The end of Bush

This post is a little “inside baseball,” and calls for you to play along a little bit.

But take it as it comes …

A well-known blogger writes:

I’m a little surprised by Noonan with this piece [excoriating Bush]. I see nothing all that unusual with the way the Bush administration has attacked its critics over immigration. If she was to honestly look at the last six years, she will see that this is the normal mode of operation for the White House — to always stay on the attack. …

What’s the difference? They’ve not had to answer substantial conservative criticism very often. When they have, though, they’ve been consistent. When the Right objected to the poor choice of Harriet Miers as a Supreme Court nominee, they were accused of being sexist. When the Dubai Ports deal came to light — which the administration failed to properly support — they accused critics of bigotry and xenophobia. Those same accusations have arisen from Bush himself in this debate, with his accusation that opponents of the compromise bill “do not want what’s right for America”.

Welcome to the hardball of the Bush administration. … they used it on Democrats and the war, and it seems just a little hypocritical to start whining about it now that we’re getting a taste of it ourselves.

“Now that we’re getting a taste of it ourselves.”

No, that post was not written by Kos, nor Atrios, nor Josh Marshall. But except for the revealing “we” in the last phrase, it could have been.

If you know the blogger, and his record … Wow!

Update: This Bush political implosion is truly astonishing. Read Peggy Noonan’s editorial, “[Bush] sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.” Bush and Rove have pursued consciously divisive policies for seven years. Now, at this late date, he is trying to broaden his appeal or be more reasonable or something with moves like the immigration proposal, talking to Iran, and accepting (at least in principle) that we must act on global warming. Too late. He has burned his enemies thrice too often, and these actions have only infuriated and alienated the rapidly-shrinking base.

Meanwhile, he continues to display extraordinary tone-deafness. “We’re going to be in Iraq for fifty years, like in South Korea.” Now there’s a statement. Why not lay it all out? “We are a just another imperial power, seeking to dominate the region permanently for its oil resources.”

Unbelievable.

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. More in the Saga of Having Been Wrong § Unqualified Offerings on 01 Jun 2007 at 7:24 pm

    […] on this Peggy Noonan WSJ Op-Ed (that I find wholly disingenuous) quite too kindly, but I agree with him that : Meanwhile, [Bush] continues to display extraordinary tone-deafness. “We’re going to be in […]

Comments

  1. Dreggas wrote:

    Well given the authoritarian bent of this administration is it any suprise when he turns around and gives you the finger too?

    Many of us have been on the receiving end of this for 6 years. Many of us called him on many things and we knew it would come eventually.

    I would find it funny if there weren’t so many other reasons to truly despise this administration.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 2:26 pm

  2. commissar wrote:

    Dreggas,

    When I wrote “unbelievable,” I was just referring to the extent of the slide, to how low Bush’s standing has sunk since late 2001. It was more a comment of score-keeping than of personal indignation.

    In an email, Capt. Ed. referred to ” the Captain Louis Renaults on the Right are shocked, shocked! to see the administration lash out in a personal manner.”

    Heh.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 2:30 pm

  3. Dreggas wrote:

    commie,

    Oh I didn’t think you were shocked, after all your blog is subtitled “another conservative mugged by reality”. I just am gasterflabbed that there are those who watched everything else and supported it but now flip over this.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 2:44 pm

  4. R.L.Page wrote:

    To connect the Bush family to Marxism is either heavy-handed satire or the ravings of someone so far out on the Radical Right fringe as to (almost) not register on the graph of American politic views.

    However, it is fair to say that the Bush family is loyal to their class, advocating socialism for the wealthy and survival-of-the-fittest, laissez-faire capitalism for everyone beneath them.

    (And they do see nearly everyone as being beneath them.)

    But the only surprising thing about the howls of outrage from the useful idiots on the Right about being abandoned by their BFF George is realizing that the Left’s characterization of them as True Believers was more accurate than one might have imagined.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 3:49 pm

  5. Redhand wrote:

    A major expression of disgust at Bush from someone as well respected in the right blogosphere as Captain Ed is big news indeed.

    I agree what we’re seeing in this Administration is a world class implosion. Bush will definitely go down in history as one of our worst presidents: above Carter, but still one of the worst.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 4:46 pm

  6. Dreggas wrote:

    R.L. Page,

    Well put and I couldn’t agree more at this point WRT the True Believer bit. Of course I always saw the bush family more in the lines of Czarist Russia where the royal elite (the wealthy here) enjoyed the spoils while the average person fought the wars and some Authoritarianism thrown in.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 4:51 pm

  7. Dreggas wrote:

    Redhand,

    Not a fan of carter myself but Bush has ****** up far worse than that twit. I know, I know he’ll always be “Worst President Ever” to many but if you did a side by side comparisson bush has ****** up far worse, far more often. He may not have given a “Mallaise” speech but he definitely believes too many gynecologists aren’t free to practice their love with women.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 4:58 pm

  8. Dreggas wrote:

    My apologies for the bad language…keep forgetting this isn’t Balloon-Juice…

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 4:59 pm

  9. commissar wrote:

    Dreggas,

    I appreciate your apology.

    Here’s the deal. A comment ‘politifier’ masks all obscenities, so, generally you can curse like a sailor. Not a big deal.

    What I do object to, and try to control is personal attacks on other commenters, and (to a lesser extent) off-topic & lengthy digressions.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:06 pm

  10. Dreggas wrote:

    Commie,

    I try to behave myself…well mostly because in reality I do curse like a sailor and am highly oppinionated (gee ya think). I try and avoid personal attacks as much as possible unless the target is so completely out there that ridiculing them is a practically a religious duty.

    But I figured I’d get the apology in noting this blog filters for it. ;)

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:08 pm

  11. Doubter4444 wrote:

    The amazing thing is to read the comments to the post at Captain’s Quarters. Fully 3/4 think the Administration has been way way to docile in refuting the “dirty dems’” malicious attacks on Bush.
    Boggling, really.
    And frightening to see that in many eyes anyone who refutes anything this administration does is a traitor.
    Read, and be appalled.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:09 pm

  12. a former european wrote:

    I reluctantly voted for Bush in 2000, and again in 2004. I despised George Sr., who got elected on a Reagan 3rd term platform and then abandoned nearly all his supposed conservative principles. Given the family history, I was deeply suspicious of Dubya. Unfortunately, I saw Gore and Kerry as kooks, so a viable alternative was not available.

    9/11 changed everything and probably won him the 2004 election. Like most, I rallied around the president in a time of crisis, despite my concerns over his somewhat faux claims to conservatism.

    While I supported the tax cuts and War on Terror, I was always concerned about the runaway spending, endless expansion of govt size and power, and his pitiful stance on immigration. I vociferously opposed his fiascos like Harriet Myers, Dubai, etc. on other blogs (had not discovered the Diktat yet).

    I agree with Noonan’s take on Dubya. I just can’t overlook the flaws anymore for the few handful of things he’s gotten right. It is not just GWB, though, because the entire Republican Party proved itself unable to effectively govern and paid for it in 2006. As a former Reaganite, I did not vote in 2006; the first time I failed to do so since I came of voting age. I will also not vote for any Republican in 2008 unless they convince me they are worthy of such a vote. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:11 pm

  13. Dreggas wrote:

    Doubter4444 wrote:

    The amazing thing is to read the comments to the post at Captain’s Quarters. Fully 3/4 think the Administration has been way way to docile in refuting the “dirty dems’” malicious attacks on Bush.
    Boggling, really.
    And frightening to see that in many eyes anyone who refutes anything this administration does is a traitor.
    Read, and be appalled.

    The one thing I see that they seem to be missing is this is the direct effect of hyper partisanship and enforcement of so-called “ideological purity”. It’s top down message control and party rule based solely on an authoritarian figure that the right put their faith into, namely Bush.

    While unity is a good thing this country is far bigger than just one party and while both sides have their good and bad the right has gleefully demonized the other side so much while blinding it’s own side with bread and circuses. This time they over-reached figuring they could take everyone supporting them for the suckers they viewed them as and this is what you get.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:14 pm

  14. Dreggas wrote:

    9/11 changed everything and probably won him the 2004 election. Like most, I rallied around the president in a time of crisis, despite my concerns over his somewhat faux claims to conservatism.

    I am guilty on that, I didn’t vote for bush in either election but I gave the SOB the benefit of the doubt after 9/11 and really hoped this country would rise to the occasion much in the same manner as we did after Pearl Harbor. Instead Bush exploited the event and, well the rest is history. Meanwhile 3000 dead Americans still don’t have any justice because “Bin Laden isn’t that big a deal”.

    As for Noonan….all I can say is “Savor”

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:18 pm

  15. Alon Levy wrote:

    I will also not vote for any Republican in 2008 unless they convince me they are worthy of such a vote. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

    What will a Republican have to do in order to be worthy of such a vote?

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:23 pm

  16. Redhand wrote:

    but if you did a side by side comparison bush has ****** up far worse, far more often.

    I certainly agree that Bush is responsible for far more American deaths. He is/will be in office twice as long as Carter, however, and thus has had more opportunities for errors.

    The Bush presidency is a failure because he has always been essentially reactive: 9/11, the 2004 Tsunami, Katrina, etc. and his reactions have invariably been wrong. In this context, I see Iraq as an opportunistic reaction to 9/11. But Bush at least tried,/b> to respond to the major issues of the day.

    I contrast, when Carter was handed a crisis - the Arab oil embargoes, the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — all he could do was wring his hands, let his lower lip tremble uncontrollably, . . . and soil himself. He was absolutely pathetic as a president.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:58 pm

  17. Dreggas wrote:

    Redhand,

    Bush tried, but really I can’t give an A for effort in this case. Granted bush tried but he half-assed it so to speak.

    Through the appointments he made to key positions, his arrogance and general disdain for the American people coupled with deceitfulness and out and out lying with regard to so many issues to me puts him a long ways past Carter with regard to who was worse.

    To be incompetent is one thing but to be this mind bogglingly incompetent and dishonest and basically throw the entire country down the toilet is beyond the pale.

    I remember the ‘00 campaign. I remember the whole schtick of saying that our army was in shambles and the whole “not ready for duty” because supposedly Clinton (with a republican Congress) trashed the military so bad that it needed rebuilding. I remember the “I’m a uniter not a divider” and I remember the whole “Restoring honor and integrity to the white house” lines.

    All noble talk but money walks, bullshit talks and all of those words uttered by Bush were nothing more than that, words. But that went down the memory hole and while I should take everything politicians say with a grain of salt and be ever the skeptic the person running for office should be able to be taken at their word and it should have real meaning.

    So yes Carter was incompetent, bush however is an incompetent idiot.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 6:15 pm

  18. markg8 wrote:

    My sister worked in Milawukee at Rath Packing as a bookkeeper for years. They closed her plant to move it to NE or IA where they could hire illegals. So she got a job with IBM. They closed the Milwaukee office and moved all those jobs to India this spring.

    Repubs wonder why people are upset. There’s nothing you can do for a living that the Republican party won’t happily allow big business to outsource or import somebody who’ll work cheaper as long as the fatcats keep filling their campaign coffers. Nothing.

    Case in point, the RNC announced yesterday they’re shutting down their DC fundraising phonebank office and firing all 65 solicitors because donations are off 40%. 99% of all callees express disgust about the immigration bill. The RNC also cites outmoded equipment that would be costly to replace.

    Hogwash. Does anybody think the RNC is just folding it’s fundraising tent? They’re either outsourcing those calls like they did the phonejamming scam in NH in 2002 or switching over to robocalling. They still have a lot of those rc machines they used in last year’s elections to fool indy voters all over the country into believing Dems were flooding their phones with calls a dozen times a day. That little scam is going to be outlawed before the next election so letting most donors scream at a machine is a cheaper way to find the few true believers still dumb enough to pony up.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 6:28 pm

  19. sglover wrote:

    I reluctantly voted for Bush in 2000, and again in 2004. I despised George Sr., who got elected on a Reagan 3rd term platform and then abandoned nearly all his supposed conservative principles. Given the family history, I was deeply suspicious of Dubya. Unfortunately, I saw Gore and Kerry as kooks, so a viable alternative was not available.

    Sorry, but as far as I’m concerned the many people who are in your position ought to take this as an opportunity for severe self-examination. Your testament here — like scores of others I’ve seen over the last year or so — reveal that your political judgement is deeply flawed.

    Would Gore and Kerry have been latter-days Abraham Lincolns? Probably not — but they would have been competent. What’s more, their biographies indicate that they would have actually taken the job seriously, studied, learned from their mistakes. Bush, Gore and Kerry are all scions of the de facto American aristocracy, but only the latter two actually really served when they were young men. Bush’s entire life is a well-documented history of failure, papered over by his parents, who obviously failed at their primary obligation, too. The Bush you’re so upset about is the same one who’s always been there. You just didn’t want to see it then. Now you’re upset because the obvious flaws of the empty suit have had consequences that nobody could like. But hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you — in 2000, and 2004. As I said, you need to do some intense self-examination.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:45 pm

  20. sglover wrote:

    I contrast, when Carter was handed a crisis - the Arab oil embargoes, the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — all he could do was wring his hands, let his lower lip tremble uncontrollably, . . . and soil himself. He was absolutely pathetic as a president.

    Carter had a lot of deficiencies as a politician, but he’s the only President in my lifetime who tried to speak to Americans like adults, and get them to change their energy habits. He’s also the only President in my lifetime who had a genuine grand strategy: He knew that our oil dependence would get us more mired in the most brittle and hate-filled region of the planet. None of his successors ever came close to his grasp of the future. (Spare me the happy nonsense about how Reagan “defeated Communism”. Communism defeated Communism. In particular, Gorbachev had more to do with that than anything Reagan could even imagine.)

    Oh, and by the way, Carter’s the guy who started arming Afghan proxies. Now that we know what “blowback” really means, we might not think it so laudable, but it’s hardly what anyone would call “hand-wringing”. So you’re wrong on the facts — but that’s pretty much the norm for people who prattle on about how Carter was the worst president. You want the worst, read up on Buchanan sometime.

    Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:55 pm

  21. rabit wrote:

    Or how about the other worst US president that directly followed Buchanan, Franklin Pierce - who interestingly happens to be a distant relative of GWB through his mother, Barbara Pierce Bush.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 1:06 am

  22. a former european wrote:

    Mr. Levy, a Republican would need to convince me he or she is an honest-to-God conservative in order to get my vote in 2008. I scan the political horizon and see no such animals.

    McCain is an attention ***** primadonna. He was more than happy to sabotage conservative initiatives in the Senate in order to remain the media’s darling. He has placed personal aggrandizement and political gain over conservative principles. He will never, ever, get my vote. Let him seek votes from his good friend Ted Kennedy.

    Gingrich, DeLay, and other Congressional “leaders”? Nope, they are tainted by personal scandals and I am completely sick of the utter corruption when the Republicans controlled Congress. Rather than advance a conservative agenda, they were more concerned personal political advancement and the worst type of pork barrel politics. They gave up whatever credibility they might have had to point the finger at corrupt Democrats when they chose to also belly-up to the federal feed trough.

    Even the supposedly conservative Senator from my own State of Arizona, Jon Kyl, is now pushing that travesty of an immigration bill. The Republicans might just as well flip me the bird to my face, kick my dog, and take a big dump on my living room floor to show how much they respect me as a conservative. No, I am pretty sure they will not receive my vote.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 3:03 am

  23. a former european wrote:

    Sglover: Although I have turned away from Bush, this does not mean I find Gore or Kerry any more palatable.

    Gore, inventor of the internet, and Hollywood-anointed environmental Messiah, is still a wooden, pompous, tree-hugging wacko to me.

    Kerry is insufferable in his condescending, New England elitist manner (”don’t you know who I AM?”). His love and admiration for the French also disturbs me. In any case, he was far too liberal to ever get my vote. Given these choices once more, I would simply stay home on election day in protest.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 3:17 am

  24. R.L.Page wrote:

    a former european:

    Just wanted you to know that I fully support your decision to boycott the coming election.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 4:59 am

  25. Brian H wrote:

    Ah, yes blogger stupidity rife again. Suggest interviewing S. Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, asking if they consider themselves subjects of an Evil American Empire. But be careful. The South Koreans are known to be very fond of fisticuffs and tae-kwando.

    Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 8:58 pm

  26. CDR Salamander wrote:

    Commie,
    It ain’t just Peggy. I surprised you don’t have one of those 1-20-09 clocks going…. ;)

    Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 11:43 pm

  27. Pug wrote:

    Poor Peggy Noonan, who used to drool over W’s hard body, has now realized what happens to those who cross the Bushies.

    Those who thought his war misguided and the conduct of it inept were, and still are, branded by the likes of Peggy Noonan as traitors.

    Try this one on for size, Peggy: “If the Democrats win, the terrorists win”. That’s my president just a few months ago before the 2006 elections. That is a despicable thing to say about half, or more, of the American people, including me.

    What ever made Captain Ed and Peggy think they would be exempt from attack by that kind of fool? He said Peggy “doesn’t want to do what’s best for America” and now she has the vapors. Too bad.

    Posted 05 Jun 2007 at 2:56 pm

  28. commissar wrote:

    Pug

    You misread Capt Ed’s post. He wrote:

    Welcome to the hardball of the Bush administration. …
    this is the normal mode of operation for the White House — to always stay on the attack. …

    Posted 05 Jun 2007 at 3:45 pm

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