put a stop to that effort.
brantl
Yes,.otherwise, like vampires, they just keep sucking, and sucking and sucking, ad infinitum.